24th of June, fourteen hours before the fleet anchored, but only eight before he knew of its approach, he says:  “the Republicans are about to embark,” and again, “when the Capitulation is put into effect;” both which expressions show that up to that moment the agreement had not begun to receive execution.  On the 22d of June Ruffo wrote to Foote that there were no vessels in Naples on which to embark the revolutionists, and requested him to furnish them; a request that Foote referred to Count Thurn, the senior Neapolitan naval officer, for compliance.  It is therefore antecedently probable that the vessels could not have been collected from other ports, and prepared for an unexpected voyage of at least a week’s duration, before Nelson arrived, forty-eight hours later.

Hamilton’s despatch contains another mistake, affecting the order of events, so circumstantial that, taken with the one just discussed, it shows his accuracy on such points was more than doubtful.  “Admiral Caracciolo,” he says, was hanged, “the day after the King’s squadron came to Naples;” the fact being that the squadron arrived on the night of June 24-25, and that Caracciolo was executed on the evening of the 29th.  This error was not a slip of the pen, for he characterizes the alleged fact as “so speedy an act of justice” as to elicit loud applause from the concourse of spectators surrounding the ship in boats.

Hamilton was not only nearly seventy, but he was worn out in health and constitution.  Writing a fortnight after the events, and having passed that time in the turmoil and confusion attending the re-establishment of order in Naples, it is not wonderful that he ran together incidents that happened in rapid succession, and failed to realize the importance which might afterwards attach to the date of their occurrence.  “I am so worn out,” he tells Greville, “by the long despatch I have been obliged to write to-day to Lord Grenville that I can scarcely hold my pen;” and again, “My head is so confused with long writing on this subject that I must refer you to my letter to Lord Grenville....  You will find me much worn and am little more than skin and bone, as I have very little stomach.”

Although they were on board ship together, Nelson cannot have seen Hamilton’s despatch, or he must have corrected a misstatement which directly contradicted his own account of June 27 to Lord Keith, as well as that he was sending by the same messenger, in a private letter to Earl Spencer.  The latter ran thus:  “Your Lordship will observe my Note (No. 1), and opinion to the Cardinal (No. 2). The Rebels came out of the Castles with this knowledge, without any honours, and the principal Rebels were seized and conducted on board the ships of the squadron.  The others, embarked in fourteen polacres, were anchored under the care of our ships.”

Hamilton’s statement remaining uncorrected, and being so circumstantial, though erroneous, has made necessary a fuller discussion of the evidence on this point than otherwise might have been required.