of persons in office,
and of those very people being rewarded. If money could be placed
in the public chest at this moment, I believe it would be well
used: for the sad thing in this country is, that although much is
raised, yet very little reaches the public chest. I will give you a
fact--When the order of Jesuits was suppressed in this country and
Sicily, they possessed very large estates: although these, with
every other part of their property, were seized by the crown; yet,
to this moment, not one farthing has reached the public chest. On
the contrary, some years, the pretended expence of management was
more than the produce. Taxes have been sold for sums of money;
which, now, are five times more than when sold. This, it is true,
was done by viceroys, to please their distant masters. But, I am
tiring your patience. In short, their majesties look to us for
every succour; and, without it, they are undone.

"I have wrote to the Turkish and Russian admirals, and shall take
care to keep on the very best footing with all the allied powers.

"Believe me, your lordship's most obedient and obliged servant,

"Nelson."

At this Neapolitan review, a curious circumstance is said to have
occurred. By some mistake of General Mack's, in directing the operations
of a feigned fight, it so happened that his own troops were completely
surrounded by those of the enemy; when Lord Nelson, vexed at the
unfortunate and inauspicious blunder, immediately exclaimed, to his
surrounding friends--"This fellow does not understand his business!"

It having been agreed, in a council held at the camp of St. Germaine's,
as suggested in the foregoing letter, to take possession of Leghorn, not
a moment was lost, by Lord Nelson, in preparing for that expedition. The
King and Queen of Naples, affected by the very indifferent state of his
lordship's health, and fearing that the exertion might prove too much
for their chief protector, wished him to remain at Naples. When the
queen, accordingly, through the medium of Lady Hamilton, advised him to
send the troops; he instantly directed her to inform her majesty, that
it was his custom, in order to succeed, not to say--"Go!" but--"Let us
go!"

Such was the dispatch used on this occasion, that all the troops were
embarked, and his lordship sailed from the Bay of Naples, on the 22d
instant. The Vanguard, Culloden,