NEW LIGHT ON MALTA DURING THE PEACE OF

AMIENS, 1801-1803

D. F. ALLEN

S I R Charles William Pasley (1780-1861) is remembered today as a general in the BritishArmy who earned distinction as a military engineer, writing manuals about fieldfortification, telegraphy, sapping, mining, pontooning, and how best to explodegunpowder under water for the salvage of wrecks. Pasley's distinction was recognizedbeyond the army by his election in 1816 as a Fellow of the Royal Society, by hisappointment in 1841 as Inspector General of Railways and by the award in 1844 of anhonorary D.C.L. by the University of Oxford. Less well known are the sympatheticimpressions of Malta which he had formed between 1801 and 1804, when he was far frombeing a pillar of the Establishment but merely a twenty-one-year-old lieutenant fromMinorca, recently posted to the Malta garrison. Lieutenant Pasley's unpublished journaland letters from Malta are buried in his personal papers which were bequeathed to theBritish Museum in the 1930s by his descendants. Pasley's comments on Malta now meritrehearsal for two reasons above all. First because they relate to that uneasy period of thePeace of Amiens, by which Britain had promised to hand back the Maltese islands to theOrder of St John, expelled by Bonaparte in 1798. Young Pasley's journal and letters fromMalta are interesting secondly because at that stage in his career he enjoyed few socialadvantages and was correspondingly open to the customs of the Maltese. Pasley had beenborn a bastard in Scotland, from where the Dumfries schoolmaster and his own energyand ability as well as the patronage of his better born Malcolm cousins had propelled himinto the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. In short, Pasley was a philosophical andliterary Scottish soldier, curious about the distinctive history and folklore of Malta. Andhis professional interest in mihtary fortification took renewed inspiration from thebastions of Valletta.

Pasley arrived at Malta in November 1801, one month after Lord Hawkesbury inDowning Street had signed the preliminary treaty of peace between Great Britain andFrance, which was to be signed definitively at Amiens the following March. The fourtharticle of this preliminary treaty promised the evacuation of British troops from Maltaand the island's restoration to the Order of St John of Jerusalem. This same articleproposed that Malta should be rendered completely independent of either France orGreat Britain by being placed under the protection of a 'third Power to be agreed uponin the definitive treaty'.^ The hostility of Maltese public opinion to these preliminary

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Fig. I. C. W. Pasley in 1810. Add. MS. 41766, f. 135 (detail)

proposals soon impressed Pasley, as he was coming to terms with his new billet at Malta.His first thoughts were selfish ones of relief at leaving Minorca behind, where he hadbeen 'a body without a soul', but he was still afraid of meeting his old critic. GeneralFox, who had transferred his H.Q, from Minorca to Malta, in preparation for Minorca's

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reversion to Spain by the definitive Treaty of Amiens in 1802.^ In the event Fox receivedPasley kindly at the former Grand Master's palace in Valletta. Pasley's confidence grewamidst the local consensus that Malta was a better Mediterranean base for Britain thanMinorca and could not possibly be handed back to the Order of St John, a French puppetwhich the native Maltese were begging the British to keep away. Pasley preferred theMaltese to the Minorcans, the former being 'a better informed, more sociable andspirited people than the Minorcans', though he did encounter some Maltese peasantsnear Dingli Cliffs (which reminded him of the Isle of Wight) who had never heard ofMinorca but did recognize the name of its port. Port Mahdn. Minorcan women weremore neatly dressed than their Maltese counterparts. The Maltese were dark like theMinorcans but were altogether unlike Europeans, except for their dress, since theirguttural language, 'bawling and furious gestures', made them appear more like Arabs.^

Making such comparisons in favour of the Maltese, Pasley became indignant when hereflected how his Government in London had just undertaken to hand back his newacquaintances to the Order of St John, 'a phantom without a substance, represented bya set of men entirely devoted to French influence'. Pasley determined to live in themeantime 'as if we were today here for ever'.^ Because he could speak some Italian andtried to focus on the distinctive sounds of the Maltese language, Pasley was able tocommunicate with the many Maltese he encountered.^ From them he heard horrid talesof pillage by the recent French occupiers and was welcomed as an English deliverer,though he was, of course, a Scot. He was told how plate had been seized from the HolyInfirmary at Valletta and everywhere 'golden and silver ornaments became a prey totheir sacrilegious hands'. In the village church of Mqabba Pasley noted 'several armorialbearings defaced by the French, who must have had great industry in making enemiesto descend to such minute details'. At Selmun Palace above St Paul's Bay, Pasley wasshown round by a Maltese pilot, formerly employed in making signals, who had escapedbeing conscripted into the Maltese Legion which the French had taken with them toEgypt.^ Pasley had no doubt of Bonaparte's desire 'to make himself master of the wholeMediterranean. If we give up this island now, we may bid farewell to this sea for everand we will not even have the satisfaction of saying we were deceived but we sign our

downfall with our eyes open.'^Living for the most part at his regimental mess in Valletta, Pasley made several

sightseeing expeditions from the island's capital, often sleeping overnight in sheds orother humble accommodation provided by the parish priest (kapptllan) of the village hehappened to be visiting. Pasley's companions on these tours of rural Malta sometimesincluded Mr Bonavia, a Maltese engineer formerly employed during the Frenchoccupation by Le Grange.^ Being an engineer himself, Pasley respected the Frenchcontribution to his science but considered that too much 'superstitious veneration' hadbeen afforded Vauban at the expense of Newton. As for those works built at Malta bythe French engineer Tigne in the early eighteenth century, he praised their ingenuity butthought they were 'good for a chest of drawers, not to resist gunpowder and canonballs'.Noting the scarcity of British writers on fortification, he was inspired by Malta's

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Fig. 2. Valletta and the Grand Harbour, i8oo. Add. MS. 43833 (detail)

fortifications to think of creating those manuals for which he later became famous.^Pasley had some admiration for the Knights of St John who had commanded Malta'sdefensive fortifications during the Ottoman siege of 1565. After visiting the vault of StJohn's conventual church, he at first wrote in his journal, 'Enthusiasm seizes my soul asI kneel at the grave of La Valette' but his Protestant second thoughts led him to crossthis out and to record instead 'a remembrance I shall ever cherish'. In the former GrandMaster's palace at Valletta, Pasley was impressed by paintings of the knights' navalvictories - 'Everything must have served to awaken an enthusiasm and emulation thatthe degenerate modern ones were incapable of feeling.' Prompted by the kappillan ofGudja, who criticized to him Grand Master de Rohan (1775-97) hut praised the earlierGrand Masters Pinto (1741-73) and Vilhena (1722-36), Pasley described the Order ofSt John's former rule in Malta as having been 'without meaning', which was 'thecharacter of all arbitrary governments'.^^

Pasley could not understand how the 'poor Knights' could ever return to Malta'without the income of France and, above all, deprived of the spirit of religiousenthusiasm'.^^ Here he alluded to the Revolution's confiscation of the Order of St John'sproperties in France and to the liberal, sometimes Masonic, spirit which had affectedseveral French Knights who had welcomed Bonaparte's invasion of Malta in 1798 andhad worsened thereby the hesitant stance of Grand Master Hompesch. In exile at Triesteand Montpellier, Hompesch had been mocked further by the decision of his Order'sRussian Grand Priory to elect the Tsar Paul I as Grand Master. Paul had promised tore-establish the Order at Malta, St Petersburg serving meanwhile as the Order'sconventual residence. ̂ ^ His murder in March 1802 and the reluctance of his successorAlexander I to continue as Grand Master of the Order made a little easier the wording

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of the tenth and Maltese article of the definitive Treaty of Amiens in March 1802. Evenso this Maltese article of the treaty was, in Bonaparte's words, 'a romance which couldnot be executed', a sentiment with which Pasley found himself in agreement.'^ ArticleX of the treaty stipulated that the Order of St John should be restored to Malta after itsChapter-General had met in the island to elect a new Grand Master. It was understoodtacitly by the contracting parties at Amiens that this new head of the Order would beneither Hompesch nor Alexander I.

The Grand Master eventually chosen in February 1803 by Pius VII (and not by theassembled Knights in Malta) disappointed Pasley because the seventy-two-year-oldSienese bailli Giovanni Battista Tommasi enjoyed no standing with the Maltese, whowished to remain under British rule. Grand Master Tommasi had a similar reputationin Malta to that of Marie Antoinette in France, since he had allegedly once retorted tosome Maltese petitioners who complained of the quality of their bread, that *they oughtto be fed upon chopped straw like jackasses'. Pasley was alarmed by Grand MasterTommasi's impatience to leave his temporary court at Messina 'to take possession of hisnew principality' of Malta. He was similarly perturbed by the querulous embassy of theGrand Master's Minister-Plenipotentiary, the chevalier Buzi, who met in early March1803 with Sir Alexander Ball whose powers at Malta both as His Britannic Majesty'sCivil Commissioner and Minister-Plenipotentiary to the Order of St John of Jerusalemwere meant to expire upon the Grand Master's arrival at Malta. Ball showed his truecharacter as a British Commissioner who wished to hang on to Malta rather than as aMinister-Plenipotentiary to the military Order to whose new Grand Master he wasexpected to cede the island, according to the Treaty of Amiens. Vainly Buzi remindedBall that the British Government seemed to be contemplating violation of the treaty ithad signed, of which article X had been unambiguous in its intended restoration of Maltato the Order of St John.^^ When Buzi was comforted by friendlier overtures fromGeneral Vial, the French Minister at Malta, Pasley became convinced that France andNaples were colluding to bring back Grand Master Tommasi to Malta as their ownpuppet.^'' Buzi was denounced by Pasley as 'a wretch who had not a will of his own nora word to say, without previously consulting the Frenchman'. Pasley alleged that Buzihad to ask General Vial's permission before agreeing to dine with the British authoritieson King George's birthday, 4 June 1803.^^ By then Great Britain and France were againat war. And in respect of Malta - ' t h i s celebrated island, interesting at all times butparticularly so of late from the recent importance attached to it' - Pasley showed his truefeelings in favour of a renewed war which would secure Malta as Britain's base in theMediterranean rather than in favour of the Treaty of Amiens:

I felt no less forcibly the other points of our degrading system of concession. I began to fear asone indignity succeeded another that we should soon have reason to be ashamed of our country.And I will declare that the day I beheld Lord Nelson's flag entering this harbour and heard thewelcome news of war was the happiest of my life, as that when the articles of the last peace wereshown me was without exception one of the gloomiest.^'

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Amidst such exciting events, Pasley found time to read Gibbon, where Rome'sappeasement of her enemies struck a chord with his own observation of Malta during thePeace of Amiens: ' I have been sorry to observe in the course of that history so just aparallel between the general proceedings of the Romans and our own late measures.'^^

Despite his enthusiasm for a renewed war with France, Pasley warned Sir AlexanderBall about the delicacy of the British presence in Malta. It was useful for Britain thatmany Maltese 'overrate the strength and resources of the British nation'. It was also tobe noted secretly that some of the same Maltese boasted 'that the British Garrison is hereas it were by sufferance, and that they have it in their power to expel us as they did theFrench, should we ever render ourselves obnoxious to them.' Pasley assured Ball that hedid not 'mean in the least to impeach the loyalty of the Maltese to His Majesty'sauthority represented by Your Excellency, which is I beheve unquestionable, but as theycannot consider us as countrymen, the possibility of a rupture at some future time mustcome under private speculation.'^^ Fortunately for Pasley no such rupture occurredduring his stay in Malta, where he spent his time not just in soldiering, reading andsightseeing but also in participating in the Carnival. And it remains one further merit ofretrieving his journal from its 190 years of neglect that his account of the Carnival of 1802predates the better-known accounts of Carnival after Britain's possession of Malta hadbeen confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in 1814. These later accounts are often disfiguredby Protestant incomprehension of Catholic Carnival such as, for example, that by theReverend S. S. Wilson of the 1819 Carnival, whose Maltese characteristics were blurredby Wilson in his desire to copy Lady Morgan's account of the Carnival at Rome. Wilsonwas a bigoted Protestant missionary at Malta, angry in his incomprehension of 'papalsuperstition' everywhere in the island ruled by Britain,^^ whereas Pasley, also aProtestant, sympathized more with the Maltese Carnival of 1802. Under the Order of StJohn, Carnival had first been held in 1535 at Birgu, the seat of the Knights until thebuilding of Valletta after the Great Siege of 1565. Later Carnivals in Valletta lasted forthe three days immediately preceding Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. Carnival wasusually ushered in by a sword-dance called parata, commemorating the defeat of theTurks in 1565. Without this parata, there could be no authentic Carnival.^^ Pasley failedto understand the significance of this dance, though he tried hard and clearly enjoyed itsexcitement. He mistook tht parata for a morris dance such as he knew in the British Isles,probably misled by the ribbons in the hats of the male dancers:

Twelve men with sticks in imitation of swords in their right hand and a gauntlet in the left forma ring, dance in this manner and in a number of figures, clashing their swords. But the strangestpart of it is in their lifting up a little boy placed on a stool which they raise by their sticks whomthey alternately raise and lower to the music.

Pasley noted also the transvestite dressing of the male dancers in another and morelascivious entertainment he witnessed on the streets of Valletta during Carnival. Therewas much wriggling of buttocks and one man 'running about with a stick in imitationof a penis in his hand, was no less applauded.' Pasley was astonished that this

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'buffoonery and gross brutality' found favour with all the local spectators, 'the gentlestpeople as well as the lowest'. For the benefit of British spectators, the participantsincluded some English phrases in their Maltese presentation. Away from the streets andon the second evening of Carnival, Pasley was invited to a masked ball at the formerGrand Master's palace which was hosted by the British general for 'the officers andgentry of Malta'. One guest assumed the character of an Irish priest but all heads wereturned by the arrival of Cleopatra's Pillar, seventeen feet high and constantly moving,which was decorated with 'hieroglyphics', rhyming verses both in Italian (for the benefitof the Maltese) and English which extolled Nelson's victory in Egypt.^^

Although Pasley tried to understand Maltese folklore, he remained astonished by thefervour of Catholic piety among the Maltese. Because he travelled beyond Valletta, hisjournal provides glimpses of that rural Malta during the Peace of Amiens which wasruled in effect by the kappillan, whosoever might happen to rule in Valletta, GrandMaster Tommasi or Sir Alexander Ball. Pasley was impressed by the kappillan of Gudja,who possessed 'a couple of paintings representing two scenes out of Tasso, whichintroduced a conversation on poetry. He showed me Young's Night Thoughts translatedinto Italian.'^^ Pasley shared his breakfast with this old kappillan at the same time as'about a dozen old women and children who came to have the Gospel read and prayerssaid sopra la testa by him, who is reckoned a man of superior sanctity and interest withheaven.'^^ Pasley distinguished between this kappillan's charisma and the luridrepresentation in his church at Gudja of Christ's body being taken down from the Cross:

It is horrible to see in what a disgusting manner they represent his manacled body, covered withblood and frightful wounds. I have always turned away from such sights with aversion. A half-eaten skeleton could not be a more shocking spectacle and they seem to strive to outdo each otherin such representations.^^

It should be emphasized here that Pasley had little or no eye for art, thinking thatCaravaggio's celebrated 'Beheading of John the Baptist' in St John's was the work ofRubens."^^ Votive paintings throughout Malta were another of Pasley's blindspots and hewould have been astonished by the subtle interpretations of them offered by modernanthropologists.^^ The votive pictures in the chapel of Our Lady's sanctuary at Melliehacaused him to laugh both because of'the style of drawing, which was generally uncouth'and the subject matter itself:

There were numbers of galleys and ships in a storm; a man swimming for his life, dolphinsplaying around him, a Spanish Don attacked by bandits and a number of other like occurrences;several persons were represented in bed with a priest praying by their side. In every one theVirgin with her babe was represented in the air in token of heavenly aid.̂ ^

The sacristan of Mellieha, with whom Pasley conversed in Italian, caused furtheramusement by declaring that he had stopped shaving once he discovered that his beardkept him warm when he suffered a fever. Also the barber lived too far away. Pasleyreplied that Englishmen always shaved, to which the sacristan replied: 'Everyone had his

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own art, I could never take to that of a barber. '̂ ^ Leaving this Maltese with his ignoranceof England as a nation of barbers, Pasley was impressed by the knowledge ofmathematics being taught at the College in Valletta, which he identifies as the formerJesuit College, refounded as a University in 1769 by Grand Master Pinto. '̂̂ Althoughthe French occupiers had stolen one of the College's globes, it remained for Pasley 'amost laudable institution, great for so small an island but circumscribed for want ofinstruments.' Pasley recognized the Jesuits' contribution both to the theory and theteaching of mathematics and noted how the College used a textbook on the propertiesof cycloids, written by a Jesuit author in 1690.̂ ^

The 'infinite civility from everyone' at this College might stand as the leitmotiv ofPasley's journal during his stay in Malta. He was happy on the island because it was therethat he began to come to terms with his personal limitations, as he admitted in a letterto his uncle, dated 25 May 1803:

I was from my infancy actuated by a passion for reputation but since I entered the world and havehad an opportunity of comparing myself with others, I have become convinced of the mediocrityof my own talents and losing all hopes of rising from the crowd, am resigned to the idea of livingand dying in obscurity. ̂ ^

Pasley overdid the humility of his self-analysis. When he finally left Malta in 1804 to joinNelson at Naples, his career in the British army was assuming its upward curve ofdistinction.

Since Pasley was a Scot, it is instructive, finally, to compare his unpublished accountof Malta during the Peace of Amiens with the later and better-known account of theisland in 1831 by Sir Walter Scott. Pasley too had been sufficiently affected by the GothicRevival to record these impressions of the 'Blue Grotto' at Malta, a popular touristattraction of today: 'Nothing can be more solemn than the ideas of a hermit looking outfrom their peepholes upon the ocean.' He wished that the Maltese had possessed a finerimagination and placed the shipwrecked St Paul in this grotto 'instead of the hole theyhave given him' at Rabat, from where he was supposed to have issued forth to preachthe Gospel.^^ Most often, however, Pasley's journal recorded the Malta of contemporaryreality rather than the Malta of Gothic imagination. Unlike Sir Walter in 1831, Pasleyhad not prepared for his visit to Malta in 1801 by reading histories of the Knights of StJohn. And he had stayed longer and seen more of rural Malta than would be possible forthe sick and dying Scott to see during his own brief visit. Pasley the engineer hadunderstood Malta's defensive fortifications better than Sir Walter, who was to confess inhis unfinished novel The Siege of Malta how difficult it was to imagine the Knights'fortifications as they would have been in 1565 and to separate them from their lateraccretions.^'* In his Journal of 18 October 1831, Scott recorded that 'the time is gone ofsages who travelled to collect wisdom as well as heroes to reap honour. '̂ ^ Although Scottnever knew Pasley, the latter's unpublished journal of his posting to Malta during thePeace of Amiens demonstrates that this younger Scot was an exception to Sir Walter'sstricture.

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1 Quoted by W. Hardman and J. Holland Rose, AHistory of Malta during the Period of the Frenchand British Occupations, iyg8-i8i5 (London,1909), p. 404.

2 Minorca had been occupied three times by theBritish during the eighteenth century, duringwhich time the local nobility and clergy hadoften been hostile and aloof The island had beendifficult to retain without pinning down sub-stantial naval forces. The question: 'Minorca orMalta}' was answered by the British in favour ofMalta. See D. Gregory, Minorca, the IllusoryPrize (London, 1990), pp. 179-217.

3 BL, Add. MSS. 41961, f. 97V; 41972, ff. 4or,4ir, 63V.

4 Add. MS. 41961, ff. 214, 199. For the Frenchinfluence on the Order of St John in the lateseventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see D. F.Allen, 'Charles II, Louis XIV and the Order ofMalta', European History Quarterly., xx (1990),pp. 323-40; J. Godechot, 'La France et Makeau XVIIIe siecle'. Revue Historique, ccvi (1951),pp. 67-79.

5 The Semitic layer of the Maltese language isolder than its Romance element. See D. A.Agius, 'Maltese: A Semitic and RomanceLanguage', Al-^Arabiyya, xiii (1980), pp.14-27.

6 Add. MS. 41972, ff". 41V, 51V, 57V, 65r. Cf. M.E. S. Laws, 'The Maltese Legion in the FrenchService, 1798-99', Journal of the Royal UnitedService Institution (May 1955), pp. 267-71.

7 Add. MS. 41961, f 206.8 The French contribution in the eighteenth

century to the Order of St John's defensivefortifications at Malta is analyzed by A. Hoppen,The Fortification of Malta by the Order of St John/5JO-/795(Edinburgh, 1979), pp. 84-90, and byD. de Lucca, 'French Military Engineers inMalta during the 17th and i8th Centuries',Melita Historica, viii (1980), pp. 2i~:i,2>.

9 Add. MSS. 41972, f 47r; 41961, f 265. Duringhis stay at Malta, Pasley ordered several booksfrom an English bookseller to be sent to theisland, including Sir William Chambers's treatiseon architecture and a description of theBridgewater Canal. See Add. MS. 41961, f. 255.

10 Add. MS. 41972, flf. 42r, 40V, 68v.11 Ibid., f. 5ir.12 For this important Russian connection which,

for all its paradoxes, at least maintained theOrder of St John's international profile in

Napoleonic Europe, see C. Toumanoff, UOrdrede Make et PEmpire de Russie (Rome, 1979).

13 Quoted by W. Hardman and J. Holland Rose,op. cit., p. 436.

14 Add. MS. 41961, f. 206; W. Hardman and J.Holland Rose, op. cit., pp. 466-8.

15 For the machinations of King Ferdinand of theTwo Sicilies in the affairs of Malta at this time,see A. Menna, Storia delPisola e delPOrdine diMalta (Naples, 1978); E. Gentile, 'Corri-spondenza di Giovan Battista Fardella da Malta',Archivio Storico di Malta, ix (1937-8), pp.253-71-

16 Pasley had the measure of Vial, who was lateraccredited by Talleyrand as France's Minister-Plenipotentiary to the Grand Master's court atMessina, where Tommasi was to die in June1805. See M. Pierredon, Histoire politique dePOrdre souverain de Saint-Jean de Jerusalem dengS a igs5 (Paris, 1963), vol. ii, p. 65.

17 Add. MS. 41961, f. 214.18 Ibid., f. 215V.19 Ibid., ff. 289-290.20 S. S. Wilson, A Narrative of the Greek Mission,

or Sixteen Years in Malta and Greece (London,1839). PP- 37-43-

21 J. Cassar PuUicino, Studies in Maltese Folklore(Malta, 1976), p. 22.

22 Add. MS. 41972, ff. 1^-11- Pasley's shorteraccount of the 1803 Carnival (Add. MS. 41961,f. 203) merely describes the British celebrations:'The Carnival is now begun, we haveMasquerades two or three times a week, theother nights are filled up with Operas, dances orcard parties and once a fortnight is an Englishplay got up by the officers of the Garrison.'

23 Edward Young's long poem. The Complaint, orNight Thoughts on Life^ Death and Immortalityhad been published in nine books, 1742-5.

24 Add. MS. 41972, f 69r.25 Ibid.26 Ibid., f 41V.27 The votive paintings at the sanctuary of Our

Lady of Graces at Zabbar have been analyzed byProf. A. H. J. Prins, In Peril On The Sea (Malta,1989).

28 Add. MS. 41972, f 58V.29 Ibid.30 Cf. A. P. Vella, The University of Malta (Malta,

1969). The Jesuits' College had dated from1593 and was transformed into a university ofgeneral studies by Grand Master Pinto after

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he had expelled the Jesuits from Malta in 32 Add. MS. 41961, f. 212.1768. 33 Add. MS. 41972, f. 67r.

31 Add. MS. 41972, f. 51V. Cf. S. Fiorini, 'The 34 See D. E. Sultana, The Siege of MaltaDevelopment of Mathematical Education in Rediscovered. An Account of Sir Walter Scott'sMalta to 1798' in S. Fiorini and V. Mallia- Mediterranean Journey and his Last NovelMilanes (eds.), Malta, A Gase Study in In- (Edinburgh, 1977), p.43.ternational Gross-Gurrents (Malta, 1991), pp. 35 Quoted by Sultana, ibid., p. xii.111-46.

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