Part of the money mentioned in this letter, as well as of the arms, ammunition, &c. requested by the deputies, and three of the deputies themselves, were conveyed, in La Bonne Citoyenne, by Captain Nisbet, to Malta, in his return to Constantinople; who was charged with dispatches for Sir Sidney Smith, Spencer Smith, Esq. his brother, and his Excellency Constantine Upsilanti, at the Ottoman court.  The remainder of the arms, ammunition, stores, and money, with the other three deputies, were sent to Malta by Captain Gage in the Terpsichore:  who was afterwards to deliver a letter from Lord Nelson to his Sardinian Majesty, at Cagliari in Sardinia; to call at Minorca, for any dispatches which Commodore Duckworth might have for the Earl of St. Vincent; and, finally, to join the commander in chief at Gibraltar, or wherever else the earl might happen to be.

On the 10th of March, General Sir Charles Stuart arrived at Palermo, with the thirtieth and eighty-ninth regiments; who immediately departed for Messina.  This, his lordship observes, in a letter to Mr. Windham, a few days afterwards, would not only save that important place from all danger, but had already acted like an electrical shock over the whole island, and must extend it’s influence to Naples.

With abundant address, at this period, Lord Nelson offered himself as a mediator between the Bey of Tunis and Bashaw of Tripoli, and his Sicilian Majesty and the Queen of Portugal:  for which purpose, he wrote to Perkin Magra, Esq. the British consul at Tunis, as well as to the bey himself; and to the Bashaw of Tripoli, as well as to Simon Lucas, Esq.  Consul-General at that court Mrs. Magra, and her family, it appears, were then residing in the hospitable mansion of Sir William Hamilton, as well as his lordship; for he says, writing to the consul, and mentioning his lady and family, “they will give you all the chit-chat of the place.  Lady Hamilton is so good to them, that they in truth require nothing from me; but, whenever they think it right to go to Tunis, a ship of war shall carry them.”

On the 17th, Captain Troubridge and Captain Hood arrived with the squadron from Egypt, where every endeavour to destroy the transports at Alexandria proved quite ineffectual.  The French had, after the departure of Lord Nelson, very strongly fortified all the points of the harbour; and the transports could not be destroyed by shells, as all the mortars burst, and six fireships were lost in a gale of wind.  This was a mortifying circumstance to our hero, and it did not come unaccompanied.  Captain Troubridge was the bearer of Sir Sidney Smith’s dispatches; which, with their usual fatality, again offended his lordship in one of the nicest points.  The cause, and the effect, will at once be seen in the following most peremptory epistle.

     “Vanguard, Palermo,
     18th March 1799.

     “SIR,