“If an English officer had behaved like Caracciolo—if, for instance, Captain Foote, when left behind by Captain Troubridge, on the latter’s departure to Maritimo, had acted as Caracciolo did and fired upon the English flag, or even upon the flag of the Two Sicilies, could any one doubt that I should have court-martialled him, and hung him on the spot? Well, I am Commander-in-chief of the Two Sicilies as well as the English here; and Caracciolo being a Sicilian subject made this difference only: that I had him tried by a Court Martial composed of Sicilians alone, not using my authority as Commander-in-chief, except to declare the verdict of the Court. So Caracciolo had in effect a further chance to what an English officer would have had.
“And this Caracciolo was a most double-dyed villain. Ever one of the most disaffected nobles, he did accompany the Royal Family in their flight from Naples to Palermo, as I firmly believe, to see if he could carry the seeds of treason from Naples to Sicily. Finding that the Sicilians, from their hereditary hatred of the French, and because of the continued presence of an English squadron, were not to be involved in the infamous Parthenopean Republic, he applied to their Majesties for leave to return to Naples ‘because his property was in danger,’ As soon as he got there the French relieved him of all his property, save his land (which would have remained to him in any case had he continued loyal), and subjected him to all the indignities of mounting sentry and the like, which in their scorn and perfidy they imposed upon the other traitors; and this they did out of consideration for his being their ally and a good Republican, instead of worse things, such as death or torture, which they reserved for the Royalists.
“In spite of these indignities he became an out-and-out Frenchman, which men found so difficult to believe of a Commodore in His Sicilian Majesty’s Navy. Troubridge himself wrote to me on April 18th: ‘I enclose your Lordship one of Caracciolo’s letters as head of the Marine. I hope he has been forced into this measure.... Caracciolo, I am assured by all the sailors, is not a Jacobin, but forced to act as he does. They sign his name to printed papers without his authority, as they have, in my opinion, the Archbishop’s.’ That was on April 18th; but on May 1st Troubridge wrote again: ‘I am now satisfied that Caracciolo is a Jacobin. I enclose you one of his letters. He came in the gunboats to Castel-a-mare, himself, and spirited up the Jacobins; though he seems to have had so much conscience left that he saved Sorrento and Castel-a-mare from being burnt, after they had been taken and plundered.’
“This is all bad enough, but there was worse to follow. For on the 28th of May Capt. Foote wrote to me: ‘Caracciolo threatens the second attack, and on the 13th his gunboats annoyed the Royalist forces attacking the fort of Villema and the bridge of Madelena a good deal.’ Caracciolo had thus fired repeatedly upon his Sovereign’s flag, and was by everybody recognised as the Commander of the Rebel Navy. His condemnation therefore was inevitable.
“I should not be surprised if some one were put up by an enemy to ask why I ordered the sentence to be carried into immediate execution. It may be said that there is no parallel to be drawn between this and Admiral Lord St. Vincent’s instant execution of two seamen taken in the act of mutiny. There was more than a parallel—there was necessity. The situation, which has been blinked at by some, is that there are in the Neapolitan State a vast number of persons neither actively loyal nor actually indisposed to the Crown, whose main idea is to save their skins and their own goods, and if they can, get as much as possible of other people’s. So far, the lesson before these jackals has been that to be loyal means exposing yourself to every kind of danger and ignominy, and the almost certainty of being abandoned to your enemies without a finger raised to save you or punish evil doers; while if you are disloyal, though you may be plundered and ill-treated by your new allies, you are not in danger of death or torture, nor precluded from robbing, maiming or slaying your private enemies. Every coward, therefore, and that means a large proportion of the population of Naples, feels bound to be a rebel; and the little risk there might have been attached to rebellion is removed by the treachery of the Royal commanders, who, having no foreigners at their elbows, are indulging in the other Neapolitan weakness of selling their country. All the way along it is ‘Heads, I win; Tails, you lose,’ against the loyal, until the belief begins to grow that nothing serious can happen to a rebel. It is to combat this feeling that I dealt sharp swift justice to Caracciolo. I wish the rebels to know that those who are caught red-handed will be executed before they have time to buy their escapes; and this effect I hope it will have, coupled with the proclamation I have drawn up:—
“‘Foudroyant,’ Naples Bay, 29th June, 1799.
“‘Horatio, Lord Nelson, Admiral of the British Fleet in the Bay of Naples, gives notice to all those who have served as officers, Civil or Military, in the service of the infamous Neapolitan Republic, that if, in the space of twenty-four hours for those who are in the City of Naples, and forty-eight hours for those who are within five miles of it, they do not give themselves up to the clemency of the King, to the Officer commanding the Castles of Uovo and Nuovo, that Lord Nelson will consider them still as in rebellion, and enemies of His Sicilian Majesty.’
“I was glad to see that the Prince had the honour not to claim to be included in that infamous capitulation; for I hear, by all accounts, that he was out of the Castle before Foote signed at all. In his plea for mercy to the Duke of Calviranno he rested his plea entirely on his former services, without allusion to the capitulation; and though he showed a brave man’s firmness during his actual examination, gaining thereby the esteem of such of my officers as were present—the ward-room, as customary, being open to whoso chose to enter—he made at least three attempts to throw himself upon my mercy, which shows that he would willingly have saved his life if he could.
“In the period between the passing of the sentence and its carrying out, he was in the charge of Lieut. Parkinson and a guard; and at his request Lieut. Parkinson came to me first to demand a second trial, and afterwards that he might be shot. I was much moved by the wording of his second application: ‘I am an old man, Sir,’ he said to Lieut. Parkinson; ‘I leave no family to lament my death—I therefore cannot be supposed to be very anxious about prolonging my life, but the disgrace of being hanged is dreadful to me.’ Fortunately I remembered that the excuse upon which he had obtained leave from the King to return to Naples was that his property might not be confiscated and his family ruined. I was therefore able to do my duty and reply—‘Caracciolo has been fairly tried by the officers of his own country; I cannot interfere.’ But he had so worked upon Lieut. Parkinson that, with a disregard of etiquette for which I forgave him, he repeated Caracciolo’s request. I had some difficulty in doing my own duty and bidding him—‘Go, Sir, and attend to your duty.’
“Caracciolo then, I am told, as a last hope, asked Lieut. Parkinson whether he thought an application to Lady Hamilton would be beneficial; upon which that officer went to the quarter-deck, but I am thankful was not able to meet with her. For this is what I dreaded. Dear Emma has such a soft heart that, having known the Prince as a friend, even his perfidy and wickedness to her beloved monarch might not have been able to shut up her bowels of compassion. For this reason I sat in my state-room with the door guarded by a sentry, and would see none but my officers until the sentence had been carried out. And I allowed time for Caracciolo to be stone dead before I would see Emma. From the hour that he was brought on board in the morning, I could not trust myself with her tender heart.
“Knowing well the objection of a British Government to its officers being mixed up with foreign executions, I nevertheless gave orders for a Court Martial of Sicilian officers to be assembled on this ship for the trial of Caracciolo, for several reasons. In the first place, the good King had made me his Commander-in-chief of the whole expedition or campaign for the reconquest of Naples; and it therefore fell on me to take the steps to show the rebels that leading against their King would be visited with condign and summary punishment. It was necessary that the trial should take place, if anywhere, on a British ship, both for the prisoner and for his King. For the prisoner, because he had already been nigh torn to pieces by the Royalists, maddened by their wrongs; and for the King, because no Neapolitan, when left to himself, can be relied on not to sell his country. As to the other reason advanced, for its not being held on La Minerva—that it would have been dangerous to have ordered a Court Martial to assemble on her, from the love which Sicilian seamen bore to Caracciolo, and the fear of mutiny—it is not to be entertained, when La Minerva was under the guns of a British ship. I am convinced we had nothing but treachery to fear. Besides, though the Foudroyant is a ship belonging to His Britannic Majesty, it is also, for the time being, the seat of the Neapolitan Government. To the prisoner, at all events, trial on a British ship was an advantage, for where there were a number of British officers with free access to the trial, there could be no question of unfairness or violence.