Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/449

Rh all the rising hopes of the fraternity, for on the accession of Elizabeth it was again suppressed in a still more formal and complete manner.

The successful forays which the galleys of Malta had carried out under the able command of La Valette, so far enriched the public treasury that La Sangle determined to add still further to the fortifications erected by D’Omedes. Both at St. Elmo and the Bourg considerable additions were made, but his main efforts were directed to the further strengthening of the promontory of St. Julian. D’Omedes had, it is true, erected at its extremity a fort called St. Michael, but this was not deemed sufficient, as the whole peninsula was much exposed to the neighbouring height of Coradino. To remedy this, La Sangle constructed a bastioned rampart along the side of the promontory facing those heights, and he enclosed its neck in a similar manner. These works were carried out principally at his own expense. The fraternity, in grateful commemoration of the fact, named the enceinte thus formed, and the town which rapidly sprang up within it, after its public-spirited chief. From that day it has always been known as the Isle do Ia Sangle, since Italianized into Senglea.

The prospects of the island of Malta were every day improving; the maritime successes of the Order not only enriched the treasury, but added so considerably to its already widely-spread renown that its ranks became rapidly recruited with much of the best blood in Europe In the midst of this prosperity, however, a calamity occurred which, but for prompt assistance on all sides, might have proved irreparable. The island was visited by a furious hurricane on the 23rd September, 1555. The violence of this tornado was such that numbers of the houses were laid in ruins. Almost all the vessels in harbour sank at their anchorage, and many of the galley slaves forming their crews were drowned. The most prompt and energetic measures were necessary to restore the lost fleet, and, fortunately for the Order, it found friends both within and without its own ranks to aid it at this crisis. Philip II. of Spain instantly despatched two galleys, well armed and fully manned, as a present to his protégés. The Grand-Master, at his own expense, caused another to be built