114 THE HISTORY OE THE ORDER OE [book tv.

were irreconcileable with the order’s privileges, hisHoliness notwithstanding confirmed said privileges,only adding a clause to his confirmatory brief. 1

Then returned the grand master and ambassadorfrom Madrid, with a letter bidding Toledo pay theorder two thousand crowns’ worth of provisions andammunitions, and a thousand other crowns for amuch larger debt due to it by Spain several years.Yet were such petty matters soon drowned by whatwent through all the. Levant, that Constantinoplewas preparing a second invasion of Malta; whichhostile rumour at length. alarmed the better classof the Maltese to that degree, that they beganselling their things to remove their wives and chil-dren to Sicily; preferring the most disastrous exileto the horrors of last year. And willingly thegrand master gave them leave, to unload himself ofso many mouths—of slender utility in war. Hencethose Sicilian ports became colonies of Greeks,Rhodians, Maltese. 2

On the 14th of March began the building of thenew city of Yaletta, by laying the foundations withmany religious ceremonies. But there was, besidesthe map, a model of it in wax laid before several of

1 Bosio : par. iii., lib. xxxv. 737.

2 Id.: id., id. 738.