Masonic Notes And Queries.

KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS . [ We transfer to our columns , from Notes and Queries , another interesting paper on this subject ] : — " I shall take advantage of a personal appeal , addressed to me hy your correspondent AN OBSERVER , to express my great disappointment that the strictures of HISTORICUS , SCRUTATOR , ancl others , have failed to draw from the

Society calling themselves the "Illustrious and Sovereign Order of Knights Hospitallers of St . John of Jerusalem , Anglia , " any tangible proof or evidence of the justice of their claim to be considered a legitimate branch of the famous Order , whose title and attributes they have assumed . MAJOR POUTER and AUTIQUABIUS , in taking up the gauntlet , have indeed declaimed in lofcy

language , but have produced nothing in support of their cause beyond what their Synoptical Sketch has previously put forward ; with what amount of claim to credit , HISTORICUS and SCBUTATOII have sufficiently demonstrated . MAJOR PORTER , in his reply to HISTOBICUS , has not condescended to enlighten us on the reasons that induced him to change his opinion of the legitimacy of the

soi-disant Langne of England expressed in the History of the Knights of Malta .. He considers it enough for us to know , that , although an opinion adverse to their claims did once prevail in his mind , yet , having further considered the subject and held converse with some leading members of the Langue , he had become so satisfied with the justice of those claims as to enroll himself

a member of the Society ; and even make amends , in the second edition of his work , for untoward remarks regarding them expressed in the first , & c . With your permission I will explain , as briefly as possible , why I feel so much disappointed that the gallant MAJOR has not been more explicit and communicative on the subject . In the year 1858 , the Langue did me the honour to nominate me their Commissioner , to lay before the Lieutenant of this Magistery and Sacred Council of the

Order of St . John , in Rome , an application on their part for some recognition by tho supreme authority of the Order . I was , at the same time , presented with a copy of the Synoptical Sketch , aud instructed b } " - the Grand Secretary to consider it a text-book for general reference ; and a vade-mecum , from whence to g lean all the information concerning the Langue and its claims that I might

require in dealing with the S . Council . In the course of my diplomatic doings I was frequently questioned as to the antecedents of the Langue , and more especially as to the authority on which their pretensions to be considered legitimate were founded . Being totally ignorant of everything concerning the body of which I was the representative , and finding the Synoptical Sketch quite

insufficient to furnish any satisfactory reply , either to myself or to my interrogators , I was driven in my perplexity to apply to the late Sir Richard Broun , the Grand Secretary of the Langue , as well as other and distinguished members of that fraternity , for some evidence and A'ouchers for their claims more respectable than what I coulcl derive from the brochure above mentioned . Sir

Richard ' s reply may be thus condensed : —He had no proofs to produce , and despaired of procuring me any ; that from 1835 to 1858 , he had been trying to make himself acquainted with the earl y history of the Langue , but without success ; that after tbe death of the Grand Prior Sir Robert Peat , in 1837 , he ( Sir R . B . ) discovered that tho documents connected with the revival of the

Langue were scattered about in many hands , and , as he feared , for the most part lost or destroyed ; that possibly some might be in possession of the family of the " Agent General" employed by the ( soi-disant ) French Capitular Commission , viz ., a tailor , named Currie : some , again , had passed away with the late Mr . B ., ci-dwant Grand Secretary ; and some might be , probably , found with a distinguished literary member of the Langue , & c * In short , I was given to understand that I must not expect

anything more presentable than what the Synoptical-Sketch- afforded . Your readers will , therefore , imagine how eagerly I looked for the proofs—so powerful , efficacious , and convincing in his case—that MAJOR PORTER had been so fortunate as to discover ; but which Sir Richard Broun ' s efforts for more than twenty years , with all his experience and advantages as Grand

Secretary and principal working member of the Langue , toback those efforts , had failed to bring to light . The negociations in which I had the honour to figure as Commissioner broke down entirely ; but I think the Languewill do me the justice to allow , from no fault of mine . I regretted the catastrophe then as I do now . As to one cause of tho failure , I will say a few words in reply to

the observation of ANTIQUARIUS : that " the Roman Council was quite as willing as the English Chapter ,, that an amalgamation of the respective bodies should take place . " AXTIQUARIUS is ignorant of the principal cause of such willingness . It was because the S . Council unhesitatingly received for truth the assertion , put forth with unblushing effrontery , passimin the Synoptical

, Sketch , and other publications of the Langue—endorsed , by the Grand Priors , men of note and position , who presided at their chapters , reiterated in their ' Declaratory Resolutions '—impressed upon me , their Commissioner , by repeated instructions from their Grand Secretary , as a powerful argument in my dealings with the S . Council in their behalf , and solemnly averred in an address to

the-S . Council itself , from the Chapter of the Langue , dated from ' St . John ' s Gate , Olerkemvell , 14 th July , 1858 ; ' and signed on the part of that Society by Dr . James Burnes , 'Preceptor of Scotland , ' & c , President ; Sir Richard Bourn , Bart ., ' Grand Secretary ; ' Thomas Troughear Williams , ' Knight of the Golden Spur , Count of the Lateran , Chancellor , Grand Cross of St . John of Jerusalem ; ' J . A . AVilson , 'Knight of the Legion of Honour ,

Knight of the Golden Spur , Grand Cross of St . John of Jerusalem , Commendator of Quenyngton , and Sub-prior of Clerkenwell : ' lhat the lapsed corporation of the 4 th and hth Philip and Mary had been solemnly revived , and that the English Langue had been legally constituted a corporate body by certain oaths , de fideli administratione , taken , before Sir Thomas Denman , Lord Chief Justice of

England , in- open court , b y Sir Robert Peat , as Grand Trim ; $ fc , fyc . I will hero candidly confess , that my knowledge of the law of lapsed corporations was not sufficiently profound to detect the absurdity of this audacious statement ; and it may easily be imagined that the information on the subject possessed by the German and Italian commanders , composing the S . Councilwas not superior

, to mine ; so , for reasons that in no way concern the present discussion , they were for a while disposed to look favourably upon the proposal . * However , shortly after the negociation commenced , the magisterial secretary was deputed to visit England to inquire into thatand other pleas advanced by the League , as claims for recognition ; and the unhappy result was , that

immediately on the return of the secretary to Rome , the negociation itself came to an abrupt termination . I have had many opportunities afforded me of examining the records , preserved in the Cbancellerie of the Order at Rome , that concern the appointment of the famous Commission of Paris ; its rise , labours , decline , and final extinction , with other documentary evidence , fully

bearing out the account given of it by your correspondents HISTOBICUS and SCRUTATOR . It is a curious fact , not mentioned by any of your correspondents , but which alone would be sufficient to nullify all the acts of the soi-disant Capitular Commission to whom the Langue owes its existence , that there was not a single Knight of Justice , with one unfortunate exception , and but an insignificant number of Knights of Devotion and Grace , among those who declared themselves a permanent Cotn-