enchman, and that is to knock him down when he is
an enemy. You have obviously got to learn that to be civil to a
Frenchman is to be laughed at, and this I shall never submit to." The
Admiralty censured Nelson for disobeying Lord Keith's orders and, as
they claimed, endangering Minorca, and also for landing seamen for the
siege of Capua, and told him "not to employ the seamen in any such way
in future." The Admiralty were too hasty in chastising him. He claimed
that his success in freeing the whole kingdom of Naples from the
French was almost wholly due to the employment of British sailors,
whose valour carried the day.

Nelson sent the First Lord a slap between the eyes in his best
sarcastic form. He said briefly, "I cannot enter into all the detail
in explanation of my motives which led me to take the action I did, as
I have only a left hand, but I may inform you that my object is to
drive the French to the devil, and restore peace and happiness to
mankind"; and he continues, "I feel I am fitter to do the action than
to describe it." And then he curtly and in so many words says to his
Chief, "Don't you be troubled about Minorca. I have secured the main
thing against your wish and that of Lord Keith, and you may be assured
that I shall see that no harm comes to the Islands, which seems to be
a cause of unnecessary anxiety to you." Incidentally, the expulsion of
the French from Naples and seating Ferdinand on the throne was, as I
have previously stated, not an unqualified success, nor was he
accurate in his statement that he had restored happiness to millions.
The success was a mere shadow. He had emancipated a set of villains.
Troubridge says they were all thieves and vagabonds, robbing their
unfortunate countrymen, selling confiscated property for nothing,
cheating the King and Treasury by pocketing everything that their
sticky fingers touched, and that their villainies were so deeply
rooted that if some steps were not taken to dig them out, the
Government could not hold together. Out of twenty millions of ducats
collected as revenue, only thirteen millions reached the Treasury, and
the King had to pay four ducats instead of one. Troubridge again
intimates to his superior that Ferdinand is surrounded with a nest of
the most unscrupulous thieves that could be found in all Europe. "Such
damned cowards and villains," he declared, "he had never seen or heard
of before."

IX

The French did not mince matters when the