t defiance and took
responsibilities upon himself, boasting that had they failed he would
have been "shot or broke."

After the capture of the _Genereux_ he struck, and wrote to Keith that
his health would not permit of his remaining at his post, that without
"rest he was done for," and that he could "no more stay fourteen days
longer on the station than fourteen years." At the same time, Captain
Ball wrote to Lady Hamilton that "he had dined with him, and that he
was in good health," that he did not think a short stay would do his
health harm, and that "he would not urge it, were it not that he and
Troubridge wished him to have the honour of the French ships and the
French garrison surrender to him." Nelson's vision and good judgment
at this time must have been totally at fault, and his general attitude
emphasizes the splendid forbearance of his amiable commander-in-chief
and distinguished subordinates who were the very cream of the Navy.
I wonder what would have happened to any of the other brilliant
commanders in the Royal Navy if any of them had, like Nelson,
refused to obey the orders of the commander-in-chief and left his
post off Malta, which was being closely besieged and the garrison
daily expected to capitulate! Supposing Nelson had been the
commander-in-chief and his second in command had acted as he did
towards Lord Keith, there _would_ have been wigs on the green! The
insubordinate officer would have been promptly court-martialled and
hung at the yardarm like the Neapolitan Admiral, Francesco Caracciolo,
or treated like the Hon. Admiral John Byng, who was tried for neglect
of duty in an engagement off Minorca in 1756, and condemned for
committing an error of judgment and shot aboard the _Monarch_ at
Spithead in 1757. Nelson was a stern disciplinarian, who could never
brook being under discipline himself. Nor was he ever a day without a
grievance of one kind or another. It must have been a happy
deliverance to Keith when he heard the last of him in the
Mediterranean, for his mental capacity at this particular stage of his
history was quite defective. No doubt Lady Hamilton and the Queen
jabbered into his ears the injustice of the wrongs imposed upon him.

After the battle of Marengo the whole of Northern Italy was given up
to the French by convention signed by General Milas. The British
Commander-in-Chief proceeded to Leghorn with the fugitives, to be
bored, as he fretfully declared, "by Nelson craving per