[83]. Nelson shifted his flag to the Alexander on the 28th of June. On the 24th, Lord Keith, commander-in-chief, had arrived at Leghorn. He thought that Nelson was too much disposed to employ his Majesty’s ships in the service of the Queen of Naples, and the Foudroyant was ordered off to Minorca to be refitted. Lord Keith, however, authorised Nelson to receive the Queen and her family on board the Alexander, and to convey her to Palermo or any other desirable port. Her Majesty, alarmed by the attitude of the populace of Leghorn, embarked on board the Alexander on the 9th of July, but landed again on the following day, and started for Florence. Nelson, the Hamiltons, and Miss Knight followed.
[84]. For a more detailed account of this journey, see a letter from Miss Knight to Sir E. Berry, given in the Appendix. It is taken from the fourth volume of the Nelson Despatches, edited by Sir Harris Nicolas.
[85]. Harrison, quoted by Sir H. Nicolas, says the 26th. It is stated, too, that on the 29th (Nelson’s forty-second birthday) a grand fête was given to him by the Archduke Charles. It is strange that it should not have been recorded by Miss Knight if it actually occurred.
[86]. Baron de Breteuil returned to France in 1802, but never again took part in public affairs.
[87]. This is an error. At the age of eighteen, young Dumouriez distinguished himself at an affair of the advanced posts, under Marshal d’Estrées, and in the following year he obtained a cornetcy of horse.
[88]. Sister of the famous émigré, Count de Rivarol.
[89]. Southey tells this anecdote with more point. “A German pastor,” he says, “between seventy and eighty years of age, travelled forty miles with the Bible of his parish church, to request that Nelson would write his name on the first leaf of it. He called him the Saviour of the Christian world. The old man’s hope deceived him.”—Southey’s Life of Nelson, chap. vi.
[90]. Klopstock lost his first wife, Margaret Müller, in 1758, and regretted her loss until his own death, and his remains were laid in the same tomb. His second wife, Madame de Winthem, whom he married in 1791, was a lady of excellent character and rare merit: she was a widow at the time of her marriage with Klopstock.
[91]. A German portrait-painter, patronised by the Empress Maria-Theresa. He is best known, however, by his illustrations of Klopstock’s “Messiah.”
[92]. The Wrestlers’ Arms.