For his action in this case Nelson has been severely blamed.  The point at issue is perfectly simple, however it may be decided.  Disregarding subordinate considerations, of which there are many, such as the motives which induced Ruffo and Foote to grant terms, and the question whether they would have been justified, which Nelson denied, in conceding them under any conditions, the matter reduces itself to this:  When an agreement has been made, one of the parties to which is acting only as a representative, not as a principal, nor accredited for the specific purpose, has the principal, in person or by proxy, a right to annul the agreement, provided, as in this case, it has not passed into execution, either total or partial?  Nelson admitted that the persons of the insurgents would have been entitled to the immunity stipulated, if they had already delivered up the castles.  They had not done so; the flags of truce marked only a cessation of hostilities, not the completion of the transaction.  By the terms, the evacuation and embarkation were to be simultaneous:  “The evacuation shall not take place until the moment of embarkation.”  The status of the opponents was in no wise altered by a paper which had not begun to receive execution.  The one important circumstance which had happened was the arrival of the British squadron, instead of Bruix’s fleet which all were expecting.  It was perfectly within Nelson’s competence to stop the proceedings at the point they had then reached.

[After writing the above, the author, by the courtesy of the Foreign Office, received a copy of Sir William Hamilton’s despatch of July 14, 1799, giving his account of the events happening after June 20th, the date when Nelson left Palermo for Naples.  In this occurs a statement which would seriously modify, if not altogether destroy, the justification of Nelson’s conduct in annulling the capitulation, which rests upon the condition that it had not received any substantial execution.  Hamilton says:  “When we anchored in this Bay the 24th of June the capitulation of the castles had in some measure taken place.[83] Fourteen large Polacks or transport vessels had taken on board out of the castles the most conspicuous and criminal of the Neapolitan Rebels, that had chosen to go to Toulon, the others had already been permitted with their property to return to their own homes in this kingdom, and hostages selected from the first royalist nobility of Naples had been sent into the castle of St. Elmo that commands the city of Naples, and where a French garrison and the flag of the French Republic was to remain until the news of the arrival of the Neapolitan Rebels at Toulon....  There was no time to be lost, for the transport vessels were on the point of sailing for Toulon, when Lord Nelson ordered all the boats of his squadron to be manned and armed, and to bring those vessels, with all the Rebels on board, directly under the sterns of his ships, and there they remain, having taken out and secured on board His Majesty’s ships the most guilty chiefs of the rebellion.”