on.
Capua is fifteen to twenty miles inland from Naples.

On the 13th--it is to be presumed after closing his letter to Spencer
just quoted--an order reached him from Keith, in these words: "Events
which have recently occurred render it necessary that as great a force
as can be collected should be assembled near the island of Minorca;
therefore, if your Lordship has no detachment of the French squadron
in the neighbourhood of Sicily, nor information of their having sent
any force towards Egypt or Syria, you are hereby required and directed
to send such ships as you can possibly spare off the island of Minorca
to wait my orders." The wording was so elastic, as regards the numbers
to be sent, as to leave much to Nelson's judgment, and he replied
guardedly the same day: "As soon as the safety of His Sicilian
Majesty's Kingdoms is secured, I shall not lose one moment in making
the detachment you are pleased to order. At present, under God's
Providence, the safety of His Sicilian Majesty, and his speedy
restoration to his kingdom, depends on this fleet, and the confidence
inspired even by the appearance of our ships before the city is beyond
all belief; and I have no scruple in declaring my opinion that should
any event draw us from the kingdom, that if the French remain in any
part of it, disturbances will again arise, for all order having been
completely overturned, it must take a thorough cleansing, and some
little time, to restore tranquillity."

When Keith wrote this first order, June 27, he was at sea somewhere
between Minorca and Toulon, trying to find Bruix's fleet, of which he
had lost touch three weeks before, at the time he sent to Nelson the
two seventy-fours, whose arrival caused the latter's second cruise of
Maritimo. He had lost touch through a false step, the discussion of
which has no place in a life of Nelson, beyond the remark that it was
Keith's own error, not that of Lord St. Vincent, as Nelson afterwards
mistakenly alleged; querulously justifying his own disobedience on the
ground that Keith, by obeying against his judgment, had lost the
French fleet. What is to be specially noted in the order is that Keith
gave no account of his reasons, nor of the events which dictated them,
nor of his own intended action. No room is afforded by his words for
any discretion, except as to the number of ships to be sent by Nelson,
and, though the language of the latter was evasive, the failure to
move even a single ve