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HISTORY OF MALTA.

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C II A P. X.

J he principal Motives which induced the French to undertake the Ex-pedition to Egypt, and the taking of Malta. Contradictions zchichappear in the Proclamations of the Directory and the Declarations ofthe French Generals. The Directory destroyed by Bonaparte. De-plorable Situation of the Maltese-under any other Government thantheir ancient one. The Christian Bowers interested in preserving theOrder. Means of re-establishing the Navy. Impossibility of de-stroying the Barbary Pirates. The Knights alone capable of keep-ing up a continual JVar against them. Exhortation to the Knightsto return to their original Character of simple Hospitallers, in thedifferent Countries where they may happen to take up their Abode.

Malta, situated on a rock in the midst of the Mediterra-nean, was fortified in the strongest manner. Nature and artcombined in making it, to all appearance, impregnable; andthere was every reason to believe it would have escaped the direeffects of the war, which had already spread desolation through-out the Continent. The inhabitants, happy under the wise andpaternal government of the knights, appeared likely to repulseevery attempt at a revolution which would tend to destroy it.Yet, alas ! as it has fatally proved, neither the strength of thefortifications nor the benevolence of the sovereign could saveit from destruction.

I have already laid before the reader the deep dissimula-tion with which the French government contrived the ruin ot

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