It took the Maltese barely 80 days to realise the hopelessness of the French occupying forces to provide food not only for themselves but, much more seriously, for the 100,000 inhabitants of the Island.

The uprising of the Maltese at Rabat on September 2 and 3, 1798, carried out without the help of any foreign aid, marks the first and only time the Maltese fought their own battle.

By January 1799, starvation and its consequences was evident. Deaths were occurring and our forefathers must have been desperate watching their children and wives in such a dire situation. When thanks to Admiral Nelson, grain resumed being imported from Sicily, the number of deaths reported amounted to one fifth of the population or 20,000. It is in this context that we must judge Dun Mikiel Xerri’s patriotism.

As regards Russia, the treaty of Amiens between France and England did, in fact, hand over Malta to the Czar as the Grand Master of the Order. They never made it.

Bosredon Ransijat, a former knight turned traitor, the treasurer of the Order, who handed over to Napoleon Bonaparte all the cash at the Università dei Grani and the Monte di Pietà, was the person representing the Order signing the capitulation of the island to Bonaparte. He wrote his diary and memoirs on the French occupation of Malta, which say that “the Maltese could not possibly ever experience worse hardship than what they had to go through since the French occupation”.

These were the conditions under which Dun Mikiel and the rest hatched the plot that culminated in them facing a firing squad.

Charles Xuereb, please note.