HISTORY OF MALTA.

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commanders, nobly disinterested, stripped themselves of their pro-perty, and even of their most valuable moveables, the profits fromwhich they sent to Malta.

La Valette, thus generously assisted, sent for engineers andother workmen from different ports of Italy; and, the foundationhaving been marked out, this prince, in his grand habit of ceremony,accompanied by the council and the whole of the knights, proceededto Mount Sceberras, and there laid the foundation-stone * of thenew city, on which was engraven in Latin the decree of the coun-cil, conceived in the following terms : “ The most illustrious, mostreverend brother, lord John de la Valette, grand-master of the hos-pitaller and military order of St. John of Jerusalem, considering thedanger to which the knights and the people of Malta were exposedfrom the infidels during the late siege, has, with the consent of thecouncil, and in order to oppose any fresh enterprises formed bythese barbarians, decided to build a city on Mount Sceberras; andon this day, the 28th of March, in the year of our Lord 1566, afterhaving called upon the holy name of God, and implored the inter-cession of the holy Virgin mother, together with that of St.John theBaptist, tutelar patron of the order, to draw down the benediction

* The first stone of the City Yaletta was laid and filled up with mortar by thegrand-master himself, on the Point of St. John’s Bulwark. Under this stone hedeposited a variety of gold, silver, and copper medals, with inscriptions ; the best ofwhich was Immotam Colli dedit. The conventual conservator distributed sequins,golden crowns, and silver coin, of two, three, four, and six-tarin pieces, with thegrand-master’s effigy, among the people. This expense amounted daily to fifteenhundred or two thousand crowns.