r to
Lord Grenville.... You will find me much worn and am little more than
skin and bone, as I have very little stomach."

Although they were on board ship together, Nelson cannot have seen
Hamilton's despatch, or he must have corrected a misstatement which
directly contradicted his own account of June 27 to Lord Keith, as
well as that he was sending by the same messenger, in a private letter
to Earl Spencer. The latter ran thus: "Your Lordship will observe my
Note (No. 1), and opinion to the Cardinal (No. 2). _The Rebels came
out of the Castles with this knowledge_, without any honours, and the
principal Rebels were seized and conducted on board the ships of the
squadron. The others, embarked in fourteen polacres, were anchored
under the care of our ships."

Hamilton's statement remaining uncorrected, and being so
circumstantial, though erroneous, has made necessary a fuller
discussion of the evidence on this point than otherwise might have
been required.

Although, in the author's judgment, Nelson acted within his right in
disallowing the capitulation, it is essential to note that a fortnight
later, when fully cognizant of all the circumstances, he characterized
it in a letter to Lord Spencer as "infamous." "On my fortunate arrival
here I found a most infamous treaty entered into with the Rebels, in
direct disobedience of His Sicilian Majesty's orders."[85] Such an
adjective, deliberately applied after the heat of the first moment had
passed, is, in its injustice, a clear indication of the frame of mind
under the domination of which he was. Captain Foote with his feeble
squadron, and the commanders of the undisciplined mob ashore known as
the Christian army, expected, as did Nelson himself, the appearance of
the French fleet at Naples. In view of that possibility, it was at the
least a pardonable error of judgment to concede terms which promised
to transfer the castles speedily into their own hands. The most
censurable part of the agreement was in the failure to exact the
surrender of St. Elmo, which dominates the others. It is to be
regretted that Captain Foote, who naturally and bitterly resented the
word "infamous," did not, in his "Vindication," confine himself to
this military argument, instead of mixing it up with talk about mercy
to culprits and Nelson's infatuation for Lady Hamilton.]

On the 27th of June, the day following the surrender of Uovo and
Nuovo, Troubridge landed with thirteen hundred men to be