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Troubridge rejoined the Flag at Palermo on the 17th of March, having turned over the command in the Levant to Sir Sidney Smith, after an ineffectual attempt to destroy the French shipping in Alexandria. By this time matters had begun to mend. Calabria had returned to its loyalty, and the insurrection of the peasantry against the French was general throughout the country, and in the Roman State. The Directory, taking umbrage at the advance of Russian troops to the frontiers of Austria, demanded explanations from the latter, and when these proved unsatisfactory directed its armies to take the offensive. The French advanced into Germany on the first of March, and in Italy towards the end of the month. But the action of the French Government, though audacious and imposing, rested upon no solid foundation of efficiency in the armies, or skill in the plan of campaign. Serious reverses soon followed, and the fatally ex-centric position of the corps in Naples was then immediately apparent.

Before this news could reach Palermo, however, Nelson had sent Troubridge with four ships-of-the-line and some smaller vessels to the Bay of Naples, to blockade it, and to enter into communication, if possible, with the loyalists in the city. As the extreme reluctance of the King and Queen prevented his going in person,—a reason the sufficiency of which it is difficult to admit,—Nelson hoisted his flag on board a transport in the bay, and sent the flagship, in order not to diminish the force detailed for such important duties. Within a week the islands in the immediate neighborhood of Naples—Procida, Ischia, Capri, and the Ponzas—had again hoisted the royal ensign. On the 22d of April the French evacuated the city, with the exception of the Castle of St. Elmo, in which they left a garrison of five hundred men. In Upper Italy their armies were in full retreat, having been forced back from the Adige to the Adda, whence an urgent message was sent to Macdonald, Championnet's successor at Naples, to fall back to the northward and effect a junction with the main body, soon to be sorely pressed by an overwhelming force of the Austro-Russians, at whose head was the famous Suwarrow. On the 29th the Allies entered Milan, and on the 7th of May the northern French, now under the command of Moreau, had retired as far as Alessandria, in Piedmont. On this same day, Macdonald, having thrown garrisons into Capua and Gaeta, evacuated the kingdom of Naples, and hastened northward to join Moreau. With the exception of these fortified posts and the city of Naples, the country was now overrun by the Christian army, the name applied to the numerous but utterly undisciplined bands of rude peasantry, attached to the royal cause, and led by Cardinal Ruffo. The Jacobins in the city still held out, and had in the bay a small naval force under the command of Commodore Caracciolo.

Troubridge's successes continued. A week later Salerno had been taken, and the royal colors were flying at Castellamare, on the opposite side of the Bay from Naples, and distant from it only twelve miles by land. Nelson questioned Troubridge about the return of the King, whose most evident political conviction was that the success of the royal cause was vitally connected with the safety of the royal person. "What are your ideas of the King's going into the Bay of Naples, without foreign troops? If it should cause insurrection [of the royalists] in Naples which did not succeed, would it not be worse? The King, if a rising of loyal people took place, ought to be amongst them; and that he will never consent to." "The King, God bless him! is a philosopher," he had said, repeating an expression of Lady Hamilton's, referring to the disasters which caused the headlong flight from Rome, through Naples, to Palermo; "but the great Queen feels sensibly all that has happened." The Queen also was extremely fearful, and Nelson intimated to St. Vincent that a request would be made for British troops to protect the sovereigns. "Their Majesties are ready to cross the water whenever Naples is entirely cleansed. When that happy event arrives, and not till then, a desire will be expressed for the British troops to be removed from Messina into Naples to guard the persons of their Majesties." That Nelson should have considered it essential to maintain in power, by any means, sovereigns devoted to Great Britain, is perfectly comprehensible. What is difficult to understand is the esteem he continued to profess, for those whose unheroic bearing so belied the words he had written six months before: "His Majesty is determined to conquer or die at the head of his army." Under other conditions and influences, none would have been more forward to express dissatisfaction and contempt.

Withal, despite the favorable outlook of affairs and the most joyous season of the year, his depression of spirits continued. "I am far from well," he writes on the 3d of May, "and the good news of the success of the Austrian arms in Italy does not even cheer me." But in the midst of the full current of success, and of his own gloom, an incident suddenly occurred which threw everything again into confusion and doubt, and roused him for the time from his apathy. On the 12th of May a brig arrived at Palermo, with news that a French fleet of nineteen ships-of-the-line had escaped from Brest, and had been seen less than a fortnight before off Oporto, steering for the Mediterranean.

CHAPTER XIII.
FROM THE INCURSION OF THE FRENCH FLEET UNDER BRUIX TO THE RESTORATION OF THE ROYAL AUTHORITY AT NAPLES.—THE CARACCIOLO EXECUTION.—NELSON'S DISOBEDIENCE TO ADMIRAL LORD KEITH

MAY-JULY, 1799. AGE, 40

The intention of the French to send a fleet into the Mediterranean had transpired some time before, and the motive—to retrieve the destruction of their naval power in that sea by the Battle of the Nile—was so obvious that the attempt was regarded as probable. As far back as the 7th of January, Nelson had written to Commodore Duckworth, commanding the detachment of four ships-of-the-line at Minorca, that he had received notification of the force expected from Brest. If they got into the Mediterranean, he was confident they would go first to Toulon, and he wished to concert beforehand with Duckworth, who was not under his orders, the steps necessary to be taken at once, if the case arose. He did not think, so he wrote to Ball, that they would venture a squadron to Malta or Alexandria, in view of the certain destruction which in the end must befall it, even if successful in reaching the port.

Both remarks show that he did not look for the number of ships that were sent—nineteen, as the first news said, twenty-five, as was actually the case. An emergency so great and so imminent drew out all his latent strength, acute judgment, and promptitude. The brig that brought the news was sent off the same night to Naples, with orders to proceed from there to Minorca and Gibraltar, and to notify Duckworth and St. Vincent what Nelson intended to do. A cutter sailed at the same time for Malta. Troubridge and Ball were both directed to send or bring all their ships-of-the-line, save one each, to Minorca, there to unite with Duckworth. Troubridge's ships were to call off Palermo for further instructions, but not to lose time by coming to anchor there. Expresses were sent to the different ports of Sicily, in case any Russian or Turkish ships had arrived, to put them on their guard, and to request co-operation by joining the force assembling off Minorca, where Nelson reasoned Lord St. Vincent also would repair. To the latter he wrote: "Eight, nine, or ten sail of the line shall, in a few days, be off Mahon, ready to obey your orders (not in the port);" for his intention was that they should remain outside under sail. "You may depend upon my exertion, and I am only sorry that I cannot move⁸¹ to your help, but this island appears to hang on my stay. Nothing could console the Queen this night, but my promise not to leave them unless the battle was to be fought off Sardinia."

The next day he wrote again in similar terms, seeking to reconcile his promise to the Queen with his impulses, and, it may be said safely, with his duty. "Should you come upwards without a battle, I hope in that case you will afford me an opportunity of joining you; for my heart would break to be near my commander-in-chief, and not assisting him at such a time. What a state I am in! If I go, I risk, and more than risk, Sicily, and what is now safe on the Continent; for we know, from experience, that more depends on opinion than on acts themselves. As I stay, my heart is breaking; and, to mend the matter, I am seriously unwell."

That evening, the 13th, at nine o'clock, a lieutenant arrived, who had been landed to the westward of Palermo by a sloop-of-war, the "Peterel," she not being able to beat up to the city against the east wind prevailing. From him Nelson learned that the French fleet had passed the Straits, and had been seen off Minorca. The next day, the "Peterel" having come off the port, he went alongside, and sent her on at once to Malta, with orders to Ball to abandon the blockade, bringing with him all his ships, and to proceed off Maritimo, a small island twenty miles west of Sicily, where he now proposed to concentrate his squadron and to go himself. Troubridge, having already orders to come to Palermo, needed no further instructions, except to bring all his ships, instead of leaving one at Naples. Every ship-of-the-line in the squadron, including the Portuguese, was thus summoned to join the Flag, in a position to cover Palermo and the approaches to the eastern Mediterranean. To these necessary dispositions was owing that the senior officer left at Naples was Captain Foote, who afterwards signed the articles of capitulation with the insurgents, which gave such offence to Nelson, and have occasioned much controversy in connection with his subsequent action.

Troubridge, having sailed at once on receipt of his first orders, arrived on the 17th with three British ships and one Portuguese. A heavy gale prevented Nelson getting to sea till the 20th, when he sailed, and was joined the next morning by the fourth ship from Naples. The same day came a Portuguese corvette from Gibraltar and Mahon, with letters from St. Vincent and Duckworth. The former announced that the French had passed the Straits, and that he was about to start in pursuit. Duckworth, who also was asked to join off Maritimo, declined to do so, saying that he must await the commander-in-chief. Nelson had of course immediately communicated to the latter his change of plan. He hoped to collect ten sail-of-the-line, which, "if Duckworth reinforce me, will enable me to look the enemy in the face"—fourteen ships to nineteen; "but should any of the Russians or Turks be off Malta, I hope to get a force of different nations equal to the enemy, when not a moment shall be lost in bringing them to battle."

On the 23d of May he was off Maritimo with seven ships, Ball not having joined yet. His spirits were fast rising, as in thought he drew near the enemy. "Duckworth means to leave me to my fate," he wrote to Lady Hamilton. "Never mind; if I can get eleven sail together, they shall not hurt me." "I am under no apprehension for the safety of his Majesty's squadron," he said in a circular letter to his scattered vessels, designed to heighten their ardor; "on the contrary, from the very high state of discipline of the ships, I am confident, should the enemy force us to battle, that we shall cut a very respectable figure; and if Admiral Duckworth joins, not one moment shall be lost in my attacking the enemy." It must be mentioned that St. Vincent had expressed his opinion that the French were bound for Malta and Alexandria, and Nelson, when he wrote these words, was hourly expecting to see their sails appear on the horizon. He did not know yet, however, that they were twenty-five, instead of nineteen, of the line. To St. Vincent he expressed himself with the sober, dauntless resolution of a consummate warrior, who recognized that opportunities must be seized, and detachments, if need be, sacrificed, for the furtherance of a great common object. "Your Lordship may depend that the squadron under my command shall never fall into the hands of the enemy; and before we are destroyed, I have little doubt but the enemy will have their wings so completely clipped that they may be easily overtaken"—by you. In this temper he waited. It is this clear perception of the utility of his contemplated grapple with superior numbers, and not the headlong valor and instinct for fighting that unquestionably distinguished him, which constitutes the excellence of Nelson's genius. This it was which guided him in the great Trafalgar campaign, and the lack of which betrayed Villeneuve at the same period to his wretched shortcomings. Yet, as has before been remarked, mere insight, however accurate and penetrating, ends only in itself, or at best falls far short of the mark, unless accompanied by Nelson's great power of disregarding contingencies—an inspired blindness, which at the moment of decisive action sees, not the risks, but the one only road to possible victory.

Whilst thus expecting an engagement which, from the disparity of numbers, could be nothing short of desperate, he drew up a codicil to his will, making to Lady Hamilton a bequest, in terms that show how complete were the infatuation and idealization now in possession of his mind: "I give and bequeath to my dear friend, Emma Hamilton, wife of the Right Hon. Sir William Hamilton, a nearly round box set with diamonds, said to have been sent me by the mother of the Grand Signor, which I request she will accept (and never part from) as token of regard and respect for her very eminent virtues (for she, the said Emma Hamilton, possesses them all to such a degree that it would be doing her injustice was any particular one to be mentioned) from her faithful and affectionate friend." During this short cruise he wrote her almost daily, and at some length, in addition to the more official communications addressed to Hamilton. At this same period he was excusing himself to his wife for the shortness and infrequency of his letters: "Pray attribute it to the true cause—viz., that in truth my poor hand cannot execute what my head tells me I ought to do."

On the 28th of May Nelson received letters from St. Vincent, dated the 21st, off Minorca, which put him in possession of the movements of the enemy up to that date. The French fleet, under the command of Admiral Bruix, had appeared on the 4th of the month off Cadiz. It was then blowing a half-gale of wind, and the French admiral did not care, under that condition, to engage the fifteen British ships-of-the-line which were cruising off the harbor, under Lord Keith, who had come out from England the previous autumn to be St. Vincent's second in command. The intended junction with the Spanish squadron in Cadiz being thus thwarted, Bruix passed the Straits on the 5th, and Lord St. Vincent, having recalled Keith, followed on the 12th with sixteen ships. On the 20th he joined Duckworth, and learned that the enemy, when last seen, were heading for Toulon. Keith's removal had uncovered Cadiz, and St. Vincent fully expected that the Spanish fleet would leave there for the Mediterranean, which it did, and on the 20th entered Cartagena, to the number of seventeen of the line, but much crippled from a stormy passage. This Nelson did not yet know, nor that Bruix had reached Toulon on the 14th of May, and sailed again on the 26th for the eastward.

Satisfied that the enemy would not at once come his way, and knowing that a vessel had passed up the Mediterranean from St. Vincent to put Sidney Smith on his guard, Nelson ordered Ball to resume the blockade of Malta with two ships-of-the-line. The rest of his squadron he kept massed, and took to Palermo, where he arrived May 29th. Lookout ships were stationed off the north end of Corsica and west of Sardinia. "My reason for remaining in Sicily," he wrote St. Vincent, "is the covering the blockade of Naples, and the certainty of preserving Sicily in case of an attack, for if we were to withdraw our ships, it would throw such a damp on the people that I am sure there would be no resistance."

On the 6th of June Duckworth arrived at Palermo from the main fleet, with four ships-of-the-line, among them the "Foudroyant," eighty. This ship had been designated originally for Nelson's flag, and he shifted to her from the "Vanguard" on the 8th. Duckworth brought a report that St. Vincent was about to give up the command and go home, on account of ill-health. This at once aroused Nelson's anxiety, for he had long felt that few superiors would have the greatness of mind to trust him as implicitly, and humor him as tenderly, as the great admiral had done. It is not every one that can handle an instrument of such trenchant power, yet delicate temper, as Nelson's sensitive genius. The combination in St. Vincent of perfect professional capacity with masterful strength of character, had made the tactful respect he showed to Nelson's ability peculiarly grateful to the latter; and had won from him a subordination of the will, and an affection, which no subsequent commander-in-chief could elicit. He wrote to him:—

MY DEAR LORD,—We have a report that you are going home. This distresses us most exceedingly, and myself in particular; so much so, that I have serious thoughts of returning, if that event should take place. But for the sake of our Country, do not quit us at this serious moment. I wish not to detract from the merit of whoever may be your successor; but it must take a length of time, which I hope the war will not give, to be in any manner a St. Vincent. We look up to you, as we have always found you, as to our Father, under whose fostering care we have been led to fame.... Give not up a particle of your authority to any one; be again our St. Vincent, and we shall be happy.

Your affectionate NELSON.

This letter did not reach St. Vincent before he carried his purpose into effect; but Nelson never quite forgave the abandonment of the command at such a moment. In after years he spoke bitterly of it, as a thing he himself could not have done; failing, perhaps, to realize the difference in staying power between forty-five and sixty-five.

On the 2d of June, being then seventy miles southwest of Toulon, St. Vincent turned over to Keith the command of the twenty ships-of-the-line then with him, and went to Port Mahon. For the moment he retained in his own hands the charge of the station,—continued Commander-in-chief,—with headquarters at Minorca, and two divisions cruising: one of twenty ships, with Keith, between Toulon and Minorca, and one of sixteen, including three Portuguese, under Nelson in the waters of Sicily. Friction between these two began at once. Lord Keith was an accomplished and gallant officer, methodical, attentive, and correct; but otherwise he rose little above the commonplace, and, while he could not ignore Nelson's great achievements, he does not seem to have had the insight which could appreciate the rare merit underlying them, nor the sympathetic temperament which could allow for his foibles. Nelson, exasperated at the mere fact of the other's succession to the command, speedily conceived for him an antipathy which Keith would have been more than mortal not to return; but it is to the honor of the latter's self-command that, while insisting upon obedience from his brilliant junior, he bore his refractoriness with dignified patience.

After St. Vincent left him, Keith continued to stand to the northward and eastward. On the 5th of June he received certain information that the French fleet, now twenty-two ships-of-the-line, was in Vado Bay. This word he at once sent on to Nelson. Next day his division was so close in with the Riviera, off Antibes, that it was fired upon by the shore batteries; but the wind coming to the eastward, when off Monaco, did not permit it to pass east of Corsica, and, fearing that the French would take that route and fall upon Nelson, Keith detached to him two seventy-fours, which joined him on the 13th of June.

Admiral Lord Keith

At the moment of their arrival Nelson had just quitted Palermo for Naples, taking with him the whole squadron. The King of Naples had formally requested him to afford to the royal cause at the capital the assistance of the fleet, because the successes of the royalists elsewhere in the kingdom rendered imminent an insurrection in the city against the republican party and the French, which held the castles; and such insurrection, unless adequately supported, might either fail or lead to deplorable excesses. Lady Hamilton, whose irregular interference in State concerns receives here singular illustration, strongly urged this measure in a letter, written to the admiral after an interview with the Queen. Nelson consented, took on board seventeen hundred troops, with the Hereditary Prince, who was to represent the King,—the latter not wishing to go,—and was already clear of Palermo Bay when the two ships from Keith appeared. Gathering from their information that the French were bound for Naples or Sicily, in which his own judgment coincided, he returned at once into port, landed the Prince and the troops, and then took the squadron again off Maritimo, where he expected Ball and the two ships off Malta to join him without delay. "The French force being twenty-two sail of the line," he wrote in suppressed reproach to Keith, "four of which are first rates, the force with me being only sixteen of the line, not one of which was of three decks, three being Portuguese, and one of the English being a sixty-four, very short of men, I had no choice left but to return to Palermo."

With this incident of the insufficient reinforcement sent, began the friction with Keith which appears more openly in his correspondence with others. To St. Vincent, still commander-in-chief, he wrote: "I send a copy of my letter to Lord Keith, and I have only stated my regret that his Lordship could not have sent me a force fit to face the enemy: but, as we are, I shall not get out of their way; although, as I am, I cannot think myself justified in exposing the world (I may almost say) to be plundered by these miscreants. I trust your Lordship will not think me wrong in the painful determination I conceived myself forced to make," that is, to go back to Palermo, "for agonized indeed was the mind of your Lordship's faithful and affectionate servant."

Nelson appears to have felt that the return to Palermo, though imperative, in view of the relative forces of himself and the French, would not only postpone and imperil the restoration of the royal family, but would bring discredit upon himself for not seeking and fighting the enemy's fleet. "I shall wait off Maritimo," he wrote Keith, "anxiously expecting such a reinforcement as may enable me to go in search of the enemy's fleet, when not one moment shall be lost in bringing them to battle; for," he continues, with one of those flashes of genius which from time to time, unconsciously to himself, illuminate his writings, "I consider the best defence for his Sicilian Majesty's dominions is to place myself alongside the French." "My situation is a cruel one," he wrote to Hamilton, "and I am sure Lord Keith has lowered me in the eyes of Europe, for they will only know of 18 sail, [Ball having joined], and not of the description of them; it has truly made me ill." But, although not justified in seeking them, he had off Maritimo taken a strategic position which would enable him to intercept their approach to either Naples or Sicily, "and I was firmly resolved," he wrote with another of his clear intuitions, "they should not pass me without a battle, which would so cripple them that they might be unable to proceed on any distant service." "On this you may depend," he had written to Lady Hamilton, on the first cruise off Maritimo, three weeks before, "that if my little squadron obeys my signal, not a ship shall fall into the hands of the enemy; and I will so cut them up, that they will not be fit even for a summer's cruise."

On the 20th of June, off Maritimo, he received a despatch from St. Vincent that a reinforcement of twelve ships-of-the-line from the Channel was then approaching Port Mahon, and that Keith, having returned thither, had left again in search of Bruix, whose whereabouts remained unknown. He was also notified that St. Vincent had resigned all his command, leaving Keith commander-in-chief. Nelson was convinced—"I knew," was his expression—that the French intended going to Naples. He determined now to resume his enterprise against the republicans in the city; a decision which caused him great and unexplained mental conflict. "I am agitated," he wrote Hamilton the same day, in a note headed "Most Secret," "but my resolution is fixed. For Heaven's sake suffer not any one to oppose it. I shall not be gone eight days. No harm can come to Sicily. I send my Lady and you Lord St. Vincent's letter. I am full of grief and anxiety. I must go. It will finish the war. It will give a sprig of laurel to your affectionate friend, Nelson." The cause of this distress can only be surmised, but is probably to be found in the fears of the Queen, and in the differences existing at the time between herself and the King. Possibly, too, Lady Hamilton's sympathy with the Queen, in a present fear for Sicily, may have led her, contrary to the request so lately made for the admiral to go to Naples, to second an entreaty that the island should not now be exposed; and to refuse her may have caused him pain. On the 21st he was at Palermo, and after two hours' consultation with their Majesties and Acton, the Prime Minister, he sailed again, accompanied in the "Foudroyant" on this occasion by Sir William and Lady Hamilton, but not by the Hereditary Prince, nor the Sicilian troops. On the 24th, at 9 P.M., he anchored in the Bay of Naples. Flags of truce were at that moment flying on the castles of Uovo and Nuovo, which were in the hands of the Neapolitan republicans, and upon the frigate "Seahorse," whose commander had been the senior British officer present, before Nelson's own appearance.

On the passage from Palermo, Nelson had received information that the royalists,—with whom were co-operating some detachments of Russians and Turks, as well as the British naval forces, under Captain Foote, of the "Seahorse,"—had concluded an armistice with the French and their Neapolitan allies, who were in possession of the castles. The terms of the armistice, thus rumored, were that the castles, if not relieved within twenty-one days, should then be surrendered; the garrisons to march out with the honors of war, and to be transported to Toulon in vessels to be furnished by the King of Naples. This report was erroneous in important particulars, especially as to the period of twenty-one days. What really had happened was, that a capitulation had been concluded, which provided that the Neapolitan insurgents should evacuate the two castles held by them—Uovo and Nuovo—as soon as the transports were ready to take them to Toulon, but not before. The French, in the castle of St. Elmo, were not included in the arrangement, their only part being that it required the ratification of their commander before becoming operative. This ratification was given, and, when Nelson's squadron came in sight,⁸² the treaty had received the signature of all the parties interested; the flags of truce indicating a cessation of hostilities until the terms of the capitulation were carried into effect.

Nelson had been given full power by the King of the Two Sicilies to act as his representative. He was also, as commander of the fleet, the representative of the King of Great Britain among the allied forces, which were acting in support of the royalist cause. The double function introduces great confusion into the subsequent transactions, especially as there are on record no formal credentials investing him with the authority he claimed to have from the King of Naples. The omission probably arose from the extreme shortness of his stay in Palermo on the 21st—only two hours and a half elapsing, by the "Foudroyant's" log, between the entering of the ship and her sailing again; a time sufficient for an interview and a clear understanding, but scarcely for drawing up a regular commission. The fact rests upon his own statement, adequately supported, however, by inferences reasonably to be drawn from expressions in letters to him, both from the King and from Acton, the Prime Minister. That his power went so far as to authorize him to remove Cardinal Ruffo, up to that time the King's representative, would alone confirm the assertion of a man habitually truthful. Sir William Hamilton also, writing to Greville, and alluding to his official despatch by the same mail, says, "We had full powers." It may be accepted that Nelson himself was entirely satisfied that he was authorized at the time to act for the King, when emergency required; and it is certain that letters were speedily sent, empowering him to appoint a new government, as well as to arrest Ruffo and to send him to Palermo in a British ship.

Seeing the flags of truce flying, from the two castles and the "Seahorse," and being under the impression that has been stated as to the terms of an armistice, which he called "infamous," Nelson immediately made a signal annulling the truce, "being determined," he wrote to Keith, "never to give my approbation to any terms with Rebels, but that of unconditional submission." As the execution of the capitulation depended upon the embarkation of the garrisons in the transports which were to be provided, Nelson was entirely master of the situation, so far as force went. Next morning, June 25th, he moved his fleet of eighteen sail nearer in, mooring it in a close line of battle before the city, and at the same time sent for twenty-two gun and mortar vessels, then lying at the islands, with which he flanked the ships-of-the-line. In this imposing array, significant at once of inexorable purpose and irresistible power, he sent to Ruffo his "opinion of the infamous terms entered into with the rebels," and also two papers, to be by him forwarded to the insurgents and to the French. From the latter, who had not treated, was required simply an unconditional surrender; but the message to the insurgents, sent, singularly enough, not from the representative of the King of Naples but from the British admiral, ran as follows:—