126

HISTORY OF MALTA.

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called Samra or Lattochia, which never ceased firing, and 1

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which a cannonade of five hours in vain endeavoured to *1

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destroy. _

The island of Goza having surrendered, a commissioner

was dispatched to general Vaubois to inform him of the event,

and at the same time to acquaint him that the emperor and

the king of Naples had declared war against France: the same ^

commissioner likewise told him, that on the following day a ° ccaS

Greek vessel was to be burned within sight of the port, for ^

having refused on going out of the harbour to surrender when & eir

summoned so to do by the English men-of-war. to tht

The city was so closely blockaded, that the French were 1

absolutely ignorant of all that passed either in the interior of m0 ne

the island or on the continent. Three small boats from Sar- aiK |.

dinia, and an advice-boat from Toulon, were all the vessels which yj

had reached them during the space of three months; and these ^

brought neither dispatches nor public papers. The English ^ 1

had very obligingly sent the French officers four of their wives

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who had been taken prisoners on board a small vessel from

. . . midr

Corsica. These ladies spoke in the highest terms of the man- ^

ner in which they had been 'treated by the Maltese, whilst the (

French cruelly ordered all the prisoners taken of that nation

to be shot; and having remained six days in the Old City, they ^

gave the garrison some intelligence relative to the principal Was h

insurgents, whose names were not even known with any degree a, d <

of certainty. ^Ucf

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