Malta : the Fitzgerald-Law letters : a chronicle of events in Malta and the Mediterranean, 1848-1851 / transcribed and described by Clive Smith.

Abstract

At the end of 1847 Frederick Fitzgerald arrived in Malta on secondment from the British Treasury to act as Private Secretary to the Governor. He held this post until April, 1851 and during this time wrote 28 letters to his friend and colleague William Law in London, a Treasury official who, in about August, 1848, was appointed Permanent Private Secretary to the Prime Minister. This correspondence contains another letter, written by William Law whilst on a visit to Malta in October, 1849, to his father in England. These 29 letters provide a unique and fascinating insight into the minds of two of the younger members of the British ruling classes of the period and their experiences in Malta and the Mediterranean. Fitzgerald's letter-writing style is fluent and descriptive and there is much of interest to those who study Maltese history and the Mediterranean politics of the period. The routes taken by the letters and their postal markings have been carefully documented for the benefit of postal historians. By its very nature, a collection of 29 old letters is awkward to display or even to maintain, with their envelopes, in a careful manner; some are moreover of much greater value and interest to postal historians than others and so it is likely that the collection may sooner or later be broken up. For this reason, the editor is glad to have had the opportunity of recording the letters and their envelopes whilst this is still possible.