any country a
higher acknowledgment of his services."

The French still occupied the Roman states; from which, according to
their own admission, they had extorted in jewels, plate, specie, and
requisitions of every kind, to the enormous amount of eight millions
sterling; yet they affected to appear as deliverers among the people
whom they were thus cruelly plundering; and they distributed portraits
of Buonaparte, with the blasphemous inscription, "This is the true
likeness of the holy saviour of the world!" The people, detesting the
impiety, and groaning beneath the exactions of these perfidious
robbers, were ready to join any regular force that should come to their
assistance; but they dreaded Cardinal Ruffo's rabble, and declared
they would resist him as a banditti, who came only for the purpose of
pillage. Nelson perceived that no object was now so essential for the
tranquillity of Naples as the recovery of Rome; which in the present
state of things, when Suvarof was driving the French before him, would
complete the deliverance of Italy. He applied, therefore, to Sir James
St. Clair Erskine, who in the absence of General Fox commanded at
Minorca, to assist in this great object with 1200 men. "The field of
glory," said he, "is a large one, and was never more open to any one
than at this moment to you. Rome would throw open her gates and receive
you as her deliverer; and the pope would owe his restoration to a
heretic." But Sir James Erskine looked only at the difficulties of the
undertaking. "Twelve hundred men, he thought, would be too small a force
to be committed in such an enterprise; for Civita Vecchia was a regular
fortress; the local situation and climate also were such, that even if
this force were adequate, it would be proper to delay the expedition
till October. General Fox, too, was soon expected; and during his
absence, and under existing circumstances, he did not feel justified in
sending away such a detachment."

What this general thought it imprudent to attempt, Nelson and Troubridge
effected without his assistance, by a small detachment from the fleet.
Troubridge first sent Captain Hallowell to Civita Vecchia to offer the
garrison there and at Castle St. Angelo the same terms which had been
granted to Gaieta. Hallowell perceived, by the overstrained civility of
the officers who came off to him, and the compliments which they paid
to the English nation, that they were sensible of their own weakness and