"MY DEAR SIR,
"I herewith inclose you a letter received some days ago: and, on the receipt of this, you will keep a good look out for the Northumberland, who is coming your way; and join her as soon as you can, Captain Martin having letters for you. I am sorry to find, you have been cruizing off Civita Vecchia; I was in hopes of your being on the north coast of Italy: but, I am persuaded, it was done for the best. I here inclose you the copy of a letter, sent open to me, from Mr. Smith, at Constantinople; respecting some supplies furnished La Bonne Citoyenne, at the Dardanelles: and request, that you will give the necessary directions to have it settled; or explain it to me, that it may be settled. Mr. Tyson has written to the purser, Mr. Isaacson, to desire he will draw out bills for the amount; and fresh vouchers for your signature, and the settlement of his account.
"I am, wishing you every success, your's very affectionately,
"Nelson."
"Captain Nisbet."
This letter cannot require any comment; it must produce decisive convictions in the mind of every intelligent reader, respecting the true characteristics of both parties. It forms, indeed, a genuine picture of paternal solicitude.
On the 5th of August, Lord Nelson wrote to inform Lord Keith, as well as Earl Spencer and the Board of Admiralty, that being then about to proceed, in the Foudroyant, with his Sicilian Majesty on board, for Palermo; and, finding it necessary the command of the squadron in Naples Bay, and along the coast, should be left with an officer above the rank of post-captain—especially, as the Russian and Turkish squadrons were soon expected in the bay—he had thought it right to give Captain Troubridge an order to wear a broad red pendant at the main top-gallant mast-head of the Culloden, which he hoped their lordships would, respectively, approve and confirm.
Having thus generously promoted his friend Troubridge, he left under the command of the new commodore, besides the Culloden, the Audacious, Goliath, and Swiftsure, British line of battle ships, with two Portuguese, and smaller vessels of war: directing him to co-operate with Cardinal Ruffo, the lieutenant-general of the kingdom of Naples, in all things necessary for it's safety, and the peace and quiet of the capital; with liberty, should he find it necessary, to detach a part of the squadron along the Roman coast, to the northward, as far as Leghorn, in order to prevent the French from carrying off the plunder of Rome.
This and every other requisite arrangement being completed, for the peace and security of his Sicilian Majesty's Neapolitan dominions, and the due distribution of the British squadron under Lord Nelson's command, his lordship immediately sailed for Palermo, with the king and his principal ministers, and his friends Sir William and Lady Hamilton; all impatient personally to acquaint the queen with the particulars of those joyful events which had filled every bosom with sensations of the purest delight. Her majesty, indeed, had been regularly apprised of the various transactions, immediately as they occurred: but, in an affair of such variety and importance as the recovery of a wrested kingdom from foreign and domestic enemies, ten thousand little occurrences, often most powerfully interesting to souls of genuine grandeur, and forming the chief charm for minds of a delicate and tender susceptibility, may be supposed to have attracted those who were present amidst these impressive scenes, absolutely incommunicable by the most practised and facile pen, and only to be successfully detailed with the many adventitious aids of personal elocution. The feelings of the king, as he benignantly eyed his noble benefactors; of the illustrious hero, and his two estimable friends, who were the honoured objects of his majesty's just regards; must be left to the conception of the reader: it would be difficult to decide, which enjoyed, on this occasion, the greatest portion of substantial felicity; the grateful monarch thus happily restored to his rightful throne, or the generous friends who had so disinterestedly and successfully accomplished the arduous task of replacing him.
Fraught with these dignified sentiments, they no sooner arrived off Palermo, on the 8th inst. than the queen, and royal offspring, sympathetically replete with equally exalted sensations, and who had impatiently awaited the happy return of his majesty, came out, in the royal barge; attended by innumerable pleasure-boats filled with loyal Sicilians of all ranks, who hailed their beloved sovereign with acclamations of the sincerest joy. Her majesty, overwhelmed with delight, no sooner got on board the Foudroyant, than she embraced Lady Hamilton, who had respectfully hastened to receive the queen; and, at the same instant, hung round her ladyship's neck a rich chain of gold, to which was suspended a beautiful portrait of herself, superbly set in diamonds, with the motto—"Eterna Gratitudine!"—"Eternal Gratitude!"—inscribed at the back of the picture. To Lord Nelson, her majesty also united with the king in the highest degree of grateful regard which it is possible for language to convey. He was addressed as their preserver, their deliverer, their restorer; and it was easy to perceive that, even when they were silent, their great minds meditated some noble reward. Nor were the substantial services of Sir William Hamilton, though of a less brilliant nature than those of his heroic friend, passed over without the most grateful acknowledgments of their Sicilian Majesties; whose interests that wise and worthy minister had uniformly promoted, for a long series of years, with a zeal little less ardent than that which he is well known to have constantly exerted for the honour and advantage of his own sovereigns, whom himself and lady so splendidly and munificently represented at the Neapolitan court.
A few days after their arrival at Palermo, Lord Nelson received the royal remuneration of his transcendent services, in a stile far surpassing any expectation which his lordship could possibly have formed on the subject; and of which, so rare is any excess of human gratitude, history scarcely affords a single similar instance.
Indeed, when Lady Hamilton, by desire of the Queen of Naples, first announced to his lordship, on the second day after their arrival, that it was the determination of his Sicilian Majesty to create him Duke of Bronte, and to confer on him all the valuable estate and princely privileges attached to that most distinguished and appropriate title; such were his lordship's nice notions of honour, that he positively protested against receiving any reward from that sovereign, for what he considered as a mere faithful discharge of the duty which he owed to his own. It was not the formal "Nolo episcopari!"—"I am unwilling to become a bishop, or to take on myself the episcopal character!"—of every new bishop; who is injudiciously constrained, by a singular perversion of propriety, to prepare for the exercise of the most sacred of all functions, by making a declaration which, though it ought, in a spiritual sense, to be strictly correct, is extremely subject, at best, to be considered as not altogether sincere: but, in truth, the spontaneous and felt sense of that dignified delicacy of honourable conduct, by which his lordship was ever directed; and of which persons of vulgar intellect, who are by no means fitted to form any just estimate of the actions of so exalted a character, will probably be weak enough still to doubt the actual existence. It is certain, nevertheless, that Lord Nelson resolutely held out against the acceptance of these elevated dignities, and their annexed emoluments, for two or three days, at least, notwithstanding all the intreaties of Sir William and Lady Hamilton: nor did this incomparable man finally agree to receive them—maintaining, to the last, that he could not do so without subjecting the purity of his motives, in what he had happily effected, to the opprobrium of unjust suspicion—till Lady Hamilton, at the express instance of the queen, solicited the inflexible hero, even on her knees, to consent to the wishes of these truly amiable and most munificent sovereigns; as requisite to demonstrate that, amidst the too rigid sense which he evidently entertained of what might seem to him proper for the maintenance of his own honour, he was not altogether unregardful of what the world, as well as themselves, must ever consider as absolutely necessary for the preservation of their's. The exquisite address of this argument, as suggested by her Sicilian Majesty, and pressed by the unaffected eloquence of her ladyship, was too powerful to be opposed. His lordship could offer nothing sufficiently substantial against such persuasive wisdom; and, being unable longer to reason, he could no longer continue to resist. Should the scornful insolence, that is ever awakened, in low and vicious minds, by even the slightest mention of virtuous deeds, endeavour to interpose the mean malignity of it's cold suspicions on hearing this recital; let the humbler bosom, that cherishes more generous sentiments, reflect but for a moment, that his lordship had recently risked even a disobedience of orders from his temporary commander in chief, while promoting the interests of their Neapolitan Majesties, and it will feel sufficient reasons for our hero's delicate repugnance to the ready acceptance of any undesired aggrandizement, however highly merited, on this particular occasion.
On the 13th, therefore, in consequence of this acquiescence, the King of Naples sent his lordship a superb diamond-hilted sword, with a most affectionate letter; thanking him for having reconquered his majesty's kingdom, and again placed him on the throne of his ancestors. The value of this present, estimated at four thousand guineas, was incalculably enhanced by the very appropriate circumstance of it's being the identical sword which had been given to the King of Naples, by Charles the Third, on that monarch's memorable departure to Spain, accompanied by the following most remarkable declaration—"With this sword, I conquered the kingdom which I now resign to thee. It ought, in future, to be possessed by the first defender of the same; or, by him who shall restore it to thee, in case it should ever be lost." At the same time, Lord Nelson received an official letter from his Excellency the Prince Di Luzzi, informing him that his Sicilian Majesty had that day been graciously pleased to create his lordship Duke of Bronte, in Sicily, and to confer on him all the valuable estate and privileges attached to that most honourable title.
When it is considered, that the word Bronte signifies, in the Greek language, Thunder; that the fabulous forger of the thunder of Jupiter was said to be one of the Cyclops, named Bronte, who resided at Etna in the Island of Sicily, where the Dukedom of Bronte is situated; and that the military guard of honour, appertaining to the Dukes of Bronte, still actually wear, in allusion to the fabled Cyclops, sons of Neptune and Amphitrite, who had one large eye in the middle of their foreheads, the representation of an eye on the front of their caps; there could not, every person must admit, have been a more appropriate dignity bestowed on our incomparable hero, by his Sicilian Majesty, than that which he had thus liberally and judiciously been induced to confer.
Lord Nelson, penetrated with unutterable gratitude, by his majesty's most generous munificence, instantly wrote the following letter to the minister who had made this interesting communication.
"Palermo, 13th August 1799.