ou can have no pleasure
sitting up all night at cards; why, then, sacrifice your health,
comfort, purse, ease, everything, to the customs of a country, where
your stay cannot be long? I would not, my Lord, reside in this country
for all Sicily. I trust the war will soon be over, and deliver us from
a nest of everything that is infamous, and that we may enjoy the
smiles of our countrywomen. Your Lordship is a stranger to half that
happens, or the talk it occasions; if you knew what your friends feel
for you, I am sure you would cut all the nocturnal parties. The
gambling of the people at Palermo is publicly talked of everywhere. I
beseech your Lordship leave off. I wish my pen could tell you my
feelings, I am sure you would oblige me. I trust your Lordship will
pardon me; it is the sincere esteem I have for you that makes me risk
your displeasure."[79] To this manly appeal Nelson seems to have made
no reply; none at least is quoted.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] Colburn's United Service Magazine, 1847, part ii. p. 52.

[71] Afterwards Mrs. Trench, the mother of Archbishop Trench.

[72] Beckford's Memoirs, London, 1859, vol. ii. p. 326.

[73] Compare an equally strong assertion, Nicolas's Despatches, vol. vi. p.
99.

[74] St. Vincent at this time had not met her, at least as Lady Hamilton,
but they exchanged occasional letters.

[75] Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 220.

[76] Lord Minto was at this time ambassador to Vienna. Rushout and Rooke
were men well known on the Continent. Both are mentioned with some
particularity in the Memoirs of Pryse Lockhart Gordon, another continental
rambler.

[77] The Paget Papers, London, 1896, p. 185.

[78] The Paget Papers, London, 1896, p. 219.

[79] Clarke and M'Arthur, vol. ii. p. 355.

CHAPTER XII.

NELSON'S CAREER, AND GENERAL EVENTS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AND ITALY,
FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT IN NAPLES TO THE INCURSION
OF THE FRENCH FLEET UNDER ADMIRAL BRUIX.

JANUARY-MAY, 1799. AGE, 40.

The four and a half months of unbroken residence in Palermo, which
followed the flight of the Court from Naples, were full of annoyance
and distress to Nelson, independent of, and additional to, the
disquieting struggle between his passion and his conscience, which had
not yet been silenced. The disasters in Naples continued. The
Neapolitan Navy had been left in charge of one of the Portuguese
officers, who soon found himself compelled to burn the
ships-of-the-line, to preven