chap, v.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

177

thousand, many of them rich and made free, and allof them benefited by their masters. Some few ofthe slaves from blood-thirstiness or avarice, or desireof liberty, or fanaticism, but the rest from abjectfear, all would have mercilessly bathed themselvesin their masters’ blood that hideous hour. Thiscomes of slavery! If the tree is to be judged byits fruit, what bitter fruit have we here! Whyshould it not be a salutary example ? Treat slaveswith what humanity you please, it cannot be greaterthan that of the Knights of Malta. Yet slaveryhas poisoned them, and they will murder you whenthey have an opportunity. You have done themthe greatest possible harm, that beyond human com-pensation. If they are ungrateful, you are stillworse. Then away with slavery, horribly injuriousto the enslaved, and more so to the enslavers.

A captain in the Prussian service being appointedby his king in 1763 to repair to the Grand ^763Prior of Germany, to demand the confirma-tion of Prince Ferdinand in the new dignity towhich he was elected in the branch of the order inBrandenbourgh, it was finally agreed that theancient connection between the Protestant knightsand those of Malta should be renewed, and that theProtestant commanderies should pay their respon-sions in the same way as the Catholic ; from which

VOL. IV. N