as I have said before, when he was seized with a spontaneous fit of goodness.  He would then clumsily try to conceal the passion that obsessed him.  He did not brood long over trifles of this kind, merely because he had lost, if ever he possessed, the power of consecutive reasoning in matters of moral convention.  His Neapolitan associates were a cunning, lying, luxury-loving, depraved lot, and however strongly his principles were fixed, there can be but one opinion—­that such an atmosphere was harmful to him.  He speaks of Naples himself as being a country of poets, whores, and scoundrels; and Southey does not attempt to mince words, for in vigorous terms he describes England’s “alliances to superannuated and abominable governments of the Continent.”  These are the states that we shed British blood and squandered British money over, and in truth Southey describes them as they were!

The King of Naples was a great hero to stand up against the bravest, best-trained troops the world!  He shivered at the thought of Nelson going out of his sight, and whimpered him into staying to guard him and his rotten kingdom.  It was at this period of his gallant activity that Nelson became the victim of fulsome flattery and the associate of the most cunning, knavish charlatans in the world.  These creatures never ceased to inveigh against the wrongs they were suffering for the uplifting of human rights, and because their great British ally was in need of their disinterested and distinguished co-ordination.  Nelson was well aware of all this, but could not shake himself free.  He loathed the slavering way in which flattery was extended to him, because it had a sickly resemblance to weeping.  He declares of the Neapolitan officers, “They are boasters of the highest order, and when they are confronted with the duty of defending hearth and home, their courage ends in vapour.”  He avers that they “cannot lose honour, as they have none to lose,” and yet he makes no serious effort to unshackle himself from a detestable position.  Emma, the Queen, and King of Naples, and others, have a deep-rooted hold on him, and he cannot give up the cheap popularity of the Neapolitans.  He persuades himself that the whole thought of his soul is “Down, down, with the French,” and that it shall be his “constant prayer.”  Throughout the whole course of his brilliant career it was never doubted that the French were his great aversion, because they were his country’s enemies.  But the hysterical tears of Lady Hamilton and those of the Neapolitan Queen proved too strong for him.  The King’s beseeching fears were also added to an already difficult situation, which, he persuaded himself, could not be ignored without damaging the interests he was sent to protect; so his stay in the reeking cesspool of Neapolitanism was prolonged, but there is no reason for supposing that his “constant prayer” for the extinction of the French was any the less ardent.  The fatal day of their catastrophe was only postponed.  The praying went on all the same, with more or less belief in the Almighty’s preference for Englishmen.