Twanny. Napoleon landed in Valletta at the Customs House in the afternoon of 12th June – though he didn’t go through customs. He departed Malta on the morning of the 18th. That makes it six nights. FACT. I believe, also, that he spent the first night at the Banca Giuratale, didn’t take to the joint, and moved to Baron Parisio’s palace the following day. (Not to mention the night he might have spent with Countess X at Y palace. But that’s another story.)

Erm … what, exactly is wrong with the plaque that says that Napoloen spent seven night there?

The attempt at extricating yourself from confusing the documents (which are clear enough) digs yourself in deeper. You claim that “Britain … agreed that Malta belonged to the British crown by right of conquest, so that kind of quashes any debate ..”. How very convenient. Allow me some quotes from that eminent historian of the Maltese constitution, Prof. J.J.Cremona. “In the dawn of the 19th century the Maltese freely and voluntarily determined to place their Island home under the protection of Great Britain and to recognise the King of that country as their sovereign.”

“Malta,” said Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary of State for the Colonies (1900) “is in an unique position. She has not come to us in the ordinary way in which the possessions of the Crown have been acquired. She is not ours by right of the first discoverer; nor is she ours by right of conquest.”

“That Malta was acquired by Britain by the voluntary cession of the inhabitants themselves was also acknowledged in England by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Sammut v. Strickland (1938) A.C. 678.”
“Their Lordships asserted: ‘The Maltese are not unnaturally proud of their early history and of the fact that the title of the Crown to Malta is, as has been truly said, the very reverse of a right of conquest.’ ”

“As the Maltese had of their own accord offered their Islands to the British Crown, which had taken them under its protection, the Treaty of Amiens, concluded on the 27th March 1802, under which Malta was to revert to the Order of St. John, caused considerable disappointment.”

This Treaty, I might add, pre-dates the Proclamazione. Space, and a sense of proportion, prohibits me from adding so much more.

Asking for assistance (the quality of which left much to be desired – pretty much like the help we got from the Italians in the Saipem II affair) to evict the French does not equate to a request for an unconditional, permanent loss of sovereignty. Once the French surrendered the request was exhausted.

There are of course other documents and petitions for British rule during this period and the context of all of them is “we’ll have the British if the other choices are a return of the order, the Russians or the Neapolitans.”

I don’t think the proclamazione should be belittled and is proabably our equivalent of “we the people….”.

Anyway, ultimately, whatever WE say about which document means what, the point is that eventually Britain and the other powers agreed that Malta belonged to the British crown by right of conquest, so that kind of quashes any debate about the tone of our various requests/documents because they were all pretty much ignored.

You are still misreading my first sentence, Mike. I was not being amusing, but pointing out an error of fact in the Napoleon plaque (which I suppose could be looked upon as amusing).

I am in agreement with you, though, that your “memory may be a little confused”. I think that you have confused two documents into one. The first document, dated Feb. 1799, is when the Maltese deputies asked Lord Nelson for Britain’s special protection and for the assignment of a British commander: the “oh please come protect us we beg you” document. The second document, the one you refer to, of 1802, the “Proclamazione ……..”, was published three years AFTER the special protection had already been accorded. The conditions demanded by the Maltese thus came at a later date.

Oh, I see. I misread your first sentence and didn’t realise you were being amusing, John. How droll.

Well, it’s either the Foreign Office or the Merchants Street entrance to the Auberge de Castille. It was the first Notte Banca when things were pretty chaotic, so my memory may be a little confused. It’s actually titled “Proclamazione dei diritti degli abitanti delle isole di Malta e Gozo” and not “oh please come protect us we beg you”, which is what it seems to have turned into over the years.

Don’t believe all you read on the stairs of the foreign office. There’s also a huge marble plaque there recording that Napoleon spent seven nights in the building.

Actually in the letter where they asked for protection they attached conditions much like an early bill of rights including the holding of elections and even specified the make-up of the electoral districts (sound familiar?), but the British decided to go for the ‘protection’ bit only. Maybe George III had a short attention span? Didn’t get to the end of the letter, perhaps? Not sure if they’d started calling him Mad King George yet. A copy of the letter can be found on a plaque halfway up the stairs of the foreign office in Valletta

Here we go again.