I am astonished. I understood, that private orders, at least, would
have been given for our free admission. If we are to be refused
supplies, pray send me, by many vessels, an account; that I may, in
good time, take the king's fleet to Gibraltar. Our treatment is
scandalous for a great nation to put up with, and the king's flag
is insulted at every friendly port we look at. I am, with the
greatest respect, your most obedient servant,

Horatio Nelson.

P.S. I do not complain of the want of attention in individuals,
for all classes of people are remarkably attentive to us."

"His Excellency, the Right Honourable Sir William Hamilton, K.B."

A secret epistle, at the same time, addressed to Sir William and Lady
Hamilton, has these words--

"MY DEAR FRIENDS,

"Thanks to your exertions, we have victualled and watered: and,
surely, watering at the Fountain of Arethusa, we must have victory!
We shall sail with the first breeze; and, be assured, I will return
either crowned with laurel, or covered with cypress."

Though no person in the fleet was acquainted with the harbour of
Syracuse, such was the skill and exertion of the officers that every
ship got safely in: and, full permission having been secured, by the
admirable management and address of Lady Hamilton, not only water, but
other articles of the first necessity, were obtained with the greatest
expedition. Indeed, though there was no proper or regular water-place,
the classical Fountain of Arethusa, that celebrated daughter of Oceanus,
and nymph of the Goddess of Chastity, supplied them copiously with her
pure and traditionally propitious libations; and the hero, it has been
seen, did not fail to anticipate, with becoming gratulations, his sense
of their indisputable efficacy. Such were the exertions of the officers
and men, and such were the facilities, in other respects, which they now
enjoyed, that the whole squadron were in a condition to put to sea by
the 25th.

In the mean time, Admiral Nelson had addressed a letter to the Earl of
St. Vincent, on the 20th instant, stating what he had done since his
last, and his future intentions. "Yesterday," says he, "I arrived here;
where I can learn no more than conjecture, that the French are gone to
the eastward. Every moment, I have to regret the frigates having left
me; to which must be attributed my ignorance of the movements of the