“17th Nov.—Even the Grand Signor has condescended to notice my earnest endeavours to serve the cause of humanity against a set of impious men. I must write and tell his Admiral how anxious I am for the success of the Ottoman arms, and how happy he can make me by telling me how I can be most useful to him. Must also embrace the opportunity of paying my respects to the Russian Admiral, and assuring him how happy I feel that we are so near each other, and working together for the good cause of our sovereigns. If this continues so, I shall indeed be happy, because I have suspected the Russians, whose distance relieves them from the fear of French aggression, of playing for their own hand.
“Memo.—Have ordered his Sicilian Majesty’s ships Lion and Aretusa to proceed to Malta and put themselves under Captain Ball. For this blockade numbers will do. Of all the fleets in my command only the English can be relied on when the game is afoot. Every Portuguese and Sicilian ship has some if not every fault.
“18th November.—Last evening dear Emma came in, looking inexpressibly engaging: she evidently had something on her mind which gave her a girlish diffidence. With her little straight nose and delicately cut chin, I don’t see how she is ever to look anything but girlish; and last night she had simple white flowers—real flowers twined in a sort of chaplet in her beautiful hair; and her exquisite neck and bosom, without a single jewel, were shown up by a bodice of soft primrose-coloured lawn, as simple as a thrown-back mantilla. She came up to me with an air of pretty coaxing, made the prettier by a conviction that it would fail.
“‘Don’t be cross with me, Nelson,’ she begged. ‘I know you will be vexed, but I’m sure the Queen meant you to see it.’ And then she showed me a letter from the Queen, full of the idea that money was indispensable, which was evidently intended for my eyes. I was to tell Mr. Pitt, I suppose, what I saw. That I can do very soon.
“I see the finest country in the world full of resources, yet not enough to supply the public wants; all are plundering who can get at public money or stores. In my own line I can speak. A Neapolitan ship of the line would cost more than ten English ships fitting out. Five sail of the line must ruin the country. Everything else is, I have no doubt, going on in the same system of thieving. I could give Mr. Pitt so many instances of the greatest mal-content of persons in office, and of those very people being rewarded. If money could be placed in the Public Chest at this moment, I believe it would be well used; for the sad thing in this country is, that, although much is raised, yet very little reaches the Public Chest. I will give you a fact: when the Order of Jesuits was suppressed in this country and Sicily, they possessed very large estates. Although these, with every other part of their property, were seized by the Crown, yet, to this moment, not one farthing has reached the Public Chest. On the contrary, some years the pretended expense of management was more than the produce. Taxes have been sold for sums of money, which now are five times more than when sold.
“I told all this to Emma; to which she replied that she knew it better than I, but as it had been in the beginning in Italy, so it was now, and ever should be. To which I replied, like a great brute—though I could see she was not far from crying, and scolded myself half the night for my roughness to her—‘That it would all have to end, and that it would be fortunate if the Kingdom did not end first.’
“21st November.—Have wrote to my brother, the Reverend Mr. Nelson, of Hillborough, to tell him how earnestly I pray that the victory of which it has pleased God to make me a principal may be useful to my family. As to myself, the probability is that I shall never take my seat in the House of Peers. My health has declined very much, and nothing keeps me on service but the thought that I am doing good.
“‘Vanguard,’ 22nd November.—Ordered Commodore Stone, of Her Faithful Majesty’s ship Rainha, to remain at this place, and to keep his ship complete with provisions and water, to put to sea at a moment’s warning; and, in case of any unforeseen accident, to follow the direction of Sir William Hamilton, and embark the families and effects of the English and Portuguese, if necessary.
“‘Vanguard,’ at Sea, Nov. 27th.—I don’t know when I have been so low; though, thank God, I have not felt the sea-sickness much, in spite of the gale, which has been very bad. The hope of action keeps me up. The General will, I trust, have news of the Emperor which will make him act firmly. War once declared, I shall destroy all the privateers which have been gathering in Leghorn as a neutral port—I daresay as many as a hundred of them. The British ships are, I think, all right, though the weather is so thick that we cannot make any out; but I have no hope of the Portuguese having followed us in such weather. I do hope there will be some action, for the past five days here have been very heavy on my spirits: the weather has been so infernal that we shall be six days making Leghorn from Naples; and the contrast between my beautiful chamber in Sir William’s palace, overlooking the Bay of Naples, and my cabin with a gale of wind blowing, cannot be described. It is not the cabin, it is not the gale—I do not mind them: I have been through it all, and worse, before—but it is the loneliness. Instead of the very finest of society, the witty, well-informed Sir William, most admirable of hosts, and my beautiful Lady with her laughing eyes and caressing smile, there being no English of my rank on board, I have only my own company or the General’s—Naselli’s. We can, fortunately, neither of us talk the other’s language, or I fear I should have more of his company, and I have an instinctive aversion to him. He was intended for a Chamberlain and to die of apoplexy. I shall write to Emma.
“Later.—I have written to dear Emma.