sudden as well as sharp; but the justification in each case rests
upon attendant circumstances. In the instances here compared, we have
in the one a fleet in which many ships were seething with mutiny, and
the preservation of order rested solely upon the firmness of one
man,--the commander-in-chief,--and upon the awe inspired by him. In
the other, we see rebellion subdued, the chief rebels in confinement,
the foreign enemy, except three small isolated garrisons, expelled
beyond the borders of the kingdom six weeks before, and a great
British fleet in possession of the anchorage. Punishment in such case,
however just, is not deterrent, but avenging. True, Nelson was
expecting the appearance of Bruix's fleet; but he himself
characterized as "infamous" the capitulation granted by Ruffo and
Foote, to which they were largely moved by the same expectation, when
wielding a much smaller force than he did. The possible approach of
the French fleet did not necessitate the hasty execution of a
prisoner.

That Nelson yielded his convictions of right and wrong, and
consciously abused his power, at the solicitation of Lady Hamilton, as
has been so freely alleged, is not probably true,--there is no proof
of it; on the contrary, as though to guard against such suspicion, he
was careful to see none but his own officers during Caracciolo's
confinement. But it is true that he was saturated with the prevalent
Court feeling against the insurgents and the French, which found
frequent expression in his letters. After living in the Hamiltons'
house for four months, during which, to use his own expression, "I
have never but three times put my foot to the ground, since December,
1798," in daily close contact with the woman who had won his
passionate love, who was the ardent personal friend of the Queen,
sharing her antipathies, and expressing her hatred of enemies in terms
which showed the coarseness of her fibre,[86] Nelson was steeped in
the atmosphere of the Court of Naples, and separated from that of the
British fleet, none of whose strongest captains were long with him
during that period. The attitude more natural to men of his blood is
shown in a letter signed by the officers of the "Leviathan,"
Duckworth's flagship. Coming from Minorca, they were out of touch with
Neapolitan fury, and they addressed Lady Hamilton, interceding for a
family engaged in the rebellion; a fact which shows the prevailing
impression--whether well founded or not-