been sent by Sir John Stuart, after the battle of Maida, to encourage the people to rise in favour of the royal cause, but without effect: and General Acton, with a corps of Neapolitans, had landed in Calabria, to endeavour to organize the Calabrese brigands.

With regard to the French, after their defeat they had fallen back to Cassano, where considerable reinforcements had joined them ; and Marshal Massena assumed the command, and was advancing in force.

Sir John Moore returned to Messina, and communicated the whole of his intelligence to General Fox. But previous to his arrival, that General had yielded to the urgent requests of the Court, and had detached Sir John Stuart and Brigadier Cole, to land in Calabria. But no one joined them; from that absence of zeal for the public welfare, and of manly courage, which is notorious in Italy, and especially in the Neapolitan dominions. So Massena found no difficulty in dispersing the brigands, who fled without a contest; as their chiefs pusillanimously

abandoned them, and escaped to Sicily. General Acton then found it necessary to reimbark his Neapolitans, and Sir John Stuart and Brigadier Cole were also recalled.

The aspect of affairs was indeed at this period most gloomy, as Bonaparte had, by the battle of Austerlitz, reduced Austria to submission. He then feigned to be a peacemaker, and amused the British Ministry with a negotiation, while he was pouring troops in abundance into Italy. After sufficient garrisons were established in Naples, and the adjoining fortresses, Massena marched into Calabria with fourteen thousand men. He took up a central position to enable him to move instantly against the British, wherever they should attempt to land.

On these occurrences, General Fox thought it advisable to go to Palermo, to learn the views of the Queen, and of the new Prime Minister. For Sir John Acton, who was believed to be an honest, though not an able man, had resigned; and the Marquis Circello, a fawning courtier, was by the power of the

Queen elevated to that office. General Fox wrote to Moore from Palermo, that the Queen, instead of being discouraged by the dispersion of the Calabrese, and the advance of Marshal Massena, considered this the fortunate moment for the British troops to land and conquer Naples; where, it was asserted, there were few French troops left. To imagine that a general like Massena, when he moved to Calabria, would leave the capital unprotected, was very singular. Moore had received certain intelligence that no such error had been committed; and, on the contrary, that the garrison of Naples had been increased by considerable reinforcements. He therefore answered General Fox, by advising him to resist strenuously this absurd project; and to declare to her Majesty that he must wait for orders from his own government.

But

General Fox followed this counsel, and returned to Messina filled with disgust at the Court of Palermo; where he told Moore 'He had witnessed more childishness, wick

'edness, and folly, than are to be met with ' in any other part of the world *.'

The intellectual weakness of Circello forms his justification; he acted upon no other principle than obedience to the Queen, and her wishes were inspired by traitorous chamberers.

Moore now set out Sicily, to examine the

on a tour through

resources of the

island, and to discover the sentiments of the people. But he had hardly got to Syracuse when he was suddenly recalled by General Fox, who enclosed a despatch he had received from Circello, and wished to consult him before he answered it.

The despatch was only another attempt by the Queen's secret plotters to deceive the General in the absence of Sir John Moore. It contained a tissue of falsehoods: that the French garrison at Naples only amounted to two thousand men, and that this was the most seasonable instant for attacking that city; that the Calabrese and the whole Nea* Journal, MS.

politan people were loyal, exasperated against the French, and eager to fly to arms to expel them from the country. And as it was pretended that the Sicilian forces amounted to fifteen thousand men, it was proposed that eight thousand of those should sail and take Naples; while the British should land in Calabria, and defeat or harass Massena's army in his march to succour Naples.

To separate forces three or four hundred miles asunder, which, when united, were far too few for the enterprise, was an assured device for the destruction of both. But neither Generals Fox nor Moore entertained at that time a suspicion that this had been designed. They supposed that the Queen, unaccustomed to have her will contradicted, had with female pertinacity determined to carry her point; and that her ardent desire to be reinstated instantly in her palace at Naples, blinded her to the insurmountable obstacles which traversed that wish. They knew not then to the full extent the base venality of an Italian court, and the artful