2 NOVEMBER 1945, Page 4

Apropos of my note last week on the desirability of

naval Governors of Malta, I am reminded that one naval Governor—it :s suggested the only one—was known to fame mainly because his secre- tary for some ten months was no less a personage than Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This was Sir Alexander Ball, one of Nelson's captains. Ball, indeed, was responsible for capturing Malta, blockading the French in the island for two years till they surrendered. It was in 1804 that Coleridge was on the island. He records that Ball was so popular that almost every Maltese had two pictures on his walls, on of the Virgin and Child and one of the Governor. But ten month-