Malta : more historical sketches

Abstract

It is a source of pride for a country to boast of a long and chequered history, but a few lands in Europe can trace their history back to more than a thousand years before the Christian Era. Among these, ranking wax enthusastic about them with every new find of theirs, whilst the inhabitants go about justly proud of their homeland. And yet, the written history of the Maltese Islands, however conscientiously dealt with by past historians, is in some respects quite sketchy and reasonably lacking in detail, insofar as the earliest ages are concerned, also because the first attempts at history writing here in Malta are known to have been made during the latter period of the occupation thereof by the glorious Order of the Knights of St John, whose historians naturally, la id most of their stress in giving in detail the events of their particular period, even though then, the angle wherefrom they looked at the history of Malta was that of the various grandmasterships and their deeds, rather than the life and customs of the local people over whom they reigned. It was left to later generations of Maltese to delve more deeply and scientifically into past history, and, in a way, to put on record, again very sketchily and on practically the same lines as their predecessors, the more relevant tacts about the inglorious end of the Knights' rule, the coming of the French under Napoleon and the subsequent advent of the British which inaugurated a new era now happily concluded with the attainment of Malta 's independence. Of course, some good h:story books have been written which dwell, in a way, on events that have taken place under British rule during the last odd hundred and fifty years. But, by and large, hardly any mention is made therein of other major events that fall out of the sphere of politics and the struggle of the Maltese tor what may be roughly termed 'home-rule'. But during this period various important happenings took place which deserve being recorded as part and parcel of history. In the same way as we pride ourselves in writing about the religion and customs of the Phoenicians, as gleaned from the remains of their monuments, so should we dwell, in our more recent h/story, of the social life of the Maltese during the past century, and this is still sadly lacking. It was therefore not without pleasure and personal satisfaction that, having been given the opportunity to go through the pages of these " Sketches" by my friend Mr Michael Galea, I acceded to his request to write this " Introduction", however undeserving I may feel myself tor having been chosen by him, when others, more competent than I, could have done a better job of it. This book, entitled "Malta: More Historical Sketches", follows other similar works by Mr. Galea, but comes at an opportune moment in our history (when Malta , now independent, is on its way to economic viability), and when, at a time of a great social upheaval, we gladly and complacently (maybe some of us also reminiscently) look back towards the recent past, the good old Victorian days, when, unaware of the havoc which was to be wrought in Europe by two terrible world wars, the peoples of all nations, including the Maltese, went happily about their daily lives, building opera houses, monuments and palaces, holding elections and carnival revels, and welcoming notabilities to their shores. Mr Galea's book, without any pretensions to literary worth, makes pleasant reading, and, being, as it is, fully documented, as the pages on bibliography amply show, may be taken as a reliable addendum to the history books which dwell on the period covered. I need not tantalize the reader further by prolonging this " Introduction" beyond his patience, but I cannot refrain from saying, before I conclude, that when I turned to the last page of these breathless sketches I could not hold myself back from heaving a sigh of nostalgia at not having lived in those good old days of Queen Adelaide and Thackeray, of Alexander John Ball and Garibaldi, of the Railway and the Opera House (alas still in ruins) and, last but not least, of the 1849 general elections.