recently delivered to me your Majesty's above-mentioned letter; which I having thought proper to communicate to my Council, I procured that the venerable brethren Henry de Estampes Valancay, the Grand Prior of Campania, and Don Gregory Caraffa, Prior of Rocella, should be deputed commissioners to examine this case. And they having heard what the said Ansely had to say, offered to him in any name, and in that of all my Order, an opportunity to make an appeal which had been deserted; but the said Ansely, for want of proper authority as he stated, did not accept the proposition.
Such being the case, I reverently submit to your most serene Majesty the following arguments, to which I earnestly entreat your Majesty to apply your Royal attention, and your Majesty's accustomed serenity and clemency.
In the first place, it is possible that the said Roger may have been really deprived of his property; but it does not follow that the proofs adduced by him of that fact were perfectly convincing, or entirely in accordance with the law. And even if they had been such, they might have appeared otherwise to the said judge of the Prize Court; and it is on this account that the Superior of Ten rescind the decrees of the Inferior Tribunals.
Secondly, the omission to continue the above-cited appeal, can in no way be attributed to the judges of this island; neither is it true that any threats were made use of towards the above-mentioned attorney. Such a course would have been diametrically opposed to the statutes of my Order; neither would its members have dared to act in such a manner, either against foreigners or the inhabitants my subjects, without incurring a heavy responsibility.
Finally, as it is impossible for my knights, putting aside the order of right, and neglecting the rule of our statutes, to restore to the above-mentioned Roger that which he claims, nothing remains in our power but to grant him the faculty of again prosecuting his right before the above-mentioned Court of Audience as in law so often and earnestly offered to the aforenamed attorney. Nor certainly can it be presumed, that your Majesty in your clemency and justice can desire anything farther. To this conclusion I am the more drawn from the decision of the advocate of the Admiralty himself, for he proposes the granting of letters of reprisal not for any other reason than that he supposed justice had been denied to the said Roger, and that he had been precluded from the remedy of a Court of Appeal. This having been an erroneous conclusion, the entire foundation of the above-mentioned opinion is wholly removed. And it is the more to be hoped that this decision will be approved of by your most serene Majesty, as my necessary subjection to the Apostolic See and to the Roman Pontiff cannot be unknown to your Majesty. From which it necessarily results that so large a sum could not be taken arbitrarily or by force from the parties concerned, without grave reprehension and prejudice, and also without infringing the forms of right as prescribed in the statutes above alluded to.
Confiding therefore in the singular clemency of your Majesty, I entertain a hope that your Majesty, moved by so many and such valid reasons, and considering also the high respect of this my Order towards your Majesty, will be pleased to direct the said Roger not to prosecute his right by other means than by action at law before the said Court of Audience. And that he at length will cease to excite the mind of your Majesty against the innocent by any such vain and unjust complaints; and that he refrain from any more seeking so inopportune and final a remedy of right, as the concession of letters of reprisal against an Order obediently subject to the wishes of your Majesty, and most ready to do anything for the advantage and utility of your Majesty's subjects, as those who daily touch at these islands to re-victual or refit their ships can testify. And now, in my own name, and in that of my Order, I humbly submit all this to your Majesty by these letters, as I shall also do shortly by a Nuncio, whom I shall send to your Majesty with the necessary documents, in order more clearly to prove the truth of my statements.
In the mean time, most submissively kissing your Majesty's most serene hands, I devotedly implore the benignity of the Most High and the Most Great God to grant to your Majesty prosperity in all things.
Given at Malta, on the eighteenth day of February, in the year 1669.
Your Serene Majesty's
Most obedient Servant,