Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/431



council assembled for the purpose of electing a successor to their deceased chief, nominated Peter Dupont, a member of a Piedmontese family, to that office. At the time of his election, Dupont was residing in his grand-priory of Calabria, and it was with extreme reluctance that he accepted the supreme dignity. He felt that his great age made him unfit for the onerous duties of a Grand-Master at. the perilous crisis in which the affairs of the Order were then involved. Eventually his scruples were overcome, and he set out for Malta to assume his new dignity.

The dangerous position in which the garrison of Tripoli stood rendered the maintenance of that post a subject of anxious consideration to the new Grand-Master, and he turned his eyes towards Charles V., then by far the most powerful potentate in Europe, for assistance in its protection. Charles had originally bestowed this unwelcome gift on the knights, partly to escape the expense of its maintenance, and partly in the hope that the establishment of the Order of St. John in that spot might act as a check upon the piratical enterprises of the surrounding princes. He was therefore well disposed to render every assistance in his power, and as a matter of fact the appeal of