208 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [hook iv.

pescli, who may have been rather a feeble creaturetotally beneath Ills difficult situation, than a villain.As to the celebrity it certainly came entirely fromthe order he had the honour to head—and not inthe least from him. The capitulation was in sub-stance ; that the knights give up Malta to the Frencharmy, that the French shall try to engage the Bad-stadt congress to procure a principality for the grandmaster equivalent to the one he gave up; that inthe meanwhile the Bepublic promises to pay him anannual pension of three hundred thousand Frenchlivres, besides two annats of pension as an indemni-fication for his personals; that he shall be treatedwith the usual honours during his stay at Malta;that the French knights may return to France, as ifthey had never left it; that the French Eepubliewill use its influence with the Cisalpine, and all Italyand Switzerland, to do similarly regarding theknights of those nations; that the French Eepublieshall give an annual pension of seven hundredFrench livres to each knight now resident in Malta;and one thousand to each above sixty years of age ;that the French will employ its credit with the dif-ferent powers, that the knights may dispose of theproperty of the order in then’ dominions; that theknights shall not be deprived of their private pro-perty in Malta, and that its other inhabitants are