CHAP. II.1

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ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

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sweet as the perfumes of myrrh! 1 In the very lastdays of 1354, 2 a ship with the Papal banner enteredthe harbour of Rhodes, and soon was it known thatit bore an embassy, at the head of which was theGrand Prior of Castile, who, with the other twocommanders, had a stately audience from the grandmaster almost immediately. “ Not only with thatletter, dated last August, and which orders me backto Avignon within February next, and if the firstpart of my voyage has been dilatory, the fault is offoul weather, and not mine; nor shall it be mine inthe other half either, for I shall return on board assoon as I have a reply, this very day. But also Iam charged by his Holiness to tell the grand masterand council how continually he is receiving com-plaints 3 of the inaction and lethargy of the order;and that they are living too far from Palestine,where they ought to reside, and carry on waragainst the Turk, as the whole world knows theycould; that even if they lived in Greece or Italy,it were better than in this little out-of-the-wayisland; that the fortifications you are erectinground Rhodes, are totaly useless and superfluous,and merely display your own ill-will, and determi-

1 Cod. Dipl. Geros., ii., xi. Giunt. Yatic. Secret.

2 Bosio: par. ii., lib. ii., anno 1354.

3 Cod. Dipl. Geros., ii., Yum. lxxiii.

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