Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/661

Rh indeed, the whole scheme was such as to render it open to much criticism.

Notwithstanding the objections urged against his grand design, Cottoner was not to be deterred from carrying it out, and on the 28th August, 1670, he laid the first stone in the bastion of St. Nicholas with much pomp and ceremony. Four commissaries were appointed, who were charged with the responsibility of providing everything requisite for carrying on the work with vigour. For their accommodation houses were built in the gorges of the bastions, so that they might remain continually on the spot. AU the artificers in the island were assembled there, and others brought over from the neighbouring countries; bakeries and cisterns were established for their convenience, and every effort made to push forward the undertaking. For ten years the building was carried on under the eye of the Grand-Master, who felt his honour intimately bound up with the fortification to which he had given his name, and during that period a vast expenditure was incurred. At his death the ramparts had been raised throughout to the level of the cordon; none of the outworks, however, had been begun. By this time the treasury was almost exhausted, and his successor gave directions that all further progress should be suspended. When the island of Malta passed into the possession of the British the lines of Cottonera, as they have always been called in honour of their founder, were still unfinished. Indeed, it was not until twenty years ago that the design, altered to suit the exigencies of more modern warfare, was really completed. Many additions were also made by Cottoner to the defences of Floriana, which were considered to have been left by Lascaris in a very defective state, and to add to the protection of the grand harbour, a new fort was erected on the extreme point of its eastern entrance, and received the name of Ricasoli, having been constructed mainly at the cost of the chevalier Francesco Ricasoli. It was designed by Valperga.

Nicholas Cottoner died in the year 1680, at the age of seventy-three years, deeply regretted in the convent, where he had been most deservedly popular, as well from the success of his government as the courtesy of his demeanour. The public works which he had carried on not only added materially to the