" The citizens of Valetta
were fond of relating their astonishment, and that of the French, at
Captain Ball's ship wintering at anchor out of the reach of the guns,
in a depth of fathom unexampled, on the assured impracticability of
which the garrison had rested their main hope of regular supplies.
Nor can I forget, or remember without some portion of my original
feeling, the solemn enthusiasm with which a venerable old man,
belonging to one of the distant casals, showed me the sea coombe,
where their father Ball (for so they commonly called him) first
landed, and afterwards pointed out the very place on which he first
stepped on their island; while the countenances of his townsmen, who
accompanied him, gave lively proofs that the old man's enthusiasm was
the representative of the common feeling.
There is no reason to suppose that Sir Alexander Ball was at any time
chargeable with that weakness so frequent in Englishmen, and so
injurious to our interests abroad, of despising the inhabitants of
other countries, of losing all their good qualities in their vices,
of making no allowance for those vices, from their religious or
political impediments, and still more of mistaking for vices a mere
difference of manners and customs.
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