Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/193

Rh S A I S A I 175 of office the cathedral, the auberges, the hospital, and many remarkable edifices were built. Another city gradu- ally arose on the opposite shores of the grand harbour, and the once barren island became almost imperceptibly the site of one of the strongest fortresses and most nourishing commercial communities in the Mediterranean. Verdala was succeeded by Martin Garces (1595), but it was reserved for Alof de Vignacourt to revive for a time the military reputation of the order. Vasconcellos, De Paula, and Lascaris were all aged men when, one after another, they were called to the supreme power, and their election (with a view to secure frequent vacancies) contributed to weaken the vitality of the fraternity. Lascaris lived till the age of ninety -seven, built the fortifications of Floriana, en- dowed Valetta with a public library, and resisted the grow- ing encroachments of the Jesuits. Martin de Redin and Raphael Cottoner ruled each for three years. Nicholas Cottoner was elected in 1663, and the knights of St John once again distinguished themselves in the siege of Candia. The losses which the order sustained in the repulse of the allies before Negropont (1689) was the indirect cause of the death of Caraffa, who was succeeded by Adrian de Vignacourt (1690), Raymond Perellos (1697), Zondodari (1720), De Vilhena (1722), Despuig (1736), and Pinto (1741). Emmanuel Pinto was a man of no mean ability and of considerable force of character. He steadily resisted all papal encroachments on his authority, expelled the Jesuits from Malta, and declined to hold a chapter-general. After the brief rule of Francis Ximines, Emmanuel de Rohan became grand -master (1775). He assembled a chapter-general, erected the Anglo-Bavarian langue, and sent his galleys to relieve the sufferers from the great earth- quake in Sicily. The order never perhaps seemed to all outward appearances more prosperous than when the storm of the French Revolution broke suddenly upon it. In 1792 the Directory decreed the abolition of the order in France and the forfeiture of its possessions. Five years afterwards De Rohan died. He had taken no pains to conceal his sympathy for the losing cause in France and his court had become an asylum and home for many French refugees. His successor Ferdinand Hompesch was perhaps the weakest man ever elected to fill a responsible position in critical times. On the 12th April 1798 the French Government resolved on the forcible seizure of Malta. Warnings were sent to the grand-master in vain. Within two months from that date the island was in the hands of Bonaparte, and Hompesch was permitted to retire to Trieste with some of the most cherished relics of the order. Subsequent to the departure of Hompesch a number of the knights who had taken refuge at St Petersburg elected the emperor Paul grand-master. Notwithstanding the patent illegality of the pro- ceeding the proffered honour was eagerly accepted and duly an- nounced to all the courts of Europe (October 1798). Hompesch was induced to resign in the following year. On the death of Paul an arrangement was arrived at which vested the actual nomination in the pope. From 1805 to 1879 only lieutenants of the order were appointed, who resided first at Catania, then at Ferrara, and finally at Rome. In 1879 Leo XIII. made Giovanni Battista Ceschi grand- master, and he actually rules over portions of the Italian and German langiies and some other scattered groups of the ancient fraternity. Two other associations also trace their origin from the same parent stock the Brandenburg branch and the English langue. The former can claim an unbroken existence since Its establishment in 1160. In 1853 the king of Prussia (in whom the right of nomina- tion had been vested since 1812) restored the original bailiwick of Brandenburg and the assembled commanders elected Prince Charles of Prussia Herrn Meister, who notified his election to the lieutenant of the grand-master at Rome. The " Johanniter " did good service in the German campaigns of 1866 and 1870. As regards the English Ifingue, 1 Elizabeth c. 24 annexed to the crown all the property of the order in England. After the restoration of the Bourbons the French knights met once more in chapter -general and elected a permanent capitular commission, which was officially recognized by both Louis XVIII. and the pope. After certain negotiations, the three French lanyucs, acting in accord with those of Aragon and Castile, agreed to the resuscitation of the dormant langue of England (1827-1831), and Sir Robert Peat was appointed lord prior, taking the customary oath de fideli administratione in the Court of King's Bench. During the past half century the good work done by the modern knights now (18S6) once more located in St John's Gate, Clerkenwell can honourably compare with the memorable deeds of their predecessors. The establishment of the hospice at Jerusalem is due to the energy and zeal of Sir Edmund Lechmere, who has been mainly instrumental in collecting at St John's Gate the unrivalled historical literature of which the order can boast. There are few subjects of study which present so rich and so varied materials as the annals of the knights of bt John. The archives still preserved in Malta are almost unique in their value and completeness, and each grand-master patronized and encouraged the industrious historiographers who sought to perpetuate the fame of the order to which they belonged. The work of Giacomo Bosio is an elaborate and generally trustworthy record of events from the time of Gerard down to the year 1571. Bartolomeo del Pozzo treats with equal care the period between 1571 and 1636. Editions of these volumes were published in Rome, Xaples, Verona, and Venice. The Abbe Vertot concludes his elaborate history with the year 1726. His book enjoyed a considerable popularity, was published in English with the original plates in 1728, but can hardly claim the confidence to which Bosio and Del Pozzo are both entitled. From the 16th century down to the appearance of the famous Codice of De Rohan (1782) we have a series of publications on the subject of the statutes of the order. A fresh compilation seems generally to have followed each assembly of the chapter- general. Before the time of De Rohan the best-known edition was that of Borgofante (1676), but Bosio produced a translation from the Latin in 1589 when residing at Rome as agent of the grand-master, and another was printed at the press of the order in Malta in 171S. The Mcmorie de' Gran Maestri by Bodoni (Parma, 1780) may also be consulted with advantage. For information con- cerning the archaeology of the order and the antiquities of Malta itself reference should be made to Abela and Ciantar's Malta Illustrata, dedicated to Em. Pinto in 1772 ; to Raphael Caruana's Collezione di monumenti e lapidi sepolcrali di militi Gerosolimitani nelle Mesa di San Giovanni (Malta, 1838-40) ; to De Bois- gelin's Malta (3 vols.) ; and to Les Monument des Grands Maitres, by Villeneuve- Bargemont (Paris, 1820). The last-named writer has, however, drawn largely on his own imagination for the earlier part of the information he professes to five. In English the most noteworthy treatises concerning the knights are ohn Taaffe's History of the Order of Malta (London, 1852, 4 vols.) and General Porter's History of the Knights of Malta of the Order of St John of Jerusalem (London, 1883). The Rev. W. R. Bedford has recently published a valuable account of the great hospital at Valetta. A useful guide to the contents of the Malta Record Office is to be found in M. Delaville Le Roulx's Archives de I'Ordre de St Jean de Jerusalem (Paris, 1883). (A. M. B.) ST JOHN'S, the capital of Newfoundland, is situated on the eastern shore of the island, 60 miles north of Cape Race, in 47 33' 33" N. lat. and 52 45' 10" W. long, (see vol. xvii., plate V.). It is 10 52' east of Halifax, and stands on what is nearly the most eastern point of America, Cape Spear, 5 miles south of St. John's, alone projecting a little farther towards the Old World. It is 1000 miles nearer than New York to England, and but 1640 from the coast of Ireland. The approach to the harbour of St John's presents one of the most picturesque views along the coast of America. In a lofty iron-bound coast a narrow open- ing occurs in the rocky wall, guarded on one side by Signal Hill (520 feet) and on the other by South Side Hill (620 feet), with Fort Amherst lighthouse on a rocky promontory at its base. The entrance of the Narrows is about 1400 feet in width, and at the narrowest point, between Pancake and Chain Rocks, the channel is not more than 600 feet wide. The Narrows are half a mile in length, and at their termination the harbour trends suddenly to the west, thus completely shutting out the swell from the ocean. Vessels of the largest tonnage can enter at all periods of the tide. The harbour is a mile in length and nearly half a mile in width. At its head is a dry dock, recently completed at a cost of $550,000 ; it is 600 feet in length, 83 in breadth, and 26 in depth, capable of admitting the largest steamers afloat. The city is built on sloping ground on the northern side of the harbour, on the southern side of which the hills rise so abruptly from the water that there is only room for a range of warehouses and oil -factories. Three principal streets, winding and irregular, follow the sinuosities of the harbour and of one another the whole length of the city, and these are intersected by a number of cross-streets. Water Street, the principal business locality, presents a very substantial, though not handsome, appearance, the houses being of stone or brick. Shops, stores, and counting-houses occupy the ground floor, while many of the merchants and shop- keepers live in the upper stories. Fish-stores, warehouses, and wharves project from behind on the side next the harbour. The city, three-fourths of which are still of