gain his confidence.  You will judge whether he is of a sufficient rank to hold a confidential conversation with.”  It is evident that Nelson’s action was precipitated by the news of the Russian movement, and its tenor dictated by a wish to sow distrust between Turkey and Russia.  The omission of any mention of a Russian admiral is most significant.  “Captain Troubridge was absolutely under sail,” he wrote to Spencer Smith, “when I heard with sorrow that the Russians were there.”  His eagerness in the matter is the more evident, in that he thus detached Troubridge at the moment when he was about to start for Leghorn, where his trusted subordinate and his ship would be greatly needed.

“I was in hopes that a part of the united Turkish and Russian squadron would have gone to Egypt—­the first object of the Ottoman arms,” he tells the Turkish admiral.  “Corfu is a secondary consideration.”  To Spencer Smith he writes:  “I have had a long and friendly conference with Kelim Effendi on the conduct likely to be pursued by the Russian Court towards the unsuspicious (I fear) and upright Turk.  The Porte ought to be aware of the very great danger at a future day of allowing the Russians to get footing at Corfu, and I hope they will keep them in the East.  Our ideas have exactly been the same about Russia....  Surely I had a right to expect that the united fleets would have taken care of the things east of Candia.  I never wished to have them west of it.”  “The Russians seem to me to be more intent on taking ports in the Mediterranean than destroying Bonaparte in Egypt.”

It was well known at this time that the Czar was looking towards Malta and the restoration of the Order of the Knights, of which he had been elected Grand Master the previous October, immediately after Bonaparte’s seizure of the island became known.  Nelson held that the King of Naples was the legitimate sovereign, and he directed Captain Ball, his own representative there, to have all the Maltese posts and forces fly the Neapolitan flag; but he, with Hamilton, got a note from the King, promising that Malta should never be transferred to any other Power without the consent of England.  “Should any Russian ships, or admiral, arrive off Malta,” he instructed Ball, “you will convince him of the very unhandsome manner of treating the legitimate sovereign of Malta, by wishing to see the Russian flag fly in Malta, and also of me, who command the forces of a Power in such close alliance with the Russian Emperor, which have been blockading and attacking Malta for near six months.  The Russians shall never take the lead.”