Hamilton a letter to that effect, dated the 31st of the same month.
There was, evidently, more to be transacted at the court of Naples, than
a mere delivery of these dispatches from Lord Hood, or Captain Nelson
would scarcely have been selected for the business. He went, no doubt,
with confidential communications from the commander in chief to the
British minister plenipotentiary, and objects of discretional discussion
for mutual consideration, which were not possible to be transacted in
writing, and consequently required the talents and address judiciously
employed on the occasion. Lord Hood was no stranger to the superlative
ability which he possessed for negotiation; and how much more rarely
that quality is to be found in British naval officers, than the natural
bravery which seems common to all, or even the great nautical skill
which may justly be boasted by most of them.
It was not till the 11th of September, that Captain Nelson arrived, in
the Agamemnon, at Naples; and so effectually did he accomplish the
objects of his mission, that Sir William Hamilton, who immediately
communicated the intelligence of Toulon's being in possession of Lord
Hood to General Acton, procured two thousand of his Sicilian majesty's
best troops to be embarked, the 16th, on board two line of battle ships,
two frigates, two corvettes, and one Neapolitan transport vessel.
The next day, September 17, Sir William Hamilton sent intelligence of
the above particulars to England, which appeared in the London Gazette,
dated Whitehall, October 12, 1793: where it is added, that a Spanish
frigate, returning to Toulon, had likewise taken some Neapolitan troops
on board; that three more battalions were that night to embark at Gaeta,
on board of two Neapolitan frigates, two brigantines, and nine large
polacres; that, in a week or ten days, the Neapolitan government were to
send off to Toulon the remaining ships, and two thousand more men, with
thirty-two pieces of regimental artillery, and plenty of provisions; and
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