Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/171

Rh years of Villaret’s rule having been most lax. The number of those who preferred an easy and luxurious residence in a European commandery to the secluded life and constant warfare entailed by the necessities of the case at Rhodes was very great. The difficulty of overcoming this feeling, and of compelling the absentees to make their appearance at the convent had increased so rapidly that the subject was one of the first brought under the consideration of the chapter. It was there decreed that a certain term of actual residence at Rhodes, and the performance of a definite number of caravans (as the voyages on board the galleys were called) should be an absolute requirement to qualify a knight for holding any official post or dignity whatsoever. Several other stringent reforms were at the same time proposed and agreed to, through not without considerable discussion, and many loud expressions of dissatisfaction. In fact, it soon became apparent that, owing to the chapter having been held in Prance, where the European dignitaries of the Order preponderated, they seemed more interested in the preservation of their local privileges than in strengthening the hands of the Grand-Master and the power of the central government.

Notwithstanding the warning which they had received in the destruction of their brethren of the Temple, there were many members blind enough to raise their voices at the council board, urging the abandonment of Rhodes, and the retirement of the Order within its European commanderies. They attributed all the financial difficulties of the treasury to the lengthened struggle for the acquisition of that island, and the outlay necessary for its subsequent fortification and maintenance—difficulties which in spite of the recent acquisition of Templar property, were in some countries threatening to overwhelm them with insolvency. They urged also that the new system of naval warfare in which