The rescued slab has also an interesting tale belonging to it, which must be my excuse for an unwarrantably tedious historical digression. The troops of the Emperor and the Hospital continued to occupy Mehdia during the years 1551, 1552, and 1553. In the latter year a very strong feeling of discontent appears to have arisen amongst the soldiers, which induced the Grand Master to send first Don Pietro Mendoza, and then Leone Strozzi, Prior of Capua, to arrange matters and restore peace to the garrison. Strozzi appears to have been a man of great energy and boundless ambition, and no sooner had he arrived at Mehdia, than he conceived the project of obtaining a personal grant of it from the Emperor, and of colonising it, after making his peace with the rulers of the Ottoman Empire, through the good offices of Queen Mary of England. Before any answer arrived, he had calmed the irritation which existed amongst the Christian troops, and having captured several Moorish vessels, returned in triumph to Malta. At this juncture the Grand Master John d’Omedes died, and Strozzi became an eager candidate for the vacant post. The electing knights seemed to have entertained such a wholesome dread of his pride and tyranny, that their choice fell upon Claude de la Sengle, who had greatly distinguished himself three years before at the taking of Mehdia. De la Sengle proceeded forthwith to Rome, where he received an envoy of the Emperor, who brought with him a deed of gift, conferring the possession of Mehdia on the Order of St. John. As soon as the Grand Master returned to Malta a council was assembled to deliberate as to the acceptance or refusal of the preferred possession. The Viceroy of Sicily appeared before it, and strongly urged the former course. These discussions resulted in a commission being appointed to proceed to Mehdia, with orders to report in the greatest possible detail on its position, fortifications, and natural advantages. The Prior of Capua (still smarting under the vexation entailed by his signal failure as a candidate for the Grand Mastership, and very possibly not a little angry at the refusal of the Emperor to sanction his plan for a colony in North Africa) was named its chief, and the commissioners, after making a minute survey of the city, were directed to advise the Order as to its ultimate decision. So much importance was attached to the investigation that every Langue or Division of the Confraternity was represented in the commission. The delegate of England was Sir Usualdo Masimbert, that of Italy Giovanni Antonio Pescatore.