signing of the capitulation, called forth into constant activity the rarest and most difficult virtues of a commanding mind; virtues of no show or splendor in the vulgar apprehension, yet more infallible characteristics of true greatness than the most unequivocal displays of enterprise and active daring. Scarcely a day passed, in which Sir Alexander Ball's patience, forbearance, and inflexible constancy, were not put to the severest trial. He had not only to remove the misunderstandings that arose between the Maltese and their allies, to settle the differences among the Maltese themselves, and to organize their efforts: he was likewise engaged in the more difficult and unthankful task of counteracting the weariness, discontent, and despondency, of his own countrymen ;—a task, however, which he accomplished by management and address, and an alternation of real firmness with apparent yielding. During many months he remained the only Englishman who did not think the siege hopeless, and the object worthless. He often spoke of the time in which he resided at the country seat of the grand master at St. Antonio, four miles from Valetta, as perhaps the most trying period of his life. For some weeks Captain Vivian was his sole English companion, of whom, as his partner in anxiety, he always expressed himself with affectionate esteem. Sir Alexander Ball's presence was absolutely necessary to the Maltese, who, accustomed to be governed by him, became incapable of acting in concert without his immediate influence. In the outburst of popular emotion, the impulse, which produces an insurrection, is for a brief while its sufficient pilot; the attraction constitutes the cohesion, and the common provocation, supplying an immediate object, not only unites, but directs, the multitude. But this first impulse had passed away, and Sir Alexander Ball was the one individual who possessed the general confidence. On him they relied with implicit faith and even after they had long enjoyed the blessings of British government and protection, it was still remarkable with what childlike helplessness they were in the habit of applying to him, even in their private concerns. It seemed as if they thought him made on purpose to think for them all. Yet his situation at St. Antonio was one of great peril: and he attributed his preservation to the dejection, which had now begun to prey on the spirits of the French garrison, and which rendered them unenterprising and almost passive, aided by the dread which the nature of the country inspired. For subdivided as it was into small fields, scarcely larger than a cottage-garden, and each of these little squares of land inclosed with substantial stone walls; these too from the necessity of having the fields perfectly level, rising in tiers above each other; the whole of the inhabited part of the island was an effective fortification for all the purposes of annoyance and offensive warfare. Sir Alexander Ball exerted himself successfully in procuring information respecting the state and temper of the garrison, and by the assistance of the clergy and the almost universal fidelity of the Maltese, contrived that the spies in the pay of the French should be in truth his own most confidential agents. He had already given splendid proofs that he could outfight them; but here, and in his after diplomatic intercourse previously to the recommencement of the war, he likewise out-witted them. He once told me with a smile, as we were conversing on the practice of laying wagers, that he was sometimes inclined to think that the final perseverance in the siege was not a little due to several valuable bets of his own, he well knowing at the time, and from information which himself alone possessed, that he should certainly lose them. Yet this artifice had a considerable effect in suspending the impatience of the officers, and in supplying topics for dispute and conversation. At length, however, the two French frigates, the sailing of which had been the subject of these wagers, left the great harbor on the 24th of August, 1800, with a part of the garrison; and one of them soon became a prize to the English. Sir Alexander Ball related to me the circumstances which occasioned the escape of the other; but I do not recollect them with sufficient accuracy to dare repeat them in this place. On the 15th of September following, the capitulation was signed, and after a blockade of two years the English obtained possession of Valetta, and remained masters of the whole island and its dependencies. Anxious not to give offence, but more anxious to communicate the truth, it is not without pain that I find myself under the moral obligation of remonstrating against the silence concerning Sir Alexander Ball's services or the transfer of them to others. More than once has the latter roused my indignation in the reported speeches of the House of Commons; and as to the former, I need only state that in Rees's Encyclopædia there is an historical article of considerable length under the word Malta, in which Sir Alexander's name does not once occur! During a residence of eighteen months in that island, I possessed and availed myself of the best possible means of information, not only from eye-witnesses, but likewise from the principal agents themselves. And I now thus publicly and unequivocally assert, that to Sir A. Ball pre-eminently-and if I had said, to Sir A. Ball alone, the ordinary use of the word under such circumstances would bear me out—the capture and the preservation of Malta were owing, with every blessing that a powerful mind and a wise heart could confer on its docile and grateful inhabitants. With a similar pain I proceed to avow my sentiments on this capitulation, by which Malta was delivered up to his Britannic Majesty and his allies, without the least mention made of the Maltese. With a warmth honorable both to his head and his heart, Sir Alexander Ball pleaded, as not less a point of sound policy than of plain justice, that the Maltese, by some representative, should be made a party in the capitulation, and a joint subscriber in the signature. They had never been the slaves or the property of the Knights of St. John, but freemen and the true landed proprietors of the country, the civil and military government of which, under certain restrictions, had been vested in that order, yet checked by the rights and influences of the clergy and the native nobility, and by the customs and ancient laws of the island. This trust the Knights had, with the blackest treason and the most profligate perjury, betrayed and abandoned. The right of government of course reverted to the landed proprietors and the clergy. Animated by a just sense of this right, the Maltese had risen of their own accord, had contended for it in defiance of death and danger, had fought bravely, and endured patiently. Without undervaluing the military assistance afterwards furnished by Great Britain (though how scanty this was before the arrival of General Pigot is well known), it remained undeniable, that the Maltese had taken the greatest share both in the fatigues and in the privations consequent on the siege; and that had not the greatest virtues and the most exemplary fidelity been uniformly displayed by them, the English troops (they not being more numerous than they had been for the greater part of the two years) could not possibly have remained before the fortifications of Valetta, defended as that city was by a French garrison which greatly outnumbered the British besiegers. Still less could there have been the least hope of ultimate success; as if any part of the Maltese peasantry had been friendly to the French, or even indifferent, if they had not all indeed been most zealous and persevering in their hostility towards them, it would have been impracticable so to blockade that island as to have precluded the arrival of supplies. If the siege had proved unsuccessful, the Maltese were well aware that they should be exposed to all the horrors which revenge and wounded pride could dictate to an unprincipled, rapacious, and sanguinary soldiery; and now that success had crowned their efforts, was this to be their reward, that their own allies were to bargain for them with the French as for a herd of slaves, whom the French had before purchased from a former proprietor? If it be urged, reasoned Sir A. B., that there is no established government in Malta, is it not equally true that through the whole population of the island there is not a single dissentient;—and thus that the chief inconvenience, which an established authority is to obviate, is virtually removed by the admitted fact of their unanimity? And have they not a bishop and a dignified clergy, their judges and municipal magistrates, who were at all times sharers in the power of the government, and now, supported by the unanimous suffrage of the inhabitants, have a rightful claim to be considered as its representatives? Will it not be oftener said than answered, that the main difference between French and English injustice rests in this point alone, that the French seized on the Maltese without any previous pretences of friendship, while the English procured possession of the island by means of their friendly promises, and by the cooperation of the natives afforded in confident reliance on these promises? The impolicy of refusing the signature on the part of the Maltese was equally evident; since such refusal could answer no one purpose but that of alienating their affections by a wanton insult to their feelings. For the Maltese were not only ready but desirous and eager to place themselves at the same time under British protection, to take the oath of loyalty as subjects of the British crown, and to acknowledge their island to belong to it. These representations, however, were overruled and I dare affirm, from my own experience in the Mediterranean, that our conduct in this instance aggravated the impression which had been made at Corsica, Minorca, and elsewhere, and was often referred to by men of reflection in Sicily, who have more than once said to me, "a connection with Great Britain, with the consequent extension and security of our commerce, are indeed great blessings: but who can rely on their permanence; or that we shall not be made to pay bitterly for our zeal as partisans of England, whenever it shall suit its plans to deliver us back to our old oppressors?" ESSAY VI. The way of ancient ordnance, though it winds, Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches That, on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow Honoring the holy bounds of property! -There exists A higher than the warrior's excellence. WALLENSTEIN.* CAPTAIN BALL'S services in Malta were honored with his sovereign's approbation, transmitted in a letter from the secretary Dundas, and with a baronetcy. A thousand pounds† were at *Part I. act 1. sc. 4.-Ed. I scarce know whether it be worth mentioning, that this sum remained undemanded till the spring of the year 1805: at which time, during an examination of the treasury accounts, I observed the circumstance and noticed it to the governor, who had suffered it to escape altogether from his memory, for the latter years at least. The value attached to the present by the receiver, must have depended on his construction of its purpose and meaning: for, in a pecuniary point of view, the sum was not a moiety of what Sir Alexander had expended from his private fortune during the blockade. His immediate appointment to the government of the island, so earnestly prayed for by the Maltese, would doubtless have furnished a less questionable proof that his services were as highly estimated by the ministry as they were graciously accepted by his sovereign. But this was withholden as long as it remained possible to doubt, whether great talents, joined to local experience, and the confidence and affection of the inhabi |
