This is not the natural temper of a man to whom difficulties and perplexities had been, and were yet again to be, a trumpet call that stirred to animation, a stimulant that steadied the nerves, and sent the blood coursing with new life through heart and brain.  Mingled as these expressions were with despondent broodings over his health, even if the latter were well founded, they are the voice of a mind which has lost the spring of self-content.  The sense of duty abides, but dogged, cheerless; respondent rather to the force of habit than to the generous ardor of former days.

For over two months after the flight to Palermo, the condition of affairs for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was seemingly critical to the verge of desperation; for neither the preparations of the Coalition, nor the hollowness of the French successes, were understood, and news was slow to reach the remote city where the Court now dwelt.  The republican movement extended, though superficially, to the toe of Italy, many of the towns in Calabria planting the tree of liberty, and the new flag flying on the islands along the coast.  Sicily, though hostile to the French, was discontented with the existing government, and disaffection there was feared.  In that, Nelson truly observed, lay the danger.  “Respecting an invasion of the French, I have no alarms; if this island is true to itself no harm can happen.”  Nevertheless, “it is proper to be prepared for defence, and,” if Calabria is occupied by the French, “the first object is the preservation of Messina.”

For this purpose he ordered the Portuguese squadron there, immediately after he reached Palermo; and, when the outlook grew more threatening, appealed to the Turkish and Russian admirals to send a detachment to the Straits.  General Stuart, commanding the troops in Minorca, which had passed into the hands of Great Britain the previous November, was entreated to detail a garrison for the citadel of Messina, as no dependence was placed upon the Neapolitan troops.  Stuart complied, and the citadel was occupied by two English regiments about the 10th of March.  The danger, however, was considered sufficiently imminent to withdraw to Palermo the transports lying at Syracuse; a step which could not have been necessary had Nelson made Syracuse, as he at first intended, the base of operations for the British fleet, and suggests the idea, which he himself avows, that his own presence with the Court was rather political than military[80] in its utility, dependent upon the fears of their own subjects felt by the sovereigns.  While these measures were being taken he endeavored, though fruitlessly, to bring matters to a conclusion at Alexandria and Malta, in order to release the ships there employed and fetch them to the coast of Naples.  “The moment the Emperor moves,” he wrote to St. Vincent, “I shall go with all the ships I can collect into the Bay of Naples, to create a diversion.”  Nothing certain can be said as yet, “whether all is lost or may yet be saved; that must depend upon the movements of the Emperor.”  Yet it was the hand of the emperor which he had advised the King of Naples to force, by his ill-timed advance.