Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/670

634 mitted for the approval of the pasha Mustapha, was to organize a rising amongst this large body, massacre all the Christians, and then transfer the government to the Porte. Mustapha, with the blackest ingratitude, entered warmly into the design. The pasha of Tripoli was communicated with, and promised assistance, and the slaves generally were enlisted as oonfederatos. The festival of St. Peter and St Paul was selected as the most appropriate day for carrying out this modern imitation of the Sicilian Vespers. It was then that the bulk of the native population was in the habit of flocking to the Città Veochia, where the ceremonies of the day were carried out with great magnificence. It was thought that an opportunity ‘would be thus the more readily afforded of seizing the city of Valetta whilst denuded of so many of its inhabitants. One of the two confidential valets of the Grand-Master was appointed to give the signal for the commencement of the insurrection by murdering his master, and exposing his head on the balcony of the palace. An indiscriminate massacre was then to ensue; the armoury was to be forced, to supply arms, and the gate of the city and other commanding posts to be promptly occupied. The troops of the pasha of Tripoli were to be landed as soon as the successful issue of the enterprise was announced, and with their assistance the island was to be held until the arrival of succours from Constantinople. Such were the principal details of the plot to ‘which the pasha Mustapha lent his name and support.

It was strange that the slaves in Malta should have been permitted such ample liberty of action. Considering their great numbers, and the natural discontent which a condition of slavery, even in its most modified form, must have generated within the minds of many, it is wonderful that stricter precautions were not habitually taken to prevent the possibility of treachery. Certain it is that on the present occasion, had it not been for an accidental quarrel amongst themselves, the conspirators would most undoubtedly have succeeded in murdering every member of the Order within the convent. The discovery of the plot was thus made. A certain tavern kept by a Jew was the principal resort of the chief actors in the drama. One day, shortly before the time selected for carrying it into effect, a violent quarrel sprang up between two of them, and after a