222 THE HISTORY OE THE ORDER OF [book IV,

curiosity ; and should he received as no more than abrief hasty sketch.

Posterior to a tedious and disagreeable voyage ofthirty-nine days, Hompesch reached Trieste; where,after a short stay, he resigned his office and separatedfrom the companions of his flight; and with whatbecame of him subsequently no need of inquiring.Before that, an alert Russian courier from Malta hadreached St.Petersburgh; so that the unfortunate grandmaster’s abdication counts from his leaving the island;and it follows that the Emperor of Russia in hisquality of Protector had in the strictest view a fullright to proclaim himself Locumtenens. Nor is itnot with some little pride it is recorded how in thatmoment of extreme disorder, between on the onehand an autocrat reputed mad (though perhaps un-justly, only because he saw farther than mostpeople), and on the other universal revolution,headed by a formidable warrior, who was shortly tohe the conqueror of all the European Continent—not even in that cruel dilemma, was there anyirregularity in the order’s proceedings—happycasualty, which after all is hut another name for thedirect intervention of a benevolent Providence, to bedeigned to them the more perhaps, from consideringthe merits of the Elospitallers of former ages,rather than their own individual inadequacy to their