orders for her captain to embark them at a moment’s notice, and take them to Sicily.  “I have kept everything here to save Italy, if in my power,” he wrote Elliot two months later, “and you know I was ordered to send a squadron outside the Straits.  Fourteen days ago, a French seventy-four got into Cadiz from Santo Domingo, and two French frigates, with some merchant ships.  What will they say at home?  However, I feel I have done right, and care not.”  “I must place a squadron between Elba and Genoa,” he says again, “to prevent that expedition from moving, and also send some ships to the Straits’ mouth, and keep enough to watch the ships in Toulon.  These are all important objects, but nothing when compared to the security of the Sicilies.”

Nelson’s anxiety for Sicily threw him again into contact with an instance of that rigid and blind conformity to orders which always exasperated him.  He had brought out directions to the general commanding in Malta, to hold a detachment of two thousand British troops in readiness to go at once to Messina, on the appearance of danger, and to garrison the works there, if he thought they could be spared from the defence of Malta.  Nelson told the Prime Minister that discretion, as to such a step, was a responsibility greater than the average officer could bear, and would certainly defeat the object in view; for he would never feel his charge secure enough to permit such a diminution.  There was at this time in Malta a body of Neapolitan soldiers, which had been sent there during the peace of Amiens, in accordance with a stipulation of the treaty.  The general received an order to send them to Messina.  Nelson had pointed out to him that if he did so, in the divided state of feeling in the Neapolitan dominions, and with the general character of Neapolitan officers, for both efficiency and fidelity, the citadel would not be safe from betrayal at their hands.  “I have requested him to keep the orders secret, and not to send them; for if they got into Messina, they would certainly not keep the French out one moment, and it would give a good excuse for not asking us to secure Messina.”  “If General Acton sends for them we must submit; but at present we need not find means of sending them away.”  The British general, however, sent them over, and then the Neapolitan governor, as Nelson foretold, said it was quite unnecessary for any British to come.  “I must apprise you,” wrote Nelson to Addington, “that General Villettes, although a most excellent officer, will do nothing but what he receives, ’You are hereby required and directed;’ for to obey, is with him the very acme of discipline.  With respect to Sicily, I have no doubt but that the French will have it.  My former reasons for inducing General Villettes to keep the Neapolitan troops in Malta, was to prevent what has happened; but, in a month after my back was turned, Villettes obeyed his orders, and now the Governor of Messina says, ’We can defend it, and want no assistance.’  His whole conduct, I am bold to say, is either that of a traitor or a fool."[59]