[1388] "En todo este sitio no se a justiciado sino un solo Italiano Senes el qual mando justiciar Melchior de Robles: porque dixo publicamente estando en el mayor aprieto, que mas valiera que tomaramos las quatro pagas que los turcos nos ofrecian, y el passage." Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 128.
[1389] For this act of retributive justice, so agreeable to the feelings of the reader, I have no other authority to give than Vertot, Knights of Malta, vol. III. p. 18.
[1390] Ibid., pp. 39, 40.—Calderon, Gloriosa Defensa de Malta, pp. 189, 190.—De Thou, Hist. Universelle, tom. V. p. 91.
[1391] "Havia en la Isla de Malta quinze mil hombres de pelea, los quales bastaran para resistir a qualquiera poder del gran Turco en campaña rasa." Balbi, Verdadera Relacion, fol. 129.
Besides the Spanish forces, a body of French adventurers took service under La Valette, and remained for some time in Malta.
[1392] Vertot tells us that the projected expedition of Solyman against Malta was prevented by the destruction of the grand arsenal of Constantinople, which was set on fire by a secret emissary of La Valette. (Knights of Malta, vol. III. p. 41.) We should be better pleased if the abbé had given his authority for this strange story, the probability of which is not at all strengthened by what we know of the grand-master's character.
[1393] It was common for the Maltese cities, after the Spanish and Italian fashion, to have characteristic epithets attached to their names. La Valette gave the new capital the title of "Umillima,"—"most humble,"—intimating that humility was a virtue of highest price with the fraternity of St. John. See Boisgelin, Ancient and Modern Malta, vol. I. p. 29.
[1394] "Plus de huit mille ouvriers y furent employés; et afin d'avancer plus aisément les travaux, le Pape Pie V. commanda qu'on y travaillât sans discontinuer, même les jours de Fêtes." Helyot, Hist. des Ordres Religieux.
[1395] The style of the architecture of the new capital seems to have been, to some extent, formed on that of Rhodes, though, according to Lord Carlisle, of a more ornate and luxuriant character than its model. "I traced much of the military architecture of Rhodes, which, grave and severe there, has here both swelled into great amplitude and blossomed into copious efflorescence; it is much the same relation as Henry VII.'s Chapel bears to a bit of Durham Cathedral." Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters, p. 200.
The account of Malta is not the least attractive portion of this charming work, to which Felton's notes have given additional value.