f Naples was obliged, for his own
safety, to join the league against France, Acton concluded a treaty with
your country, and informed the Sublime Porte of the machinations of our
Committee of Public Safety in sending De Semonville as an Ambassador to
Constantinople, which, perhaps, prevented the Divan from attacking
Austria, and occasioned the capture and imprisonment of our emissary.

Whenever our Government has, by the success of our arms, been enabled to
dictate to Naples, the removal of Acton has been insisted upon; but
though he has ceased to transact business ostensibly as a Minister, his
influence has always, and deservedly, continued unimpaired, and he still
enjoys the just confidence and esteem of his Prince.

But is His Sicilian Majesty equally well represented at the Cabinet of
St. Cloud as served in his own capital? I have told you before that
Bonaparte is extremely particular in his acceptance of foreign diplomatic
agents, and admits none near his person whom he does not believe to be
well inclined to him.

Marquis de Gallo, the Ambassador of the King of the Two Sicilies to the
Emperor of the French, is no novice in the diplomatic career. His
Sovereign has employed him for these fifteen years in the most delicate
negotiations, and nominated him in May, 1795, a Minister of the Foreign
Department, and a successor of Chevalier Acton, an honour which he
declined. In the summer and autumn, 1797, Marquis de Gallo assisted at
the conferences at Udine, and signed, with the Austrian
plenipotentiaries, the Peace of Campo Formio, on the 17th of October,
1797.

During 1798, 1799, and 1800 he resided as Neapolitan Ambassador at
Vienna, and was again entrusted by his Sovereign with several important
transactions with Austria and Russia. After a peace had been agreed to
between France and the Two Sicilies, in March, 1801, and the Court of
Naples had every reason to fear, and of course to please, the Court of
St. Cloud, he obtained his present appointment, and is one of the few
foreign Ambassadors here who has escaped both Bonaparte's private
admonitions in the diplomatic circle and public lectures in Madame
Bonaparte's drawing-room.

This escape is so much the more fortunate and singular as our Government
is far from being content with the mutinous spirit (as Bonaparte calls
it) of the Government of Naples, which, considering its precarious and
enfeebled state, with a French army in the heart of the kingdom, has