Sir James Erskine, thus importuned, did not see his way to sending the troops.  Naturally, as a soldier, he did not rely as much upon the navy preventing a landing in his island, as upon his own powers of resistance after it was effected, and was therefore unwilling to spare from the latter.  The point of view of a seaman was, and is, different.  He complained, too, that Duckworth had taken a great many ships to Gibraltar.  Nelson admits the mistake, and expresses his regret, but no word of dissatisfaction with Erskine transpires through his evident disappointment.  He only says, “Pardon what I am going to repeat, that either in Malta or on the Continent, a field of glory is open.”  “Minorca,” he wrote to Spencer, “I have never yet considered in the smallest danger, but it has been a misfortune that others have thought differently from me on that point.”  Towards the end of September, Troubridge, without the aid of British troops, but supported by the arrival of a division sent by Suwarrow, reported the evacuation of Rome and Civita Vecchia.  “How happy you have made us!” wrote Nelson to him.  “My pen will not say what I feel.”  The King, however, would not return to Naples, now that this obstacle was withdrawn.  “The Queen has a noble generous disposition,” said Nelson two months later.  “Unfortunately the King and her Majesty do not at this moment draw exactly the same way; therefore, his Majesty will not go at this moment to Naples, where his presence is much wanted.”  “We do but waste our breath,” he avowed afterwards.

In the beginning of October, a visit which he had intended making to Minorca was hastened by a report that thirteen hostile ships-of-the-line had been seen off Cape Finisterre, and it was thought they might be destined for the Mediterranean.  Nelson hoped to assemble ten to meet them; but the news proved to be false.  He left Palermo for this trip on the 5th of October, and returned again on the 22d, having remained five days in Port Mahon.  The arrangements for the naval force, depending entirely upon himself, were soon settled; but he was disappointed in obtaining, as he had hoped to do from a personal interview with Erskine, a detachment of two thousand troops for Malta.  About that island he was, to use his own words, almost in despair.  For over a year La Valetta had been blockaded by land and sea.  For the latter he could with difficulty find ships; for the former he could obtain no men to aid the islanders, who, half starving, dependent for food chiefly upon Sicily, were sustained in their resistance mainly by hatred of the invaders, and by the tactful appeals and encouragement of Captain Ball, who lived ashore among them.  The Barbary pirates, by virtue of their war with Naples, captured many of the vessels laden with supplies, despite Nelson’s passports; while the Sicilian Court, though well disposed, lacked the energy and the propelling force necessary to compel the collection and despatch of the needed grain.  On one occasion Troubridge