of history can surpass the effrontery of these intriguers, which
throws a lurid light on the class of administrators who associated
with the British nation and spilt the blood of the flower of our land
in bolstering up a government that was a disgrace and put all human
perfidy in the shade.

These allies of ours, who were joyously butchering and robbing each
other, demanded a British warship to take the priests to Palermo, so
that they might be degraded in a proper, Christian fashion and then
brought to Naples for execution. Troubridge was audaciously requested
to appoint a hangman (it may be he was asked to combine this with his
other naval duties), and knowing the fine sense of noble dignity in
the average sailor, we can easily imagine the flow of adjectives that
accompanied the refusal, and how he would relate the outrage to which
he had been subjected in quarterdeck language, that need not be here
repeated, to his superior officer, Admiral Nelson, who must have felt
the degradation of being selected to carry out as dirty a piece of
work as ever devolved upon a public servant. To fight for his King and
country was the joy of his soul, but to be selected as wet-nurse to
the kingdom of Naples and the dignitaries that were at the head of it
would have been an unbearable insult to his sense of proportion had it
not been for the fulsome flattery, to which he was so susceptible,
which was adroitly administered by the ladies of the Court, headed by
the Queen and supplemented by the wife of Sir William Hamilton.

There is always some fatal weakness about a great man that lures him
into littleness, and this was an overwhelming tragedy in Nelson's
career. The approbation of men was gratefully received and even asked
for, but the adoration of women reduced him to helplessness. He was
drugged by it, and the stronger the doses, the more efficacious they