f Naples. There can be no
question, however, that all his faculties were constantly on the
alert; and that his administration of the station until Keith's return
was characterized by the same zeal, sagacity, and politic tact that he
had shown in earlier days. It is admirable to note the patience,
courtesy, and adroit compliment, he brings into play, to kindle, in
those over whom he has no direct control, the ardor for the general
good, and the fearlessness of responsibility, which actuate himself;
and at the same time to observe how severe the strain was upon his
nervous and irritable temper, as betrayed in comments upon these very
persons, made in private letters which he never expected would see the
light.

The points of principal importance were the consolidation of the
royal power in the continental territory of the Two Sicilies, the
reduction of Malta, and the retention of the French army in Egypt in
entire isolation from France. For the first, Nelson entirely failed in
his efforts to induce the King to trust himself again in Naples, as
the Hamiltons and he had expected when they came back to Palermo. "My
situation here is indeed an uncomfortable one," he said to Earl
Spencer; "for plain common sense points out that the King should
return to Naples, but nothing can move him." "Our joint exertions have
been used to get the King to go to Naples," he wrote to Troubridge,
"but of no avail; the Austrians will be there before him." Although
the French had been expelled from all the Neapolitan dominions, the
presence of fifteen hundred in Rome and Civita Vecchia served then as
an excuse. Nelson implored the commander of the British troops at
Minorca to spare twelve hundred of his men, to aid Troubridge on the
Roman coast. "Sir Charles Stuart," he tells him flatteringly, "by his
timely exertion saved this Kingdom [Sicily] from anarchy and
confusion, and perhaps from rebellion. So it is now, my dear Sir, I
trust, in your power (and I have assured the good King and Queen of
your readiness to serve them and the good cause as much as Sir
Charles) to send for the taking possession of Civita Vecchia and Rome;
this done, and with my life, I will answer for the success of the
expedition. All would be quiet and happy; and their Sicilian Majesties
might return to their throne without any alarm from mobs.... I am sure
I need not venture to say more on the subject. Your Excellency's
judgment and heart will point out the necessity of