Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/781

 Appendix XIV. 743 anguage shall have its peculiar diguities, an establishment, and an ai’berqt. Proofs of nobility shall not be necessary for the admission of knights of this language, and they shall be, moreover, admissible to all offices, and shall enjoy all privileges in the same manner as the knights of the other languages. At least half of the municipal, administrative, civil, judicial, and other employments depending on the government shall be filled by inhabitants of the islands of Malta, Gozo, and Cumino. 4th. The forces of his Britannic Majesty shall evacuate the island and its dependencies within three months from the exchange of the ratifications, or sooner if possible. At that epoch it shall be given up to the Order in its present state, provided the Grand-Master or commissaries fully authorized according to the statutes of the Order, shall be in the island to take possession, and that the force which has been provided by his Sicilian Majesty, as is hereafter stipulated, shall have arrived there. 5th. One half of the garrison at least shall be always composed of native Maltese, for the remainder the Order may levy recruits in those countries only which continue to possess languages. The Maltese troops shall have Maltese officers. The command-in-chief of the garrison, as well as the nomination of officers, shall pertain to the Grand-Master, and this right he cannot resign, even temporarily, except in favour of a knight, and in concurrence with the advice of the coindil of the Order. 6th. The independence of the islands of Malta, Gozo, and Cumino, as well as the present arrangement, shall be placed under the protection and guarantee of France, Great Britain, Austria, Spain, Russia, and Prussia. 7th. The neutrality of the Order and of the island of Malta, with its dependencies, is proclaimed. bth. The ports of Malta shall be open to the commerce and navigation of all nations, who shall there pay equal and moderate duties; these duties shall be applied to the benefit of the Maltese language, as specified in paragraph 3, to that of the civil and military establishments of the island, as well as to that of a general lazaretto, open to all colours. 9th. The states of Barbary are excepted from the conditions of the preceding paragraphs, until, by means of an arrangement to be procured by the contracting parties, the system of hostilities which subsists between the states of Barbary and the Order of St. John, or the powers possessing the languages, or concurring in the composition of the Order, shall have ceased. 10th. The Order shall be governed, both with respect to spirituals and temporals, by the same statutes which were in force when the knights left the island, except so far as the present treaty shall derogate from them. 11th. The regulations contained in the paragraphs 3, 5, 7, 8, and 10, shall be converted into laws and perpetual statutes of the Order, in the customary manner, and the Grand-Master, or, if he shall not be in the island at the time of its restoration to the Order, his representative, as well as his successors, shall be bound to take an oath for their punctual observance. 12th. His Sicilian Majesty shall be invited to furnish 2000 men, natives of his states, to serve as a garrison to the different fortresses of the said