To those who have written to dispute my statement that Sir Alexander Ball was the first governor of Malta, I have a short reply which is backed by Ball himself.

Reproduced here is the note in his handwriting in a diary he kept recording his appointment as governor of Malta on September 29, 1799, well before the period mentioned by them, at the time the Maltese insurgents were blockading the French in Valletta.

What they have written is totally irrelevant.

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