ing. There is also the serving mallet, used in serving the rigging, by binding the spun yarn more firmly about it than could possibly be done by hand, which is performed in the following manner the spun yarn being previously rolled up in a large ball or clue, two or three turns of it are passed about the rope, and about the body of the mallet, which for that purpose is furnished with a round channel in its surface, that conforms to the convexity of the rope intended to be served. The turns of the spun yarn being strained round the mallet, so as to confine it firmly to the rope, which is extended above the deck, one man passes the ball continually about the rope, whilst the other, at the same time, winds on the spun yarn by means of the mallet, whose handle acting as a lever strains every turn about the rope as firm as possible.

MALLICOLO, or MALLICOLLO, one of the New Hebrides of captain Cook, is an island of the South Pacific Ocean, south-east of Espritu Sancto. It is ten leagues long, mountainous, well wooded and watered. The natives appear to be a different race from the other islanders, and are described as more nearly resembling baboons than human beings. Their hair is frizzled; and their language a barbarous combination of consonants, aspirations, and hissings, that defy the vocal organs of a European to imitate. They are probably of the New Holland race, some individuals of which chance might have thrown on this island. The other islands of this archipelago form a closely connected chain, beginning with the Sir Joseph Banks's Islands of captain Edwards, on the north. The harbour of Sandwich, on the north-east side of Mallicolo, is in long. 167° 57′ E., lat. 16° 25' S.

MALLOW, a manor and borough town of Ireland, in Cork, about 120 miles from Dublin. It was incorporated by charter in 1688, and sends one member to the imperial parliament. It is pleasantly situated on the north bank of the Blackwater, over which there is an excellent stone bridge. It has a good church, a market house, and barracks for a troop of horse. Not far distant is a fine spring of moderately tepid water, which bursts out of the bottom of a fine limestone rock, and approaches very near in all its qualities to the hot well waters of Bristol. Mallow is a post town, and has five fairs.

MALLOW, in botany. See MALVA. MAL'LOWS, n. s. Į Sax. mælepe; Lat. MALVACEOUS, adj. § malva; Gr. μaλaxn. A plant: malvaceous is, relating to, or like, mallows.

Dryden.

Shards or mallows for the pot, That keep the loosened body sound. MALMEDY, a town of the Prussian province of the Lower Rhine, in the government of Aix-la-Chapelle, on the Recht. It has considerable tanneries, and manufactures of cotton stuffs. Twenty miles south of Aix-la-Chapelle. Population 4400.

MALMOHUS-LAN, or GOVERNMENT OF MALMOHUS, one of the new divisions of Sweden, lies along the Sound and the Baltic, in the southwest of the kingdom, including a great part of the ancient Schonen or Scania. Its area is

about 1380 square miles. Population 137,000. The arable land forms about a third of the whole.

MALMSBURY, a town of Wiltshire, ninetyfive miles from London, situated on a hill, with six bridges over the river Avon at the bottom; with which, and a brook that runs into it, it is in a manner encompassed. It formerly had a castle and walls, which were pulled down to enlarge the abbey, whose abbots sat in parliament. The Saxon king Athelstan granted the town large immunities, and was buried under the high altar of the church: his monument still remains in the nave of it. The memory of the celebrated Aldhelm, its first abbot, is still kept up by a meadow near this town, called Aldhelm's Mead. By charter of king William III. the corporation consists of an alderman, chosen yearly, twelve capital burgesses, and four assistants. There is an alms house for four men and four women, and near the bridge an hospital for lepers, where it is supposed there was formerly a nunnery. This town carries on a considerable trade in woollen manufactures, has a market on Saturday, and three fairs. It has sent members to parliament ever since the twenty-sixth of Edward I.

MALM'SEY, n. s. From the island Malvasia: a sweet wine.

MALO (St.), or St. MACLOU the son of a British gentleman, and cousin to St. Magloire, was educated in a monastery in Ireland, and afterwards chosen bishop of Gui-Castel, a dignity which his humility prevented him from accepting. The people wishing to compel him he went into Brittany, and put himself under the direction of a boly anchoret, called Aaron, in the neighbourhood of Aleth. Some time after, about 541 he was chosen bishop of that city. He afterwards retired to a solitude near Xaintes, where he died November 15th, 565. From him the city of St. Malo derives its name; his body having been carried thither, after the reduction of Aleth to a small village called Guidhalet or Guichalet, and the tranference of the episcopal see to St. Malo.

MALOES, or MALO (St.), a sea-port in the department of the Ille and Vilaine, France. It is situated on the island of Aaron, which communicates with the continent by means of a mole or causeway of three-quarters of a mile in length, but only fifty-four feet in breadth. The entrance to the town at the end of the mole is defended by a castle, flanked with towers, which, together with four bastions and the ramparts around the town, render it a place of considerable strength. On the north side it is inaccessible, in consequence of rocks and the fortifications erected on them. The town is of an oblong form, its length being from north to south. The houses are high, and in general of stone. The principal public buildings, as the cathedral, the hotel de ville. and the episcopal palace, are in the market place. The harbour is large and well frequented, but difficult of access. The trade is chiefly with England, Holland, Spain. the north of Europe, the colonies, and in the Newfoundland fishery. It exports the products of the surrounding country, and a few manufactures of straw, thread

woollens, and linen. Population 10,000. The adjacent town of St. Servan, separated by an inlet of the sea, and situated on higher ground, is sometimes reckoned a suburb of St. Maloes. Forty-five miles north by west of Rennes, and 225 west of Paris.

MALONE (Edmund), was born in Dublin on the 4th of October, 1741, and educated at the school of Dr. Ford in Molesworth Street. He went thence in the year 1756 to the university of Dublin, where he took the degree of bachelor of arts. Here his talents very early displayed themselves; and he was distinguished by a successful competition for academical honors with several young men, who afterwards became the ornaments of the Irish senate and bar. In 1763 he became a student in the Inner Temple; and in 1767 was called to the Irish bar. With a view to those superior opportunities for information and study, and the society which London affords, he soon after settled in this metropolis; and, among the many eminent men with whom he became acquainted, he was naturally drawn by the enthusiastic admiration which he felt for Shakspeare, and the attention which he had already paid to the elucidation of his works, into an intimate connexion with Mr. Steevens. This gentleman having published a second edition of his Shakspeare in 1778, Mr. Malone, in 1780, added two supplementary volumes, which contained some additional notes, Shakspeare's poems, and seven plays, which have been ascribed to him. There appears up to this time to have been no interruption to their friendship; but, on the contrary, Mr. Steevens, having formed a design of relinquishing all future editorial labours, most liberally made a present to Mr. Malone of his valuable collection of old plays, declaring that he himself was now become a dowager commenWhile Malone, however, was engaged on Shakspeare, he received from Mr. Steevens a request of an extraordinary nature. To a third edition of Johnson and Steevens's Shakspeare, which had been published under the superintendance of Mr. Reed in 1785, Mr. Malone had contributed some notes, in which Mr. Steevens's opinions were occasionally controverted. These he was now desired to retain in his new edition, exactly as they stood before, in order that Mr. S. might answer them. Malone replied, that he could make no such promise; that he must feel himself at liberty to correct his observations, where they were erroneous; to enlarge them, where they were defective; and even to expunge them altogether, where, upon further consideration, he was convinced they were wrong; in short, he was bound to present his work to the public as perfect as he could make it. But he added, that he was willing to transmit every note of that description in its last state to Mr. Steevens, before it went to press. But Steevens persisted in requiring that they should appear with all their imperfections on their head; and, on this being refused, declared that all communication on the subject of Shakspeare was at an end between them. In 1790 Mr. Malone's edition at last appeared; and was sought after and read with the greatest avidity. In 1795 he

tator.

was called upon to display his zeal in defence of his author, against the fabrications with which the Irelands endeavoured to delude the public. Mr. Malone, it is said, saw through the falsehood from its commencement; and laid it open in a volume which was written in the form of a letter to his friend lord Charlemont. Although his attention was still principally directed to Shakspeare, and he was gradually accumulating a most valuable mass of materials for a new edition of that poet, he drew together from various sources the prose works of Dryden, which had lain scattered about, and published them in 1800. In 1808 he prepared for the press a few productions of his friend William Gerard Hamilton, with which he had been entrusted by his executors; and prefixed to this also a brief but elegant sketch of his life. When he was just on the point of going to the press with a new edition of his Shakspeare, he was interrupted by an illness, which proved fatal on the 25th of May, 1812, in the seventieth year of his age.

MALOUIN (Paul James), a French physician, born at Caen in 1701, was professor of medicine in the Royal College of Paris, physician to the queen, and a member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, and fellow of the Royal Society of London. He strictly practised the preservative part of medicine, which is much more certain in its effects than the restorative. To this regimen he was indebted for a healthy old age and an easy death. He died at Paris of an apoplexy, 3d of January 1778, aged seventy-seven. By his will he left a legacy to the faculty, on condition of their holding a public meeting annually, and giving an account of his labors and discoveries. His principal works are, 1. Traité de Chimie, 1734, 12mo. 2. Chimie Medicinale, 2 vols. 12mo. 1755; a book full of curious observations. 3. Some of the Arts in the Collection published by the Academy of Sciences. 4. The Chemical articles in the Encyclopædia. He was a laborious chemist, and well informed for the age he lived in.

MALMESBURY (James Harris, earl of), K B., was the son of the author of Hermes, see HARRIS; and born at Salisbury in 1746. He was educated at Merton College, Oxford, where he was created doctor of civil law, and in 1768 was sent as secretary of embassy to Madrid. He was afterwards minister at Brussels; and went envoy extraordinary to Berlin in 1772. In 1776 he was appointed to the same post at St. Petersburgh; and in 1784 ambassador to the Hague. In this quality he signed the treaty with Prussia and Holland in 1794; and was next employed to negociate the marriage of his present majesty, then prince of Wales, with the late unfortunate princess Caroline of Brunswick. In October, 1796, he became minister plenipotentiary to the French republic; but his mission in that character to Paris, and his negociations at Lisle, were alike fruitless. He was, however, created earl of Malmesbury in 1800, and appointed governor of the Isle of Wight, and lord-lieutenant of Hampshire in 1807. His death took place in 1820. Lord Malmesbury was the author of An Introduction to the History of the Dutch Repub

lic; and a memoir of the life of his father, accompanying an edition of his works in 2 vols. 4to.

MALPIGHI (Marcellus), an eminent Italian physician and anatomist in the seventeenth century. He studied under Massari and Mariano. The duke of Tuscany invited him to Pisa, to be professor of physic. In this city he formed an intimate acquaintance with Borelli. He went back to Bologna, the air of Pisa not agreeing with him. Cardinal Antony Pignatelli, who had known him while he was legate at Bologna, being chosen pope in 1691, under the name of Innocent XII., immediately sent for him to Rome, and appointed him his physician. He died in 1694; and his works, with his life, written by himself, prefixed, were first collected and printed at London, in folio, in 1667. See ANATOMY.

MALPIGHIA, Barbadoes cherry, a genus of the trigynia order, and decandria class of plants; natural order twenty-third, trihilatæ : CAL. pentaphyllous, with melliferous pores on the outside at the base. There are five petals, roundish, and anguiculated the berry unilocular, trispermous. There are many species, all shrubby evergreens of the warm parts of America, rising with branchy stems from eight or ten to fifteen or twenty feet high, ornamented with oval and lanceolate entire leaves, and large pentapetalous flowers, succeeded by red cherry-shaped, eatable berries, of an acid and palatable flavor. Three of these species are reared in our gardens, and make a fine variety in the stove. They retain their leaves all the year round; and begin to flower about the end of autumn, continuing in constant succession till the spring; after which they frequently produce and ripen their fruit, which equals the size of a small cherry. The flowers are of a pale red or purple color. These plants are propagated by seeds, which must be sown in spring, in pots of rich earth; then plunged into a hot-bed, and, when three or four inches high, put in separate small pots, watered and plunged in the bark-bed of the stove; where, after they have remained a year or two, they may be placed in any part of it. They may even be placed in the open air during a month or two of the hottest weather in summer: but must be carefully supplied with water during the whole year.

MALPLAQUET, a village of France, in the department of Gemappes, famous for a most bloody battle fought on the 11th of September, 1709, between the French under marshal Villars, and the allies under prince Eugene and the duke of Marlborough. The French army amounted to 120,000 men; and were posted behind the woods of La Marte and Taniers, in the neigh bourhood of Malplaquet. They had fortified their situation in such a manner with lines, hedges, and trees laid across, that they seemed to be quite inaccessible. In this situation they expected certain victory; and even the soldiers were so eager to engage, that they flung away the bread which had just been given them, though they had taken no sustenance for a whole day before. The allied army began the attack early in the morning, favored by a thick fog.

Their chief impression was made upon the left of the enemy; and with such success, that, notwithstanding their lines and barricadoes, the French were, in less than an hour, driven from their entrenchments. But on the right the combat was sustained with much greater obstinacy. The Dutch, who carried on the attack, drove them from their first line, but were repulsed from the second with great slaughter. The prince of Orange, who headed that attack, persisted in his efforts with incredible perseverance and intrepidity, though two horses had been killed under him, and the greater part of his officers slain and disabled. At last, however, the French were obliged to yield, Villars being dangerously wounded; but they made an excellent retreat under Boufflers, and took post near Guesnoy and Valenciennes.

MALT, n. s. & v. n.
MALT DRINK, N. S,
MALT DUST, n. s.
MALT FLOUR,
MALT HORSE,
MALT'MAN,
MALT'STER.

Sax. mealz; Swed. malt; Belg. mout; Teut. maltz. Grain steeped and dried in preparation for brewing: to make or be made malt: the malt-horse appears in Shakspeare's times to have been often hardridden, and so have become proverbial for a dull, doltish person: the other compounds explain themselves. See MALTING.

You peasant swain, you whoreson, you malthere drudge. Shakspeare. Taming of the Shree. Mome, malthorse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch. Shakspeare. Beer hath malt first infused in the liquor, and is afterwards boiled with the hop.

Bacon's Natural History. Malt-dust is an enricher of barren land, and a great improver of barley. Mortimer's Husbandry. Empty the corn from the cistern into the milt

floor.

Id.

To house it green it will mow-burn, which will make it malt worse. Id.

All mult-drinks may be boiled into the consistence of a slimy syrup. Floyer on the Humours. Sir Arthur the maltster! how fine it will sound! Swift. indispensable; for, unless the whole interior of the Tenderness, or friability in malt, is a property that

is

seed be converted into a farinaceous or mealy sub

stance, the unmalted part of the grain will deteriorate, by absorbing part of the extract.

Reynoldson on Malting. MALTA, an important island of the Mediterranean, twelve leagues distant from Cape Passaro, in Sicily, the passage between being called the Channel of Malta. It is about twenty miles in length, by twelve broad; and is in long. 14° 12' E., and lat. 35° 50′ N. An act of the British parliament has declared it to belong to Europe.

The base of the island is a white free stone, abounding in petrifactions, fossil shells, and remains of enormous fishes; it is generally level, but with some hills. The soil is, in few spots, more than six inches deep, and has been in great part brought from Sicily. It is, however, exceedingly fruitful, producing corn for six months' consumption of its population, which, for its extent, is greater than that of any other part of the world, being, in 1798, 90,000 souls. The island has no river, but some good springs; and water is to be had by digging, but rain water preserved

in cisterns is most generally used. Besides corn and vines, the island produces a considerable quantity of cotton, and the finest oranges in the Mediterranean; together with a variety of other fruits, roots, and herbs in great profusion. The rocks washed by the sea afford abundance of the fucus proper for dyeing (fucus venucosus tinctorius). It has no venomous reptiles, which the inhabitants ascribe to the miraculous intervention of St. Paul, who, when he visited it, delivered it for ever from all animals of this kind! The west and north-west coasts are bounded by perpendicular precipices, forming a natural fortification. The climate is healthy, though very Malta or Maleta is a small place in the

warm.

middle of the island.

Malta was given, by the emperor Charles V., to the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, when driven out of Rhodes by the Turks in 1530. They were required to be of noble birth by both parents for four generations, and were under vows of celibacy and perpetual war with the infidels. The grand master was elected for life, and possessed the attributes of a sovereign prince. They were divided into eight langues, or torgues, of which three were French, two Spanish, one Italian, one German, and originally one English; but, on the Reformation, succeeded by the Anglo Bavarian. The number of knights was unlimited: the badge of the order, a white cross of eight points, worn on the left side. The gradual relaxation of the discipline of the order paved the way for its downfal; luxury succeeded to the noble simplicity of warriors, and the effeminacy of cities to the hardihood of camps. The war with the Turks had long been reduced to a phantom, and the summer cruises of their galleys had become parties of pleasure. These vessels were at last profusely ornamented with carved work and gilding; the sails striped blue and white, with a large red cross on each. Some of them carried 800 men. The defence of this vast fortress was entrusted to foreign mercenaries; and the energy of union, on which the renown of the order had been founded, being extinguished, the French found it easy to corrupt the chiefs, and, in 1798, made an almost unresisted conquest of the island. After a two years' blockade it capitulated to the English. By the treaty of Amiens it was stipu lated, that the island should be restored to the knights under the guarantee of Russia: and the non-compliance with this stipulation by the English was the ostensible cause of France commencing hostilities in 1803. Some abortive projects for reviving it have been since agitated.

The Maltese are partly of Arabic origin, and speak that language mixed with Italian. They are described as generally temperate, industrious, and brave, but also vindictive and jealous of their wives, who, by a natural re-action, seek and find not unfrequent opportunities to be unfaithful.

The ancient capital, named Citta Notabile, or the city of nobles, but more commonly Citta Vecchia, or the old city, is situated on the highest point and nearly in the centre of the island. The modern capital is La Valetta, so named from the grand master its founder, and has about 30,000 inhabitants. It is near the middle of

the north-east side, and built on several rocky points projecting into five of the finest harbours in the world: the entrance, which is not a quarter of a mile broad, is defended by immense fortifications, as is the town, so that the whole island may be considered as an impregnable fortress, to be reduced only by famine."

The other principal landing places are Melcha Bay; St. Paul's Bay, sheltered by the group of Solomon's Island, with a depth of two to six fathoms; old and new Salt Ports; Port St. Mau: all on the north. Port Magdalen, Marza Scala, and Port St. Thomas, on the north-east. Marza Scirocco, on the south-east, is a bay divided into two branches by a projecting point. In the east branch the depth is eight fathoms, and in the west twenty-two fathoms. The whole island contains about 70,000 inhabitants. Gozo (Galus or Guadus) is five miles north-west of Malta. It, as well as Malta, has considerable manufactures of cotton. In the channel between Malta and Gozo are the little islands Cumino (Heppestia) and Cuminotta: the passage between them and Malta is called the Strait of Friuli. The islands of Lampedosa (Lipadusa) and Lampion belong to Malta, between which and the coast of Africa they are situated.

This island was anciently called Melita; and is supposed by Cluverius, from its situation and other particulars, to be either Ogygia, or Hyperia, mentioned by Homer, which last is most probable, as the poet places the mountain Melita in that island. See HYPERIA. The most ancient possessors of Malta, of whom we have any certain account, were the Carthaginians; from whom it was taken by the Romans and yet, during the whole time that it continued under the power of these nations, it was almost entirely barren. Its chief products were figs, melons, honey, cotton, and some few other fruits and commodities, which the inhabitants exchanged for corn. It labored also under great scarcity of water and fuel. According to an ancient tradition, Malta was first possessed by an African prince named Battus, an enemy to queen Dido, from whom it was taken by the Carthaginians, as may be inferred from several Punic inscriptions to be seen on stone pillars and other monuments yet standing. The Arabs seized it in 828; and were driven out of it in their turn by Roger the Norman, earl of Sicily, who took possession of it in 1190; from which time it continued under the dominion of the Sicilian princes till the time of Charles V., when it fell under his power, along with Naples and Sicily.

The knights of Rhodes, afterwards of Malta, originated from a religious military order, called Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. Some time before the journey of Godfrey of Bouillon into the Holy Land, some Neapolitan merchants, who traded to the Levant, obtained leave of the caliph of Egypt to build a house for those of their nation who came thither on pilgrimage, upon paying an annual tribute. Afterwards they built two churches, and received the pilgrims with great zeal and charity. This example being followed by others, they founded a church in honor of St John, and an hospital for the sick; whence they took the name of hospitallers. A

little after Godfrey had taken Jerusalem, in 1099, they began to be distinguished by black habits and a cross with eight points; and, besides the ordinary vows, they took another, to defend the pilgrims against the insults of the infidels. This foundation was completed in 1104, in the reign of Baldwin; and so their order became military, Many persons of quality entered into it, and changed their name of hospitallers into that of knights. When Jerusalem was taken, and the Christians lost their power in the east, the knights retired to Acre or Ptolemais, which they defended valiantly in 1290. Then they followed the king of Cyprus, who gave them Limisson in his dominions, where they staid till 1310. That same year they took Rhodes, under the grand master Poulques de Villaret, a Frenchman; and next year defended it against an army of Saracens since which the grand masters have used these four letters, F. E. R. T. i. e. Fortitudo ejus Rhodum tenuit; and the order was thence called knights of Rhodes. In 1522, Soliman II. having taken Rhodes, the knights retired into Candia, and thence into Sicily.

In 1530, being destitute of a home, they accepted the offer made them by Charles V. of the island of Malta; which they took possession of on the 26th October. At this time neither Villiers, the grand master, nor the knights his companions, had any intention of making this island the place of their residence. But having made an attempt on Modon, a rich and populous town of the Morea, which was attended with no other success than the acquisition of considerable plunder, and the capture of 800 women, they considered the issue of their enterprise as an indication of the will of heaven, and set about fortifying Malta as their future abode. After this the first expedition they engaged in was against the Turks, in 1532 and 1533, under the celebrated Andrew Doria; when they took Coran. In 1534 the grand master Villiers died, and Perino de Ponte, a native of Ast in Italy, was elected his successor. About this time the successes of the pirate Barbarossa, in Africa, had given just cause of alarm. The new grand master, therefore, sent an embassy to the emperor Charles V., which, with another from Muley Hassen the deposed king of Tunis, easily prevailed upon him to carry his arms into Africa. A great number of the bravest knights embarked, with eighteen brigantines of different sizes, four of the best Maltese galleys, and their vessel called the great carrack. In this expedition the knights distinguished themselves in an eminent manner. At the siege of Goletta, after having made a breach by their cannon in the great tower, they jumped out of the galleys into their long boats, and thence into the sea sword in hand, marched with the greatest resolution through a galling fire, and showers of all kinds of missile weapons; and, having gained the shore, quickly ascended the breach, on the top of which they planted their great standard. The emperor declared that the taking of Goletta was cuefly owing to their valor. The city of Tunis soon after surrendered; whereupon the emperor, designing to return to Europe, took his last dinner on board the great carrack. They were now

allowed to import corn and other provisions from Sicily, without paying duty; and the emperor engaged that none of the order should enjoy any of the estates or revenues due to the Maltese knights throughout his dominions, unless they were lawfully authorised by the grand master and his council. Mean time the grand master died, and was succeeded by Didier de Tolon de St. Jalle, a native of Provence, then grand prior of Thoulouse, a man of great conduct and bravery, which he had shown at the siege of Rhodes. During his mastership the knights assisted Botigella, prior of Persia, in repulsing the Turkish corsairs, who had attempted, under Hayradır, lord of Tagiora, the brother of Barbarossa, to take Tripoli. They afterwards raised the strong tower of Alcaid; captured Adabus; on their way back took a rich Turkish galley, worth 160,000 crowns; and landed in triumph, loaded with plunder. Soon after this John de Homedes became grand master. The Maltese still continued to behave with their usual valor against the Turks; but, through the negligence of Charles V., almost all the places held by the Christians on the African coast were reduced by the infidels, and the valor exerted by the Maltese served only to destroy great numbers of them. At last the emperor's affairs in Africa were totally ruined by his unsuccessful expedition against Algiers: but to the last the Maltese knights behaved with great intrepidity. The Maltese commander, with the remains of his knights, arrived in three shattered vessels at the port of Malta, about the end of November 1548. The island was, during this expedition, terribly annoyed by Turkish and other corsairs: but they soon avenged themselves, and their admiral Simeoni sent home a great number of the corsair captains in chains. Having learned that great preparations were made by the Turks at Tachora for the siege of Tripoli, they applied to the emperor, to cause the fortifications of Tripoli to be repaired; till at last Soliman resolved to expel the knights from Malta, as he had before done from Rhodes.

La Valette, the grand master, being apprised of Soliman's designs, ordered every member of the order to repair to Malta, which they did to the amount of 600, attended by retinues of servants that were excellent soldiers, and a body of above 2000 foot from Italy. Those whom age or sickness prevented from attending personally, sold their most valuable effects, to assist in the defence of the island; and Don Garcia, viceroy of Sicily, was ordered by the king of Spain to have 20,000 men ready to co-operate with the Maltese. On the 18th of May, 1565, the Ottoman fleet appeared, consisting of 159 large galleys, and carrying above 30,000 effective men, besides slaves, under Mustapha Basha, an experienced but cruel commander. This formidable force landed near St. Borgo, and ravaged all the neighbouring country with fire and sword, but met with a check from de Copier, marshal of the order, who, falling unexpectedly on detached parties, cut off 1500 Turks with the loss of only eighty men. Meantime Mustapha, dreading the arrival of the Spanish reinforcement, and desirous to get possession of a harbour where his troops could place themselves in a better posture of de