highly satisfactory, giving assurances of all possible assistance; and
that from the Emperor Paul of Russia, congratulatory of the glorious
victory of the Nile, was in the highest degree flattering, and
accompanied by the emperor's picture, in a box magnificently set with
diamonds. His lordship, however, learned that Corfu, though daily
expected to fall, had not yet surrendered; and that Le Genereux
unfortunately escaped the vigilance of the blockading squadrons, on the
5th of February. From Constantinople, he received the agreeable
information that the Grand Signior had ordered ten thousand Albanese
troops to Sicily; but Sir Sidney Smith's letters, luckily blending his
naval and ministerial characters, so outraged Lord Nelson's nice sense
of propriety, that it renewed all those keen sensations of inquietude
which had been so recently tranquilized in our hero's breast.
This circumstance produced the following letter to Sir Sidney Smith;
which serves to shew that his lordship, though displeased on the
occasion, was not altogether unjust in requiring better future
discrimination.
"Vanguard, Palermo,
8th March 1799.
"SIR,
"I have received your letters of January the 23d, February 6th,
10th, and 23d. Your situation as Joint-Minister at the Porte, makes
it absolutely necessary that I should know who writes to me:
therefore, I must direct you, whenever you have ministerial affairs
to communicate, that it is done jointly with your respectable
brother, and not mix naval business with the other; for, what may
be very proper language for a representative of majesty, may be
very subversive of that dicipline of respect from the different
ranks in our service. A representative may dictate to an admiral, a
captain of a man of war would be censured for the same thing:
therefore, you will see the propriety of my steering close between
the two situations. I have sent you my orders, which your abilities
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