“And what about me, Madam? Am I not placed in a difficult position? Well, pass by the King—there is Malta. Over and over again have I been assured that Malta was just falling, and I do believe that if we could land a few thousand regular troops the place would not hold out long. The islanders are dead against the French; but the islanders have no money or food, and hardly any arms, but what we have given them. I have entreated Acton to send if it is only ten thousand pounds worth of food. He answers that the Treasury is empty, but the Queen herself has given up seven thousand ounces, and this will do something. A hundred thousand pounds spent in food now would save the kingdom. And as for all those stories about the French being on the eve of surrendering, they are sheer imagination. The French know that, unless something is done, of the two, Sicily is a great deal more likely to fall than Malta, and it is their policy to wait and see what becomes of Sicily. They know that Naples has fallen, long ago, and that there is every chance of Messina following unless we can get some British troops. And Mr. Duckworth will see that we don’t do that. One would imagine that Minorca was all Europe; whereas Minorca is not fortified, and whoever has the stronger fleet can always have it. The Maltese adore Ball; they have made him a kind of Chief and President of their Parliament.”
“Then Malta, at any rate, is right?”
“No; what can he do? He can only blockade the harbour to prevent provisions getting in, and that not very successfully. Besides, the smallest French squadron could make him draw off—he has so few English ships.”
“You will see to that, dear Nelson!”
“I, Madam? I should not have sufficient ships to await an action if the Brest fleet gets in the Mediterranean. Some of my ships are at Alexandria, some at Malta, others at Naples, Leghorn and Palermo. Alexandria ought to be off my hands; the Russian and Turkish Admiral should have been there some months ago. I ought not to need a ship east of Kandia. These Russians mean no good; I don’t trust them. They are far more anxious to seize ports in the Mediterranean for their own future use than to fight the French. They have got Corfu, and they have their eye on Malta, their excuse being that their Emperor is Grand Master of St. John, elected by those rascally Knights, who unlocked the gates of Valetta for the French—a place the French could never have unlocked from the outside, even if it had been empty. The Ottoman Admiral is sailing about with the Russian, helping him to seize points, which will afterwards be used against the Grand Signor. The good Turk must look out, or he will find it cheaper to come to terms with his enemy the French, rather than be sucked dry by his ally the Russian. The Russian will never be content until he has Constantinople, and as for the French in this present war they may go hang. Russia is too far off to have anything to fear for itself; and its Emperor is only moving so as to fish in the troubled waters. Otherwise they would have gone to Alexandria as I have written, and entreated, over and over. They could have what bombs and gun-vessels they want; and I fear by this it is too late to destroy the shipping in Alexandria, which the French have been steadily fortifying, while the day after the Nile, with a handful of bombs and small craft, I could have destroyed the whole in a couple of hours.”
“Captain Sir Sidney Smith may do something. He is a good officer, isn’t he?”
“He’s a coxcomb and an impertinent rascal, though he could be trusted to fight if he found himself in an action. But he’s cursed with an idea that he is a diplomatist, in which he has unfortunately been encouraged by our foolish Government, who have joined him in a commission with his brother, the Minister at Constantinople, because he knows a little of the Turk and his lingo.”
“But surely that is an advantage?”
“No advantage, Madam, when the jumping Jack has not the sense or manners to keep his commission as a diplomatist, and his commission as a captain under my orders apart, but mixes them up in every dispatch, so much that I ought not to read them, but tear them up for the most insubordinate language ever addressed by a Captain to an Admiral. You know that if there is one thing upon which I have set my mind in the whole Mediterranean, it is this.”
“I don’t know what you refer to—this is the very first mention.”