The general advised the latter plan; but the majority voted for the attack. The Maltese battalion therefore immediately began their march towards the enemy; whom La Sande, an officer of diftinguished reputation, at the head of the knights, fuddenly and brifkly charged; whilft Afcagne de la Come, commander of the newly-arrived troops. whofe opinion had been given in favour of the defenfive plan, fufficiently proved that those who are fometimes accused of too much circumfpection in council, are not the leaft valiant in the field; for he took the field with the knights, and undauntedly expofed himself to the greatest dangers. "The victory was [not] long deciding; for the Turkish soldiers, who had been fo forcibly dragged into action, fo far from exerting themselves to obtain the victory, could fcarcely be prevailed upon to engage; and they had no fooner difcharged one volley of fmall-arms, than, being vigorously preffed by the Maltese battalion, they fhamefully betook themselves to flight. The bafhaw, thus abandoned, and fearing being taken by the enemy, was under the cruel neceffity, notwithstanding his exemplary courage, of following his cowardly troops. Twice he fell from his horse, and twice he must have fallen into the hands of the Chriftians, had not fome of his officers, at the risk of their lives or their liberty, fteadily affifted him, and given him time to re-feat bimfelf in his faddle. The knights purfued the infidels with the greatest fpirit; but they were fo inebriated with fuccefs, that they no longer preferved either ranks or order, and threw off their cuiraffes, to enable them more fpeedily to overtake the fugitives. On arriving at the place where the Turks were to embark, the viceroy of Algiers, who was in ambuscade behind the point of a rock, rufhed out at the head of his troops, and finding the knights and Chriftian foldiers in diforder, felf upon them with great fury, killed feveral, and took others prifoners. Fortunately for the Chriftians, De Sande arrived with fome battalions during the combat. These rushed headlong among_the_Algerines, carrying all before them, and released the prifoners. The Turks, thus fituated, had no other refource than to embark as fpeedily as poffible. A new kind of battle took place; and, in order to favour the retreat of the Turks, Piali, their admiral, kept up a conftant fire from his fhips. But the fury of the Chriftian foldiers was fo great, that they purfued the fugitives into the fea, and killed a great number of them. "The admiral having embarked the poor remains of his own formidable army, fet fail and proceeded towards Sicily. The viceroy feeing the fleet from the top of the caftle of Syracufe, learnt, without the information of a courier, the happy effects of the affistance he had afforded, and the raifing of the fiege. "La Valette no fooner perceived the firft embarkation of the infidels, than he inftantly filled up their trenches, and destroyed all their works. Every one of the inhabitants, men, women, children, and even the knights, were indifcriminately employed night and day on this occafion; and that with the pleasure and difpatch of prifoners who wish to efcape from captivity. In the mean time the grand-master placed a garrifon in Fort St. Elmo; and the Turks bad the grief and mortification to fee, from their fhips, the enfigns of St. John waving in the wind. "Thus "Thus ended this memorable fiege, in which twenty five thousand infidels were flain; and two hundred and fixty knights, together with more than feven thousand foldiers and inhabitants, fell victims to the Chriftian cause. In fact, at the moment when the Turks departed, there fcarcely remained fix hundred effective men, including the knights in the Burgh; and even the greatest part of that number were feverely wounded. The newly-arrived troops retired near the City Notable, in order to refresh themselves after the flight of the infidels; and, during their flay in that place, the principal chiefs, together with all the knights belonging to that army, proceeded to the Burgh, to pay their compliments to La Valette, who, with the knights and all the inhabitants, gratefully received them as their deliverers from the most immi. nent danger. The knights embraced each other with marks of the greatest friendship and tenderness; but, when they reflected on the cruel lofs they had fuftained, in the moft illuftrious and bravest members of the order; when they confidered the deplorable state of the befieged fortreffes, the ruined walls and fortifications-the artillery moftly difmounted-the houfes either thrown down or fhaken in their foundations-the magazines emptied of powder, provifions, and ammunition-the inhabitants pale and disfigured by fatigue-the knights and the grand mafter himself unfhaved, difhevelled, their drefs dirty and difordered; the greatest part having never taken off their clothes for months; many indeed of these brave warriors ftill appearing with bandages on wounds fo honourably obtained;—when, I fay, all thefe affecting images prefented themfelves to their imagination, they reciprocally thed tears, and not only wept at the remembrance of their misfortunes, but for joy that at laft Malta was faved. In order to commemorate the great actions fo lately performed, the Burgh, which had been the principal theatre of the war, was called Citta Vittoriofa, or the Victorious City, which name it has ever fince preserved." Vol. ii. p. 119. The third volume gives the hiftory of Malta, from the election of the Grand Malter, Rohan, in 1775, to the present time, including its bafe and difhonourable furrender to the French, under Buonaparte, and its recapture by the English. These circumstances are fo well known, or may be fo easily referred to, that further extracts appear to be unneceffary. The reader will find in the Appendix, an explanation of the various engravings which accompany the work, with obfervations upon them, and various other particulars of greater or lefs importance to the illuftration of the fubject. If it were only for the number of authentic State Papers, and other documents, the excellent Map prefixed, with the Chart of the Islands, this publication would be entitled to praife. But as we have no other work on the fubject fo comprehenfive, and as far as we can judge fo faithfully illuftrated, it will probably find a place in all collections of the kind. The plates are numerous, but indifferently executed. The Map and Chart are entitled to the highest commendation. ART. Aar. VI. The Hiftory of Scotland, from the Union of the Crowns, &c. (Continued from our last, p. 245.) THE author next draws a very fhocking though too just a character of Darnley. His object is to perfuade the reader, that the wayward temper and low amours of that Prince had, foon after his marriage, completely alienated from him the affections of the Queen. This is another inftance of Mr. Laing's addrefs in preparing the mind for the impreffion which he wishes to make upon it; but we shall foon find fufficient evidence that the affections of Mary were not eafily alienated from any object on which they had been fixed. Their first alienation from Darnley feems to have been occafioned by the murder of Rizzio, which, when contemplated with all its circumftances, was certainly a deed of fuch atrocity as has feldom been equalled, and never furpaffed. This our author reluctantly admits, while he labours, in oppofition to as full evidence as could be looked for in fuch a cafe, to vindicate Murray from any participation in that deed of brutality. He revives the calumny invented by Buchanan of the illicit commerce between the Queen and Rizzio. As no man had hitherto given credit to this tale, which Robertson rejects with juft indignation, Mr. Laing does not candidly avow that he believes it himfelf; but, with his ufual profeffional addrefs, obferves that Rizzio, though ugly, was not paft his vigour; hoping, no doubt, that the grofs infinuation would have its intended effect. He admits that Morton, Ruthven, and Lethington, Murray's well-tried friends, intended to drag that foreign favourite from the palace, and hang him in the view of the people, that he might no longer by his influence prevent the recal of Murray from that banifhiment into which he had been driven to efcape the confequences of his rebellion; but he attributes to the King's jealous and vindictive fpirit alone the murdering of Rizzio in the prefence of the Queen. Darnley was indeed very abfurd; but that he fhould have thought of committing fuch an outrage on his wife, then far gone with child, is fo extremely improbable, that nothing fhort of demonftration can entitle the fuppofition to the fmalleft degree of credit. Had the Queen mifcarried and died, the only confequences that could have been reasonably expected from the circumflances attending the murder of Rizzio, Rizzio, what must have become of Darnley? He would have been no longer even a nominal king; and unreflecting as he was, he must have perceived all this, had not he been deceived by the faction who employed him as a tool to carry into effect the object of the alliance into which they had entered with Elizabeth before Mary's return from France. Hence we find that, immediately after the murder, they upbraided the Queen with the banishment of Murray and his friends, whom they affured her that the fhould fee in her presence next day; and that prediction being verified, leaves no room to doubt that Murray was privy to the confpiracy for the murder of Rizzio, that he was aware of the manner in which it was to be perpetrated, and that he expected from it the long wifhed-for opportunity of placing himfelf at the head of the government. If the reader be not fatisfied of all this, we refer him to Tytler and Whitaker, who have brought fuch proofs as are abfolutely irresistible, that the murder of Rizzio was planned for the fame purpose with the Raid of Beith, and that the confpirators had a hundred ways of getting rid of fo infignificant a foreigner, without committing an outrage on their helplefs fovereign, had they not expected from that outrage confequences which did not enfue*. That the conduct of Darnley on this occafion funk him in the Queen's efteem, and of courfe diminished her affection for him, cannot be doubted; but it is not true that from the day on which Rizzio was murdered " nothing could be perceived but great grudges in the heart of the Queen towards her hufband." This is indeed affirmed on the authority of Melville, whofe age and dotage, it seems, detract not from his teftimony, when it favours the caufe for which our author contends; but we have better authority than even that of Melville for afferting that the grudges which he mentions See Tytler's Inquiry, vol. 2, pp. 4-15; Whitaker's Mary vindicated, 2d edition, vol. 2, p. 75, &c. vol. 3, p. 217, &c. This laft writer fays, in the former of the two places referred to, that Darnley infitted on Rizzio's being murdered in the prefence of the Queen; and we have no doubt of his having acted thus abfurdly, after the confpirators had fittedh for their purpose; but it is not conceiv able that fuch an outrage could have originally occurred to himself. In the latter place to which we have referred, there is indeed complete proof that the whole plan of the murder was concerted by the triumvirate; and that Darnley was the dupe of those whom he thought he was directing in an enterprife undertaken to procure to him the crown matrimonial. 66 were vifible only to himself. Although", fay the lords of the privy council*, "Rizzio's murder was perpetrated with his (the King's) knowledge, yet would the Queen never accufe him thereof, but did always excufe him, and was willing to appear as if the believed it not." Mr. L. indeed hopes to deftroy this, and fome other teftimonies to the fa:ne effect, by calling them artful reprefentations. "From Lethington's letter to Archbishop Beton, it appears", fays he," that the members of council, inftead of writing, were required by the Queen to fubfcribe those letters to the French court, which are prepofterously quoted as proofs of her affection, and her husband's caprice". The reader will recollect that Lethington was one of the triumvirate who, as the advocates for Mary contend, directed the confpiracy formed to murder Darnley, and to tumble their fovereign from her throne. He was the very man to whom Whitaker has traced the forgery of the letters which were produced at the conferences in England, as proofs of Mary's complicated guilt of adultery and murder. He confeffed himfelf that he had frequently counterfeited the hand-writing of his fovereign; and he certainly caballed with her and her friends, betraying to them the fecrets of his own party, at the very time he was leagued with Murray and Morton against her*. As the confpiracy, in which he acted fo confpicuous a part, was, if real, formed long before the date of his letter to the archbishop, the reader will judge for himself, what credit is to be given to the teftimony of fuch a man, writing, as he fays himself, not merely as fecretary of ftate, but as a friend delivering with freedom his own inferences from every fact which he relates. Yet even the letter of this political Proteus will not fairly bear the conftruction which Mr. Laing puts on it. Lethington fpeaks of the high honour which the Queen had conferred on Darnley, of his ungrateful return, and of her confequent unhappiness. He likewife hints at a dark propofal of his own, on which we shall animadvert presently; after which he fays "Upon fome brutye that raife before her cuming out of Edin brought, of the kings voyage towards Flanders, or fome other country, fcho defyrit the noblemen and others of the council to subscryve letters to the king, Q. mother and Cardinal of Lorrain, containing a difcourfe of the proceedings betwixt the kyng and her. I fend you See their memorial to the Queen-mother of France as quoted by Tytler, vol. 2. p. 56. Whitaker, vol. 3. p. 46, &c. presently |