The suggestions made by this presumptious youth did not go down well at all with the Order and Vassalli was left with no other option but to enter into league with the Jacobites in the hope that the Maltese Islands would be taken away from the Order. However the plot was uncovered and Mikiel Anton was sentenced to life imprisonment. Many were of the opinion that Vassalli was a scholar, a thinker and a dreamer and that therefore he was not cut out for the intricacies of political life. Whatever one's opinion might be, the fact remains that his political involvement was a bitter experience that brought him disgrace, suspicion, prison sentences and escapes. Finally this benefactor of the Maltese people was exiled for twenty years from his beloved country. This was a dark period spent in France and Spain until, in 1820, aged 56, poor, in bad health and, deprived of the best years of his life, he was allowed to return.