CHAP. IV.]

ST. JOHN OP JERUSALEM.

41

they considered their own—the general property of allcountries. Not an individual of them, or the whole,could rival with the grand master in practice, ex-perience, unerring judgment, foresight to distin-guish every difficulty, and discover means toobviate it; so that the entire meeting, when theyheard his plan, approved it—rejecting their ownand everything besides—and unanimously sawhe had selected what must succeed ; 1 and thatopinion went on, always increasing while he lived;so that long after the siege, to prevent financialdisasters, the order conj ured him to take the admi-nistration of the treasury for ever, entirely into hisown irresponsible hands—which he acceded to withdifficulty; nor for ever, but stipulating for onlythree years, enough to regulate it completely; ashe did, and restored it to responsible ministers asbefore, rendering them a clear account to the lastfraction. Indeed, scarce a single transaction greator small, particularly during the siege, but he di-rected himself—-making his own gunpowder, superin-tending the building of his own shipping, erectinghis own batteries, minutest duties of an engineer,chemical preparations, and secrets of differentkinds; and in the hospital, where he was very1 Bosio : par. ii., lib. xi., anno 1480.