Following the French expulsion, Malta was taken over by the British in the 1800, although it was formally through the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1814 that Malta actually became a British Colony. Malta was an important acquisition for the British due to its geographical location in the Mediterranean, however it was not British’s obvious choice. Lampedusa, another Mediterranean island was also being considered by the British, though this idea was eventually let go when it was confirmed that Lampedusa was “not remotely comparable to Malta on many counts” In fact, Lord Bathurst, the Secretary State for War and Colonies had written that “as a military post, as a naval arsenal, as a secure place of depot for British merchants, there is no post in the South of Europe which appears so well calculated to fix the influence and extend the interests of Great Britain, as the Island of Malta”. In view of this, Malta became one of the Crown Colonies under the British empire.…show more content… Of course, this implied the formal institutionalization of British authority in Malta. The British had three major objectives for Malta, primarily that of creating a governmental system, which vested civil and military authority in the hands of a military officer in order to cater for the strategical interest of the British, secondly to reform the public administration with the scope of making it more efficient and incorruptible, and thirdly to transfer the administrative and financial authority to Britian. Malta was to be ruled by a Governor appointed by the British monarch with executive power in order to achieve these set objectives. The man to accomplish this assignment was to be Sir Thomas