A saber awarded for valour by the First Consul Bonaparte

A saber with an ebony hilt, carved with fish scales, brass mounted, chiselled and gilded is a unique treasure in the national collection. Presented by Napoleon Bonaparte himself to Rear-Admiral Decres in year nine of the revolution, the sword is a symbol of valour and seamanship. Its story unfolds through the diary of Sir Alexander Ball, one of Nelson’s Band of Brothers. Ball was in charge of the naval blockade of Malta. Republican France had command of the fortifications of Valletta and her harbour. The rest was in the hand of the Maltese congress and their allies, Great Britain, Naples and Portugal.

Sir Alexander Ball writes:
Sunday
30th March 1800

At half past eleven o’clock at night a Lieut. belonging to the Northumberland who was at Belvedere in Marsa watching the motions of the enemy made a signal for a ship going out of la Valette which was perceived by the batteries of the Jesuit and St Roques. An immediate fire was opened against the enemy ship. She got out of port and this was soon discovered by the ships blocking which gave chase and a brisk cannonade was heard in the offing until three o’clock in the morning.

Monday
31st March 1800

The Vincenzo Brig arrived with intelligence that the Lion, Foudroyant, Penelope, Vincenzo and Strombolo captured the French ship le Guilleaume Tell of 80 guns Rear Admiral Decres, which sailed from la Valette the preceding night.

The diary, in these two entries, gives us a small anecdote of what was a major event in Maltese history. With the French and the Maltese sympathisers stuck in Valletta, the clock was ticking for them to escape. Decres, the admiral who had escaped from the Battle of Aboukir in 1798, had been bottled up in Valletta for nearly two years, commanding the troops around the fortifications of Valletta. News had arrived that Admiral Nelson, who had destroyed the French fleet in Egypt, was now in Malta, hoping to finish what he had started in August of 1798 — total destruction of the French Mediterranean fleet. One French ship eluded him, the Guilliaume Tell of 80 guns. In a desperate move, Decres loaded men, treasure and munitions on the ship, which was snuggled up in Galley Creek. His plan: flight to France to bring back reinforcements. It was desperate and brave at the same time. Napoleon was by then 1st Consul and needed both news of the Malta garrison and the ship itself, then one of the largest is the French navy.

The Maltese batteries at Marsa (the former home of Gan Frangisk Abela) noticed movement in the creek and alerted the British blockading troops. As the ship tried to slip out of Malta under the cover of darkness, the blockading fleet engaged the enemy off Marsaxlokk. It was a battle unmatched in bloodshed in Maltese waters. The 80-gun French ship was pounded until she could not muster any defense. Nelson had finally finished the French fleet off. The ship was renamed HMS Malta, and she was the first of her name in the Royal Navy. Decres became a prisoner of war and was landed at Marsaxlokk, and eventually he returned to Paris when the French garrison finally surrendered a few months later. His bravery unmatched, Napoleon Bonaparte awarded him this sword, an honour inscribed on the sword itself. So epic was the battle, so synonymous was it with Decres, that it still adorns his tomb in France.