ABEY. III.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

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pay for then, but only by instalments in futureyears; perhaps the earliest real example of a nation’slending to its members or vice versa; and whichindeed, as mainly a domestic transaction, deservesnot so much the name of public debt, as of a strictbond of union between the several individuals com-posing the community . 1

And magnanimous, wise, and noble was likewisethe Govei nor Trevisan, whither he had been sent byVenice with sixty excellently-armed galleys whilethe Turks were besieging Rhodes. Nor did hetreat the grand master with other than signal af-fection, and respect the profoundest. The entire ofthe knights of the order remained in that city untilthe first day of Lent, settling their things andaffairs with the utmost care, and with diligence themost sorrowful repairing their vessels, and furnish-ing them with new seamen and soldiers, seeing thatnearly all their best men had been killed during thesiege. “ Yet were our ships deficient in artillery;since the greater part of the guns had been broughton shore during the siege, and lost, and their crewsslain, serving like soldiery in the bastions.”

We anew embarked, by order of the grandmaster and of his appointed captain of the fleet, thepeerless, most experienced of seamen, Sir William1 Bosio : par. iii., lib. i. 7.—Bourbon : 29.

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