to describe it." And then he curtly and in so many words says to his
Chief, "Don't you be troubled about Minorca. I have secured the main
thing against your wish and that of Lord Keith, and you may be assured
that I shall see that no harm comes to the Islands, which seems to be
a cause of unnecessary anxiety to you." Incidentally, the expulsion of
the French from Naples and seating Ferdinand on the throne was, as I
have previously stated, not an unqualified success, nor was he
accurate in his statement that he had restored happiness to millions.
The success was a mere shadow. He had emancipated a set of villains.
Troubridge says they were all thieves and vagabonds, robbing their
unfortunate countrymen, selling confiscated property for nothing,
cheating the King and Treasury by pocketing everything that their
sticky fingers touched, and that their villainies were so deeply
rooted that if some steps were not taken to dig them out, the
Government could not hold together. Out of twenty millions of ducats
collected as revenue, only thirteen millions reached the Treasury, and
the King had to pay four ducats instead of one. Troubridge again
intimates to his superior that Ferdinand is surrounded with a nest of
the most unscrupulous thieves that could be found in all Europe. "Such
damned cowards and villains," he declared, "he had never seen or heard
of before."


IX

The French did not mince matters when their opportunity came. They,
too, regarded them as vermin, and treated them according to the
unrestrained edicts of the Reign of Terror, organized and
administered by their late compatriots Sardanapalus, Danton,
Maximilian Robespierre, and their literary colleague, the execrable