1885 Appeal Court judgment on the Order’s cession of Malta to France (2)

Albert Ganado (The Sunday Times, October 31) refers to an obscure sentence given by the Court of Appeal in 1885 which he presents as the all-important proof that the French occupation of Malta was illegal. In doing so, he also challenges my contribution on the fate of the Order’s arsenal (September 5).

Without going into the merits of the case itself, which in any case was of a private nature, I wish to add that when Napoleon captured Malta in June 1798, King Ferdinand of Naples protested with France, citing the edict of Emperor Charles V, when entrusting Malta to the Order in 1530: if ever the Order were to leave, the island would revert to the King of Sicily, its rightful suzerain.

Talleyrand, the French Foreign Minister, sent Ferdinand a brusque reply: the Order had shown itself hostile to France by allowing the English to recruit sailors. Would the Neapolitan King assume liability for this action? In any case, since the Order had been expelled from the island, the emperor’s earlier edict could not be applied.

In trying to belittle the crucial role of the English in successfully concluding the long blockade and in ejecting for good the French from Malta, Dr Ganado left out some very important details.

The Portuguese troops were sent out to Malta by Lord Nelson, under whose command they fell. The Neapolitan troops arrived late and their contribution was negligible. The role of the Spaniards was non-existent. In fact, had it not been for the effective naval stranglehold of the Royal Navy around the islands the blockade would have lasted much longer, with the possibility of the Maltese losing out in the end as a result of attrition.

By repairing themselves behind the walls of our fortified towns the French exonerated themselves from feeding the population. This resulted in more supplies for the garrison and untold misery and starvation for the Maltese in the countryside.

Alexander Ball was indeed the representative of the King of Naples in Malta but he took his orders solely from the King of England and it was he who, when the time came, ordered the lowering of all Neapolitan flags on the island in favour of the Union Flag. The number of war dead totalled 300 and not thousands, as Dr Ganado claims.

I think we should all come to peace with the fact that England was pivotal in making true the common wish of the Maltese in seeing their islands liberated from ungodly French tyrannical rule.