Mikiel Anton Vassalli was expelled from Malta a number of times during his life due to his political beliefs. He lived during one of the most turbulent periods of Maltese history: the final years of the Knights of St. John, the two years of Napoleonic government (1798–1800), and the first years of British rule from 1800. For a time he was suspected to have been the author of the Francophile publication, Recherches Historiques et Politiques sur Malte (Paris, 1798), however, this was later attributed to the Maltese lawyer, Onorato Bres. Besides the social disorder that was an outcome of political upheaval, there was also a deeply felt division between the social classes: the privileged class on one hand and on the other the vast majority.