ged undertaking to go forth
trusting in "God and Nelson," fled in advance of his valiant soldiers
to the capital, where they all arrived in breathless confusion.
General Mack had been introduced to Nelson by the King and Queen, the
latter exhorting him to be on land what the Admiral had been on sea.

Nelson seems to have formed an adverse opinion of Mack, who was
extolled by the Court as the military genius who was to deliver Europe
from the thraldom of the French. He had expressed the view that the
King and Queen's incomparable general "could not move without five
carriages," and that _he_ "had formed his opinion" of him, which was
tantamount to saying that Mack was both a coward and a traitor.
Perhaps it was undue consideration for the feelings of Caroline,
sister to the late Marie Antoinette, that caused him to restrain his
boiling rage against this crew of reptiles, who had sold every cause
that was entrusted to their protection.

Nelson was infatuated with the charms of Caroline, and as this astute
lady knew how to handle him in the interests of the Neapolitan Court,
he reciprocated her patronage by overlooking misdeeds that would,
under different circumstances, have justified him in blowing swarms of
her noble subjects out of existence. "I declare to God," he writes,
"my whole study is how to best meet the approbation of the Queen." An
open door and hearty reception was always awaiting their Majesties of
Sicily on board Nelson's flagship when they found it necessary to fly
from the wrath of their downtrodden subjects or the aggressive
invasions of the French troops. The anxiety of Nelson in conveying
them to their Sicilian retreat was doubly increased by the vast
treasure they never neglected to take with them, and neither the
sources from which it came nor the means of spending it gave trouble
to their consciences. The British Government, always generous with
other person's money, fed these insufferable royal personages by
bleeding the life's blood out of the British public, though it is
fair to say that the Government did not carry out to the full the
benevolent suggestions Nelson consistently urged in their behalf. "His
heart was always breaking" at some act of parsimony on the part of the
Government in so tardily giving that which he pleaded was an urgent
necessity for them to have. He frankly avowed that he would prefer to
resign if any distinction were to be drawn between loyalty to his
rightful sovereign