After studies in Italy Vassalli returned to Malta and to a new phase of political involvement. We can picture this young man bursting with revolutionary ideas, returning to Malta and witnessing the disorder of the final years of the Order of St. John, overwhelmed by financial problems, by divisions running deeply within it and, worst of all, by the backwardness. Shocked by the precarious situation Malta was to be found in, and particularly his fellow Maltese, Vassalli listed some suggestions for the Grandmaster of the Order. Amongst other things he asked: