my impression on that subject was."[78] Troubridge, a pattern of that most faithful friendship which dares to risk alienation, if it may but save, wrote urgently to his chief:  “Pardon me, my Lord, it is my sincere esteem for you that makes me mention it.  I know you 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 prevent their falling into the hands of the revolutionists,—­a