the proceedings, and his colleague and
adviser in much that was done, the words quoted, if they could stand
accepted as an accurate statement of occurrences, would establish that
Nelson had secured the persons of men who had surrendered on the faith
of a treaty, and had held them, subject to the tender mercies of the
King of the Two Sicilies. They were in his power (accepting Hamilton's
statement), only because the King's Vicar-General, his representative
so far as they knew, had guaranteed their safety if they came out of
the castles. The least they were entitled to, in such case, was to be
restored to the castles--not yet evacuated--to be placed as they were
before surrendering. It is true that, as the terms of the treaty made
embarkation and evacuation coincident, and as the latter had certainly
not taken place, it may be argued that they had no claim to immunity
when they had precipitated their action, and left the castle of their
own motion before the formal evacuation and embarkation; but one would
prefer not to rest on such a technical plea the justification of a
character generally so upright in his public acts as Lord Nelson.

Fortunately for his fame, there is adequate reason to believe--to be
assured--that Hamilton's despatch is very inaccurate in details, and
specifically in this one, so damaging as it stands. The incident of
arming the boats and bringing out the vessels took place, according to
the log of the "Foudroyant," not when the fleet moored, on the morning
of June 25th, or even shortly afterwards, but on the morning of the
28th; two days after the castles, as shown by the logs of both the
"Foudroyant" and "Seahorse," surrendered and were taken possession of.
Miss Helen Maria Williams, whose account of the affair was strongly
tinged with sympathy for the revolutionists, says: "While the two
garrisons, to the number of fifteen hundred, _were waiting for the
preparing and, provisioning of the vessels_ which were to convey them
to France, Lord Nelson arrived with his whole fleet in the Bay of
Naples [June 24-25]. On the evening of the twenty-sixth of June, the
patriots evacuated their forts, and embarked on board the transports
prepared for their conveyance to France. _The next day_ [June 27], the
transports were moored alongside the English fleet, each under the
cannon of an English vessel."[84] These several witnesses may be
confidently accepted, and prove that the embarkation and removal of
the garri