cartel-converted prison-ships had not been moored in the midst of a fleet of British men-of-war. "It is now," says a letter from one of the unhappy victims of (what we will not call British, but) Lord Nelson's breach of faith, " 24 days that we are lying in this road, unprovided with every thing necessary to existence : we have nothing but bread to eat ; we drink nothings but putrid water, or wine mingled with sea-water, and have nothing but the bare planks to sleep on. Our houses have been entirely pillaged, consequently we can receive no assistance from them, and the greater part of our relations have been either imprisoned or massacred. Our deplorable situation has already been productive of diseases : and on board this polacre there are five persons sick of an infectious fever, which threatens the lives of the whole." * Among the many who fell a sacrifice to this order of things, were some of the most eminent characters in Naples. Even a woman, that woman one of the capitulators, and no other than the celebrated Madame de Fonséca, was doomed to end her days by the hangman's knot.

Comments are unnecessary. We shall only offer a remark or two on the character of the capitulation, from the rupture of which so much disgrace has emanated. One of Lord Nelson's apologists calls the treaty an armistice, or truce ; † another calls it the projet of a capitulation : ‡ whereas, in truth, it was as complete a capitulation as had ever been executed. Another writer styles Lord Nelson "commander-in-chief," and on that founds the assertion that, as representative of the King of England, he might annul treaties. But Lord Nelson was only third, or, admitting Earl St.-Vincent to have resigned, second in command ; and even a king's power does not extend to the enemies of his country, without whom as parties a treaty could not exist. Some stress has also been laid upon the circumstance of Lord Nelson's arrival within 36 hours after Captain Foote had subscribed the treaty in question. Had his lordship arrived at the end of one hour, the signature of all the parties had already stamped upon the capitulation its sacred character. But, in fact, two of the articles, the 5th and 9th, had begun to be acted upon : the transports were getting ready, and the prisoners in the forts either had already been, or were about to be, set at liberty. Even after Lord Nelson had arrived, and by signal annulled the truce, the articles in the treaty were made use of to inveigle the garrisons out of the forts ; and that, too, solely for their destruction. If Captain Foote, in signing the treaty, had exceeded his orders, he should have been tried and punished ; but, even then, the faith of the nation, having been once solemnly pledged, ought not to have been compromised. Every tittle of the treaty should have been executed.

* Helen Maria Williams's Sketches, &c., p. 399.
† Harrison's Life of Lord Nelson, vol. ii., p. 191.
‡ Clarke and M'Arthur, vol. ii.; p. 184.

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