An eighteenth-century bill of health of the Order of St. John From Malta.

DURING iTS two hundred and sixty-eight years of domination over the Maltese Islands (1530-1798), the Order of St. John of Jerusalem waged an unceasing war against the Barbary and Turkish pirates in the Mediterranean. Those who escaped death were enslaved by the victor, irrespective of sex or age, or whether they were combatants or simply passengers and crews of unarmed vessels; so much so that slavery came to form a sort of institution regulated by definite rules concerning the selling, employment and ransoming of captives by either side. A Maltese boy, Gio Maria Zammit, was captured by the Barbary corsairs in 1734 at the age of fifteen years and sold as a slave at Tripoli in North Africa. After twelve years in captivity he renounced the Catholic faith and turned Moslem, as he was constrained to do by his master. He subsequently married a Moslem girl by whom he had several children. He finally succeeded in escaping from Tripoli after forty-three years in captivity, and reached Rome with his fourteen-year-old son Joseph. Gio Maria Zammit, by this time sixty-five years old, abjured the Moslem religion, became reconciled with the Catholic faith and had his son baptised in Rome. He eventually came with his son to Malta but being unable to find work, he decided to return to Rome in search of employment. In those days no one could leave Malta without the express permission of the Grand Court of the Castellania. Zammit therefore applied to the Grand Court and obtained the necessary "bill of departure" [patente di partenza] which entitled him to sail from Malta for Sicily, whence he planned to travel to Rome. Meanwhile, however, he was having trouble with his son. Joseph was getting out of hand and even robbed his father of his little store of money. Out of revenge after parental punishment, Joseph denounced his father to the Tribunal of the Inquisition. He alleged that his father's real intention in going to Sicily was to board a ship bound for Tripoli, there to rejoin his Moslem wife and children. As the Tribunal was informed of Gio Maria Zammit's past apostacy, immediate steps were taken to prevent him from leaving the island. He was arrested by the Chief Executive Police Officer [Gran Visconte] and his bill of health was seized and exhibited in court. When brought before the Tribunal, Zammit denied his son's accusation and succeeded in convincing the judges that it was a trumped-up charge, that he had no intention of returning to Tripoli, and that he genuinely meant to seek employment in Rome. The Tribunal released him, but the bill of health was not returned to him and to this