[1332] Vertot, Knights of Malta, vol. II. p. 219.
No name of the sixteenth century appears more frequently in the ballad poetry of Spain than that of Dragut. The "Romancero General" contains many romances, some of them of great beauty, reciting the lament of the poor captive chained to the galley of the dread rover, or celebrating his naval encounters with the chivalry of Malta,—"las velas de la religion," as the squadrons of the order were called.
[1333] Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 33.
[1334] The two principal authorities on whom I have relied for the siege of Malta are Balbi and Vertot. The former was a soldier, who served through the siege, his account of which, now not easily met with, was printed shortly afterwards, and in less than three years went into a second edition,—being that used in the present work. As Balbi was both an eye-witness and an actor, on a theatre so limited that nothing could be well hidden from view, and as he wrote while events were fresh in his memory, his testimony is of the highest value. It loses nothing by the temperate, home-bred style in which the book is written, like that of a man anxious only to tell the truth, and not to magnify the cause or the party to which he is attached. In this the honest soldier forms a contrast to his more accomplished rival, the Abbé de Vertot.
This eminent writer was invited to compose the history of the order, and its archives were placed by the knights at his disposal for this purpose. He accepted the task; and in performing it he has sounded the note of panegyric with as hearty a good will as if he had been a knight hospitaller himself. This somewhat detracts from the value of a work which must be admitted to rest, in respect to materials, on the soundest historical basis. The abbé's turn for the romantic has probably aided, instead of hurting him, with the generality of readers. His clear and sometimes eloquent style, the interest of his story, and the dramatic skill with which he brings before the eye the peculiar traits of his actors, redeem, to some extent, the prolixity of his narrative, and have combined, not merely to commend the book to popular favor, but to make it the standard work on the subject.
[1335] By another ordinance, La Valette caused all the dogs in La Sangle and Il Borgo to be killed, because they disturbed the garrisons by night, and ate their provisions by day. Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 29.
[1336] Vertot, Knights of Malta, vol. III. p. 2.
[1337] Ibid., p. 4.—Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 64.—Calderon, Gloriosa Defensa de Malta, p. 94.—Sagredo, Monarcas Othomanos, p. 296.
[1338] Calderon, Gloriosa Defensa de Malta, p. 91.—Vertot, Knights of Malta, vol. III. p. 3.—De Thou, Histoire Universelle, tom. V. p. 67.—Cabrera, Filipe Segundo, lib. VI. cap. 26.—Sagredo, Monarcas Othomanos, p. 246
[1339] Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 61, 62, 68.—Calderon, Gloriosa Defensa de Malta, pp. 95-100.—Vertot, Knights of Malta, vol. III. pp. 4-7.—Cabrera, Filipe Segundo, lib. VI. cap. 26.—Herrera, Historia General, lib. XII. cap. 7.