Charity may cover a multitude of sins, but I doubt its covering lies as well; and their lies were multitudinous. They had a statement printed--“The English, or Sixth, Language of the Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem: a brief sketch of its history and present position, compiled by a committee appointed for that purpose by the Chapter of the Language.” It can hardly be surpassed in puerility. It talks of proceedings at the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and at Paris in 1816, as if there were no such things as the _Acten des Wiener Congresses_ and the _Archives Parlementaires_ to show that its statements are untrue in all essential points. It cites the Letters Patent of 2 May 1557 as saying one thing, when they say another, as anyone can see by looking at Dugdale’s _Monasticon_, where the document is printed. (I had Dugdale collated with the Patent Roll, and there is no mistake.) It says Peat’s oath of office was sworn in the King’s Bench, 24 February 1834, and is on the record. It would certainly be on the record, if it was sworn in the King’s Bench, as 9 George IV, cap. 17, was then in force. I had the record searched: it was not there. Not long after I was called to the Bar, an old Queen’s Counsel said to me as we were coming out of court--“I can’t understand that fellow telling those transparent lies. The whole object of telling a lie is to deceive. If you don’t do that, you don’t attain your object, and you have the bad taste in your mouth the same.” When the Knights left Malta in 1798, they took their greatest relic with them--the right hand of their patron saint, John Baptist. Having chosen the Czar Paul as Grand Master, they delivered this relic to him at Gatchina on 12 October 1799; and it has remained in Russia ever since. The anniversary is kept, and there is a service for the Translation of the Right Hand in imitation of the old service at Constantinople on the anniversary of its translation there from Antioch. It goes from Petersburg to Gatchina on 11 October and is carried to Saint Paul’s church there on 12 October, returning to Petersburg on 22 October. I saw it in the Winter Palace at Petersburg in 1889, and made some notes about it then--“The Right Hand is sadly dilapidated. The fourth and fifth fingers are gone, so that it can no longer gesticulate in response to inquiries about the harvest. There is a very large hole in the thumb, far too large for the little morsel of the thumb that choked the man-eating dragon at Antioch. And it is all very black indeed. The remaining fingers are long and slender, and the nails are delicately formed. It is the hand of an Egyptian, and a mummy.” It was at Constantinople when Sultan Mohammed took the city in 1453, and Sultan Bajazet gave it to the Knights in 1484.