Surmounting the Main Guard in St George’s Square, right in front of the Presidential Palace in Valletta, there is the following inscription in Latin: Magnae Et Invictae Britanniae Melitensium Amor Et Europae Vox Has Insulas Confirmat A.D. 1814. This inscription precisely and succinctly recalls when the European powers of the time first confirmed Great Britain’s possession of the Maltese islands that the British had occupied since the ousting of the French in September 1800. This confirmation was included in the Treaty of Paris signed on May 30, 1814.

The treaty was signed following an armistice agreed on April 23, 1814, between Charles, Count of Artois, and the European allies who had defeated Napoleon Bonaparte, who had abdicated as Emperor of France on April 6 after signing the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Three days later, peace talks were initiated between Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord on behalf of the exiled Bourbon King Louis XIII of France (Artois’s elder brother) and the allies.

Painting of Napoleon Bonaparte abdicating the French throne on April 6, 1814, by François Bouchot (1800-42). Courtesy: Wikipedia.com

Portrait of Charles-Philippe de France, Count of Artois (1757-1836) at Versailles, France, by Henri-Pierre Danloux (1753-1809). He initiated proceedings on behalf of his brother King Louis XVIII which led to the Treaty of Paris of 1814. Courtesy: Wikidata

An 1814 portrait of King Louis XVIII of France (1755-1824, reigned 1814-24), by an anonymous artist. Courtesy: Wikimedia.Commons

Portrait of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754-1838) by Pierre-Paul Proud’Hon (1758-1823). He dominated proceedings leading to the signing of the 1814 Treaty of Paris. Courtesy: Wikipedia.com

Portrait of Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822), by Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830). He was the British foreign minister and one of the signatories of the Treaty of Paris of 1814 on behalf of Great Britain. Courtesy: Wikipedia.com

The Treaty of Paris established peace between France and Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia. The more important signatories were Talleyrand for France, who actually dominated the proceedings; Lord Robert Stewart Viscount Castlereagh, George Gordon Earl of Aberdeen and William Shaw Viscount Cathcart for Britain; Counts Andreas Razumovsky and Karl Nesselrode for Russia; Prince Clemens von Metterrnich and Count Johann Philip von Stadion for Austria; and Baron Carl August von Hardenberg and Wilhelm von Humboldt for Prussia. They did not sign a common document but instead concluded separate treaties with France which allowed specific amendments.

There were no less than a total (including the above-mentioned amendments) of 41 articles, of which article VII (which was the shortest and consisted of a single liner), dryly stated the following: “The island of Malta and its dependencies shall belong in full right and sovereignty to his Britannic majesty.” This was nothing more than confirming the obvious state of affairs in Malta at the time.

The French had captured Malta from the Order of St John in June 1798 (whether legally or not is a moot point) and held it until September 1800 after being besieged by the Maltese with help mainly from British forces, especially the navy.

The French surrendered to the British forces only, and objected to the presence of Maltese or Neapolitan representatives. Put simply, this gave rise to the question of whether Malta was ceded to or conquered by Britain. Naturally, the British favoured the ‘conquest’ theory as opposed to the Maltese view of ‘cession’. The British appointed a civil commissioner – Charles Cameron (1801-2) – to administer the islands and, in 1802, made peace with France through the resultant Treaty of Amiens by which it was agreed to return Malta to the Order of St John, a move seemingly opposed by the majority of the island’s inhabitants

On June 15, 1802, a Declaration of Rights was issued by the Maltese in which it was stated that the “King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is our Sovereign Lord, and his lawful successors shall, in all times to come, be acknowledged as our lawful sovereign.” The Treaty of Amiens was never implemented, with Malta being one of the areas in dispute. Meanwhile, until 1813, Britain continued to administer the islands through two successive civil commissioners, Rear-Admiral Sir Alexander J. Ball (1802-9) and Major General Sir Hildebrand Oakes (1810-13).

An 1801-2 portrait of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (1757-1805), by John Hoppner (1758-1810). He had formerly opposed the retention of Malta by Britain but then changed his opinion.

By 1803, the British government had begun to realise how important Malta could be in Mediterranean affairs. The Order’s small shipyard provided a useful repair base for the British navy, and French interests in the Levant could be squeezed from Malta. Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson (1759-1805), who formerly opposed the retention of Malta, modified his earlier views of the island as a naval station by stating in June, 1803: “I now declare that I consider Malta as a most important outwork to India, that it will give us great influence in the Levant and indeed all the southern parts of Italy… I hope we shall never give it up.” Indeed, Nelson was now simply voicing the views of the British government.

By 1803, the British government had begun to realise how important Malta could be in Mediterranean affairs

A portrait of Admiral Lord George Keith (1746-1823) by William Owen (1769-1825). He was completely in favour of the retention of Malta by Britain. Courtesy: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

In 1805, Admiral Lord George Keith (1746-1823) was asked his opinion on the usefulness of the various naval stations in the Mediterranean. Comparing Malta with Mahon in Minorca and the islands of Elba and Sardinia, he said: “Malta has this advantage over all the other ports I have mentioned, that the whole harbour is covered by its wonderful fortifications, and that in the hands of Great Britain no enemy would presume to land upon it because the number of men required to besiege it could not be maintained by the island, and on the appearance of a superior fleet, that besieging army would find itself obliged to surrender… or starve. At Malta, all the arsenals, hospitals, storehouses, etc., are on a grand scale. The harbour has more room than Mahon and the entrance is considerably wider.”

Commercially, Malta was becoming an increasingly important asset to Britain, and taking the place of Livorno, Palermo and Trieste, that had been the hub of British merchants operating in the Mediterranean, mainly because it was a very safe alternative due to the presence of the British navy. It was now being suggested that Malta could be developed into the great centre of British entrepot trade in the Mediterranean, a storehouse for goods to be distributed into Italy, Greece and the Levant, apart from being a secure quarantine port and a useful collecting port for return cargoes.

However, the real commercial boom came after 1806 and 1807, when Napoleon, through his Berlin and Milan decrees, closed all European ports to British shipping and declared the British Isles to be under blockade. Through a series of Orders in Council, the British replied with a blockade of their own, a course of action they could carry out owing to the great superiority of the British navy.

However, it was a selective blockade, because trade was permitted with Europe provided merchants dealt largely in British goods. In this respect, Malta was particularly favoured because the island was one of the centres from which licences were issued to vessels. Also, a short war with the US (1812-14) brought about a demand in Britain for produce from Sicily and the Levant, thus resulting in the warehouses round the harbour being filled with goods in transit, with resultant profits for the island.

But a body of opinion in Malta hankered after the formation of a Maltese representative body and, in 1811, a petition was sent to King George III requesting that the ancient rights of the Maltese, supressed by the Order of St John, be restored. The demands included the restitution of the old Consiglio Popolare, a free press, and trial by jury. A Commission of Inquiry was sent to Malta in 1812, which did not recommend the implementation of any of the Maltese demands but, conversely, it was felt that Malta should in future be administered by a governor and commander-in-chief, with both powers being vested in the same person.

Sending this commission seemed to imply that the British government had by now decided to retain the Maltese islands. By 1813, the eventual fall of Napoleon and the defeat of France were on the cards and the British could, therefore, play their final card (in Malta’s case) and appoint the islands’ first governor and commander-in-chief (1813-24) in the person of Sir Thomas Maitland, who reached Malta on October 4, 1813.

Maitland’s first proclamation to the Maltese made it clear that Malta was being subjected to British rule. Malta was to have a military government. By this time (1813-14), plague had broken out in Malta and poverty stalked the islands after the harbours were closed to shipping. The epidemic ensured that, after the Napoleonic Wars were over, nothing of the former trade would revert to Malta.

This was the situation when the Treaty of Paris of 1814 was signed. Napoleon then had a last fling for power in what is known in history as ‘The Hundred Days’, but his final defeat at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, ensured his final downfall. He was exiled to the island of St Helena in the Atlantic where he died in 1821.

The Battle of Waterloo (1815) at Pyms Galley, London, by William Sadler (1782-1839). It was the final defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte. Courtesy: Wikipedia.com

Napoleon Bonaparte on HMS Bellerophon on his way to exile at the island of St Helena in the Atlantic, by William Quiller Orchardson (1832-1910). Courtesy: Tate Gallery, London

A second Treaty of Paris was drawn up and signed on November 20, 1815, with Malta’s fate being enshrined in article XI which stated that: “The Treaty of Paris of the 30th of May 1814, and the final Act of the Congress of Vienna of the 9th of June, 1815, are confirmed, and shall be maintained in all such of their enactments which shall not have been modified by the articles of the present treaty.”