Manuel Pinto da Fonseca was elected Grand Master on 18 January 1741. On 25 May 1743, he gave his name to the then town of Qormi and accorded it the status of a city as "Città Pinto". In 1749, one of his bodyguards, Cassar, refused to join a plot led by Pasha Mustafa to stage a Muslim slave revolt; this refusal led to the exposure and suppression of the revolt, which afterward was celebrated each 29 June, the anniversary. Pinto created several new noble titles, which was greatly resented by some of the older nobles of Malta, and gained a reputation for imposing heavy taxes. He expelled the Jesuits from Malta, in line with similar acts taken in his homeland Portugal and its Empire, as well as in the Two Sicilies of which Malta was a vassal, and in France, the Spanish Empire and Parma.
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