At the close of the Napoleonic Wars, Malta officially became part of the British Empire in 1814. As the British presence there increased, so too did public interest in the island's history, particularly the military religious order of the Knights Hospitaller. In 1858, the army officer Whitworth Porter (1827–92) published this two-volume work, tracing the fortunes of the order since its establishment following the First Crusade. Incorporating details of the knights' social habits and customs into his narrative, Porter also provides supplementary material such as royal and papal documents in translation. Volume 2 opens in 1522 with the surrender of Rhodes, followed by the order's eventual relocation to Malta, which the Ottomans besieged without success in 1565. The coverage extends to the blockade of Valletta, then under French control, at the end of the eighteenth century.