.14

HISTORY or MALTA.

and their conquerors insisted upon provisions and 2500 crownsby way of contribution. The fortress still held out; but theArragonians arriving a few months afterwards with a formidablearmy to blockade it, the inhabitants pressed the besieged tosurrender, and the French were obliged to capitulate. Charlesmade an effort to retake the island; but a naval combat betweenthe two fleets, to which he was witness, destroyed his hopes forever, and firmly established the empire of his enemies.

All that remains of the government of the Norman, Ger-man, and French princes, consists, according to the spirit ofthose times, in pious foundations. They endowed churches,and the cathedral was founded by the Normans. It is needlessto mention the title deeds of the other church endowments : themost ancient are those at the burgh of Malleha and at CasaiTartani: the latter no longer exists.

The island of Malta, as appears from the foregoing pages,had long suffered from the discord which reigned between itsSuccessive sovereigns; and it groaned still longer afterwardsunder the tyranny of different individuals to whom the kings ofArragon, and the kings of Castille who succeeded them in 1414,ceded it in title of fief: it thus became either the appanage ofsome illegitimate son of their prince, the reward of one of hisfavourites, or the price of personal services done to the sovereign,rather than of those rendered to the crown.

The Maltese, under the reign of Lewis, son of Peter II.vainly imagined they had succeeded in procuring the islands of