I wonder what would have happened to any of the other brilliant
commanders in the Royal Navy if any of them had, like Nelson,
refused to obey the orders of the commander-in-chief and left his
post off Malta, which was being closely besieged and the garrison
daily expected to capitulate! Supposing Nelson had been the
commander-in-chief and his second in command had acted as he did
towards Lord Keith, there _would_ have been wigs on the green! The
insubordinate officer would have been promptly court-martialled and
hung at the yardarm like the Neapolitan Admiral, Francesco Caracciolo,
or treated like the Hon. Admiral John Byng, who was tried for neglect
of duty in an engagement off Minorca in 1756, and condemned for
committing an error of judgment and shot aboard the _Monarch_ at
Spithead in 1757. Nelson was a stern disciplinarian, who could never
brook being under discipline himself. Nor was he ever a day without a
grievance of one kind or another. It must have been a happy
deliverance to Keith when he heard the last of him in the
Mediterranean, for his mental capacity at this particular stage of his
history was quite defective. No doubt Lady Hamilton and the Queen
jabbered into his ears the injustice of the wrongs imposed upon him.

After the battle of Marengo the whole of Northern Italy was given up
to the French by convention signed by General Milas. The British
Commander-in-Chief proceeded to Leghorn with the fugitives, to be
bored, as he fretfully declared, "by Nelson craving permission to take
the Queen to Palermo, and the prince and princesses to all parts of
the world." The Queen was panic-stricken at the French successes, and
besought him to allow her to sail in the _Foudroyant_; but Keith could
not be prevailed upon to release any of his ships for such a purpose,
notwithstanding Nelson's supplications and her flow of tears. He told
Nelson that the royal lady should get off to Vienna as quickly as she