Letter to His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, K. G. ... Relative to the petition of the inhabitants of Malta by four elected members of the council of government.

Abstract

My Lorde Duke,

In transmitting to Your Grace the Petition of many of the inhabitants of this Possession, with which we have been specially charged, we deem it expedient to submit to your consideration some points of information, in part relative to the importance of the Petition itself and the number and quality of the signatures appended to it, and in part illustrative of the character of the prayers which it contains, and of the nature and justice of grievances which have given cause to so unanimous an appeal on the part of the Maltese population. After according your attention to our remarks on these two heads, we feel assured Your Grace will recognize the necessity of introducing some substantial alteration in the manner in which the Civil Administration of these Islands is conducted and in the constitution of the Government of this Possession.

To enable Your Grace to form an idea of the respective situation of the Government and the population of this country, and of the state of public opinion—so little known at the seat of the Colonial Government—we take the liberty to point out that the changes that have been from time to time introduced in Malta since it came under the dominion of Great Britain, in order to ameliorate the political condition of its inhabitants, as well as its legislative, administrative, and economic state, and in order to assimilate, as much as possible, the organization of its Government and its public institutions to those of the other parts of the Empire, have been almost all the result of measures initiated by the population... [Excerpt]