CHAP. I.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

321

held, and measures accordingly taken by thoseChristian powers . 1 Nor slack was Malta in gettingready for resistance. Every day some new weaponor contrivance was suggested that might be of usein the coming siege. Above three hundred idlemouths were sent out of the island. All the malepopulation was divided into platoons; all the armytaught their stations. Sir Oliver Starkey, the nowLieutenant of the Turcopolier, was one of thethree named to places of great consequence . 2 Aprudential spirit breathes in the observations withwhich the grand master meets all the Papal invi-tations to the noted council; that all his time andthat of the order is occupied, day and night,on warlike expedients to resist the Turks , 3which entirely precludes the possibility of theirattending at Trent . 4

END OF VOL. III.

1 Bosio : par. in., lib. xxiii. 482. 2 Id.: id., xxii. 460.

3 Cod. Dipl. Geros,, ii., Hum. cxcii.—cxciii.

4 Id., id., Id., cxoiv.