autonomy under Spanish rule, had been very reluctant to submit to the
Knights, and had protested to Charles V. against their surrender to
the Order, as a violation of the promise given in 1428 by Alphonse of
Sicily that Malta would never be separated from the Sicilian Crown.
They knew that the Order would conduct itself in Malta as a garrison
in a fortress, and that this would mean strict military control over
the inhabitants. It was also probable that the Turks would again
besiege the Knights, as they had done at Rhodes in 1480 and 1522, and
the Maltese were strongly averse to being drawn into such danger.

During the residence of the Knights the native population of Valetta
was considerably modified. Some of the Rhodians who had, in 1523,
accompanied the Knights, came with them to Malta; mercenaries who
fought for the Order sometimes stayed on in the island, and many in
this new population were illegitimate children of the Knights. For,
though the vow of chastity was insisted on to the end as a condition
of entrance into the Order, in practice, by the eighteenth century, it
had become entirely ineffective.

At first the Knights made but slight inroads on the privileges of
the natives, curtailing them only so far as was necessary for their
military security, and imposing but few taxes upon them. As the island
grew rich with the wealth brought in by the raids of the Knights, the
condition of the Maltese also improved, and while the Order flourished
it was not an excessive burden to the natives. But when the
Knights started upon their decline the condition of the islanders
deteriorated. They had always suffered from the occasional scarcity
due to the ill-humour of the Spanish King or the natural failure of
the Sicilian harvest. But now the taxes became heavier and heavier,
and the free services of the Maltese, either as labourers in the