an order from Keith to take all the ships at Leghorn to Spezia, for certain minor military purposes.  Nelson sent the “Alexander” and a frigate, but remained himself in Leghorn with the “Foudroyant,” ready, he wrote the admiral, “to receive the queen and royal family, should such an event be necessary.”  Keith rejoined with a peremptory order that no ships-of-the-line should be used for such purpose; the Queen, he said, had better get to Vienna as fast as she could, and not think of going back to Palermo.  “If the French fleet gets the start of ours a day, Sicily cannot hold out even that one day.”  “Lord Keith,” commented Nelson, “believes reports of the Brest fleet, which I give not the smallest credit to.”  “I own I do not believe the Brest fleet will return to sea,” he told Keith; “and if they do, the Lord have mercy on them, for our fleet will not, I am sure.”  It was not the least of his conspicuous merits that he was blind to imaginative or exaggerated alarms.  Keith saw too vividly all that might happen in consequence of recent reverses—­much more than could happen.

On the 24th of June the latter reached Leghorn in person.  “I must go to Leghorn,” he complained, “to land the fugitives, and to be bored by Lord Nelson for permission to take the Queen to Palermo, and princes and princesses to all parts of the globe.”  The Queen was in a panic, and besought him with tears to give her the “Foudroyant,” but Keith was obdurate.  “Mr. Wyndham[7] arrived here yesterday from Florence,” wrote Lady Minto on the 6th of July to her sister.  “He left the Queen of Naples, Sir William and Lady Hamilton, and Nelson, at Leghorn.  The Queen has given up all thoughts of coming here.  She asked Lord Keith in her own proper person for the Foudroyant to take her back.  He refused positively giving her such a ship.  The Queen wept, concluding that royal tears were irresistible; but he remained unmoved, and would grant nothing but a frigate to convoy her own frigates[8] to Trieste.  He told her Lady Hamilton had had command of the fleet long enough.  The Queen is very ill with a sort of convulsive fit, and Nelson is staying there to nurse her; he does not intend going home till he has escorted her back to Palermo.  His zeal for the public service seems entirely lost in his love and vanity, and they all sit and flatter each other all day long.”  It is only fair to say that there are indications, in the correspondence, of bad terms between the Hamiltons and Wyndham, who, therefore, was probably not a sympathetic observer.  He had also before this written unpleasantly to Nelson, insinuating, apparently, a lack of attention to duty; for the latter in a letter to Troubridge says, “I send you an extract of Mr. Wyndham’s unhandsome mode of expressing himself towards me.”  Towards Keith her Majesty manifested her displeasure by omitting him in the public leave she took of all the officials.