Bay of Naples, and there completing the business which had been so
auspiciously commenced under his judicious arrangements. Such, indeed,
was the then critical state of affairs at Naples, that it required both
the ablest heads, and the best hearts, to seize the favourable moment,
already beginning to flit away, for effectually restoring loyalty and
order in that devoted country. During the absence of Lord Nelson and
Captain Troubridge, from Sicily and Naples, Cardinal Ruffo, with his
army of twenty thousand Calabrese and other loyalists, aided by some
hundred Russian troops, had defeated the Neapolitan republicans, after
the evacuation of Naples by the French under General Macdonald, who
succeeded to Championet; and, in consequence, was actually in
possession of all the capital, except the castles of St. Elmo, Ovo, and
Nuovo, the two latter of which were momentarily expected to fall. In
this state of things, with many doubts respecting the firmness rather
than the fidelity of the cardinal, and much apprehension with regard to
the pernicious effects of the imposing plausibility of several chiefs of
the numerous parties into which the distracted country was unhappily
divided, every precaution was considered necessary to be adopted that
human sagacity could contrive, and all the fortitude judged requisite to
be preserved that the most magnanimous bosom could exercise. Their
Sicilian Majesties well knew, that they had now before them a man,
devoted to their just interests, who possessed, in the supremest degree,
these rare and most estimable qualities. They intreated him, therefore,
to undertake the arduous task, which could not be securely committed to
any other hands than his own. His lordship was sensible of the
importance of the charge, and overwhelmed with generous sentiments for
the noble confidence expressed by the royal sufferers in his abilities
to render them those essential services which their peculiar situation
demanded. Difficulty could never deter the mind of Lord Nelson from any
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