Treaty of Sanctus Crux

Background
The Treaty of Sanctus Crux is one of the greatest diplomatic succesess of the Knights Hospitaller. It was proposed by the Knights to help them combat the increasing pirate threat and to settle the problems on the island of Tobago, later called Salina]. It was 1703 and the Golden Age of Piracy was in full swing at that time. One of the tasks of the Knights was fighting piracy in the Caribbean, but despite their efforts piracy was on the rise. Part of this was because almost every island was ruled by a single governor that reports directly to the king or queen of his nation. This was creating a lot of problems for the Knights, they had to constantly navigate different bureocracies. And if a governor was in a bad mood he could cause them a lot of problems. Add to that the fact that the various nations were fighting among each other over the islands and the fact that the Knights were still a bit weakened by the Protestant Reformation.

The Knights took the fighting over control of the valuable trans-Atlantic Link site on the island of Tobago as a reason to call reach a diplomatic solution for these problems and at the same time stabilize the political situation so that the Link can actually be used.

The Treaty
The Knights asked each nation with holdings in the Caribbean to send a high ranking diplomat to attend a meeting of the Sovereign Council where these problems would be addressed. Envoys of the British Venerable order of St. John and the Dutch Johanniter Orde were invited as well. And lastly Batey, the leader of the converted natives that allied themselves with the Knights.

The volatile political situation on the island of Tobago almost ruined the entire meeting of the Sovereign Council. Nobody wanted to have one of the other powers to have the island. Eventually it was decided that nobody could have the island but it would be administered by a neutral group of Christian Natives that would keep the Link site available to all that wanted to use it. But this success wasn't enough for the Knights. Later they were able to convice the other nations to merge some of their colonies together under one governor with vice-governors administering single islands. That way the Knights can deal with one governor and get things done more quickly.

The final great success was when the Knights merged their order with the Venerable order of St. John and the Johanniter Orde. Both the English and the Dutch loved to have the Knights in the Caribbean helping them fight piracy, but they were annoyed that they didn't have any influence on them. They aren't Catholic nations, so they can't call upon the pope. This was exactly what the Knights wanted, they convinced the English and Dutch to help them merge their orders back into the Knights Hospitaller. That way they have some control over the way the Knights do things and the Knights have a large group of new experienced fighters that join their cause.

Results
This treaty is the most important treaty the Knights have signed in centuries. Not only did it increase their membership by about a third, it cemented them as a great power in the New World. The treaty created the neutral nation of Kaya Salina, it redrew the internal political boundaries of several nations and it made sure the transatlantic Link could be used. If it hadn't been for Blackbeard's Pirate Kingdom this treaty would probably have ended piracy in the Caribbean.