Cottoner.
To the above submissive letter the following reply was sent:
No. IX.
Charles the Second by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, &c. &c. &c.
To the most illustrious and most high Prince, the Lord Nicholas Cottoner, Grand Master of the Order of Malta. Our well-beloved cousin and friend, Greeting:
Most illustrious and most high Prince, our well-beloved cousin and friend.
Your highnesses letters of —— February, having been delivered to us by the Nuncio selected by your highness for that purpose, we caused Roger Fowke, our subject and Consul in the island of Cyprus, in whose favour we sometimes since addressed your highness, to be summoned before
Us, and having well pondered the grounds and reasons in which your highness' replies are based, we judged it right to announce farther to our said subject, that in our opinion the power of appeal to the Supreme Court of Audience offered to him by your highness, after his attorney's previous neglect in the first instance, ought not by any means to be slighted; and that it did not seem to Us there remained, all things considered, any other hope of future remedy. This we did the more willingly, in order to prove to your highness more clearly, that being so dear, and so highly esteemed by Us, as is your highness personally, and all your knights, that we have preferred accepting any mode of properly settling this affair, rather than, by recurring to any harsher measures, diminish our friendship and affection towards so celebrated an Order. This, our determination, We have also made known by our letters to the Grand Prior of France; and of which testimony may be borne by the bearer of the present, to whom we have thought proper particularly to recommend the urging of your highness, in Our name, to see that such certain and speedy method of justice be established in the affair of our subject as may be lawful, and as was offered; and such as may afford new and sound proof of our ancient amity, and establish and affirm a mutual faith worthy of the Christian name.
In the mean time, We, from our heart, recommend your highness, and all your knights, to the safeguard of the Most Good and Most Great God.
Given from our Palace of Westminster on the 7th day of June, in the year of our Lord 1669, and of our reign the twenty-first.