ter himself. "You will not believe I have
said or done anything, without the approbation of Sir William
Hamilton. His Excellency is too good to them, and the strong language
of an English Admiral telling them plain truths of their miserable
system may do good."

The particular position of Naples relatively to France was this.
French troops had for a year past occupied the Roman Republic, which
had been established by them upon the overthrow of the Papal
Government. Their presence there was regarded by Nelson as a constant
threat to the Two Sicilies, and this to an extent was true; but rather
because of the contagion of revolutionary ideas than from the military
point of view. From the latter, it should have been obvious to a man
like Nelson that the French must be deterred, under existing
conditions, from entering Naples unprovoked; because the farther they
advanced the more exposed was their army, in case war, which was
darkly threatening, should be renewed in Upper Italy. They dared not,
unless by folly, or because first attacked, prolong their already too
extended ex-centric movement into Lower Italy. This was true, taking
account of Austria only; but now that the British fleet was released
by the entire destruction of the French at the Nile, and could operate
anywhere on the coast, it would be doubly imprudent; and when the news
that it had been done reached Egypt, Bonaparte, who had himself felt
the weight of Naples as a possible enemy, remote and feeble as she
was, exclaimed, "Italy is lost!" That Naples should co-operate in the
general movement against France was right, although, as Nelson well
knew, she had never dared do so under much more favorable
conditions,--a fact which by itself should have suggested to him
caution; but that she should act alone, with the idea of precipitating
war, refusing to await the moment fixed by the principal states, was
folly. This, however, was the course determined, under the combined
impulse of the Queen, Lady Hamilton, and Nelson; and it was arranged
that, after visiting the blockade off Malta, he should return to
Naples to co-operate in the intended movement.

On the 15th of October Nelson sailed from Naples for Malta in the
"Vanguard," with three ships-of-the-line which had lately joined him.
He still felt, with accurate instinct, that Egypt and the Ionian
Islands, with Malta, constituted the more purely maritime interests,
in dealing with which the fleet would most furthe