“Your highness will, I am confident, approve of the open and unreserved manner of this letter; and consider it as a proof of the honest and upright intentions of the great monarch who I have the honour of serving, and that it comes from your highness’s most obedient and faithful servant,

     “Nelson.”

     “His Highness the Bashaw of Tripoli.”

Mr. Lucas was furnished with a copy of this letter; and instructed, if possible, to bring the bashaw to a proper way of thinking, by forcibly representing the numerous evils which bad counsellors would be sure to bring on him, should he persist in his present disloyal conduct.  The dismissal of the captain of the port, though a very desirable thing, was not to be persisted in, so as to occasion the hostilities of Commodore Campbell against his highness; for, Lord Nelson observed, “every master has a right to chuse his own servants.”  The other articles were not in any manner to be given up.  It was, however, directed to be carefully pressed on the bashaw, that his Britannic Majesty was not at war with him; and that his lordship would be happy still to interest himself in preventing depredations on his highness’s coast, provided he should immediately return to a proper way of thinking and acting.

On the 30th, Lord Nelson writes to the Earl of St. Vincent, that his friends are doing wonders on the continent:  Hood had taken Salerno, twenty-eight miles from Naples, and garrisoned the small castle with his marines and loyalists; and had caused Sorento, &c. to Castello a Mare to rise and massacre the Jacobins.  The Swiftsure was anchored at the latter place, which is opposite Naples, though twelve miles distant by the round of the bay.  These events, so near the capital, with the successes of the Austrian army both on the Rhine and in Italy, had induced the French to call in all their out-posts, leave five hundred men in the castle of St. Elmo, and retire from Naples to Capua; taking with them all their sick, as well as every description of plunder.  The Jacobins, too, with the traitor Carraccioli among them, were retired to the castle of St. Elmo.  Lord Nelson was preparing to send eight hundred troops, with three hundred cavalry, but, his lordship observes, the court being poor, and having no revenue, made things slower than they would otherwise be:  “however,” he adds, “we make the best of the slender means we possess.  I own, my dear lord, myself much fitter for the actor than the counsellor, of proper measures to be pursued in this very critical situation of public affairs; but, at least, their Sicilian Majesties are satisfied that my poor opinion is an honest one.  Their majesties are ready to cross the water, whenever Naples is entirely cleansed; when that happy event arrives, and not till then, a desire will be expressed