20

HISTORY OP MALTA.

disorders were, however, at last prevented; and permission ob-tained to distribute soup, meat, rice, and bread, freely andindiscriminately to all who should present themselves at a fixedplace and hour. The knights were always present on this oc-casion, and distributed the provisions with their own hands.This employment was, however, attended with some difficulties,and many unpleasant circumstances, which the cruel situationof the sufferers could alone induce them to support.

Let the reader figure to himself twelve or fifteen hundredpersons pressed by famine, crowding impetuously close toimmense cauldrons and large baskets, the contents of whichthirty or forty knights were endeavouring to divide in the mostimpartial manner; and he will not be surprised that they werefrequently obliged to make use of force to drive back the mostimportunate, whose avidity it w as otherwise impossible to check.

During three weeks that the knights remained in the portof Messina, they w T ere constantly employed in the above-men-tioned occupations; and when the general of the galleys hadresolved to return, he was so fearful of occasioning any tumultamong a people whose necessities had for some time been dailyrelieved by the order, that he took the greatest pains to con-ceal the day of his departure. He just touched at Reggio,wiiere he left the different articles the commandant of Messinadid not condescend to accept. To these he added a largesum of money from his own private property. He had actedwith equal generosity at Messina, and indeed in every place