In reference to a reminder by Denis Darmanin (April 11) to commemorate the bicentenary of the Treaty of Paris signed on May 30, 1814 between France and the Coalition after the Napoleonic Wars, when Britain “took sovereignty over Malta”, for the record may I reproduce the surviving inscription on the Main Guard in Valletta that says:

“To Great and Unconquered Britain, the Love of the Maltese and the Voice of Europe Confirm these Islands, A. D. 1814.”

The Maltese were not present at this treaty; worse still they were not even consulted at any stage. Respected Maltese historian Mgr. Alfredo Mifsud in 1907 argued that Malta was too small to affirm its rights and protestations against being “an object of negotiation without its intervention”. He says “arrogance in this congress of wolves was their favourite food”.

The official news was communicated to the leading members of the Maltese community in the Palace years later.

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