Allow me to throw some light on certain points raised in a prominent feature entitled ‘Barrakka plaque for dead Portuguese sailors ‘wrong’’ (June 22).

Thomas Zerafa may have arrived at a hasty conclusion after perhaps being misled by the English and Portuguese wording of the plaque. The Maltese version, however, clearly refers to l-irvellijiet tat-2 ta’ Settembru 1798 (the uprisings of September 2, 1798), the plural taken to infer that those uprisings continued, later developing into a two-year blockade.

It would have been wiser for the contributor to read Henry Frendo’s article in the 30th edition of Storja 1978-2008 (Journal of the Malta University Historical Society) entitled ‘Making amends with history: a vindication of Maltese-Portuguese relations’.

The Portuguese squadron under Admiral de Niza arrived in Malta on September 19, 1798 and sailed home on December 13, 1799, certainly not staying here for just “three months”, as asserted in the feature. The names of some of the Portuguese who lost their lives and relevant archival sources are also given. Quite different from ‘no Portuguese soldiers died in Malta’.

The peasants’ revolt of September 2, 1798 when at least 40 per cent of the population was in la Cité with the French, may be considered ‘glorious’ by some, including Zerafa, but, judging by the stream of petitions and appeals of the Maltese struggling to gain basic rights from their new British masters after 1800, it was definitely not “the beginning of the independence of Malta”, which eventually had to wait for its first representative government until 1921.

As for the 20,000 victims alleged to have lost their lives, in my published thesis on the period, I interpreted the amount as probably having been doubled to strengthen Maltese arguments requesting compensation for their losses during the same blockade, amplifying the bravura at the same time.

More importantly, however, I recommended a long-overdue memorial for all those, whatever their nationality and purpose, who fell during those two unfortunate years (1798-1800). Historical wounds are possibly healed through the opening of traumatic, repressed memories.

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