Britain and Malta 1787-1798

Abstract

At times abortive negotiations can throw interesting and useful light on more important developments and this is so in the case of the unsuccessful negotiations between the Order of St. John and Great Britain during the last decade of the eighteenth century. The negotiations illustrate on the one hand the Order's struggle for survival in the hostile environment created by french revolution and the wars that followed, and on the other Britain's first unsteady steps towards the evolution of her Mediterranean policy - central to a proper understanding of British foreign policy down to the Suez crisis of 1956. More important the negotiations highlight Malta's strategic importance, both positive and negative, to great powers vying for control over the Mediterranean.