"
With these words he rose and left the room, and having first
consulted with Sir Thomas Troubridge, he determined at his own risk
on a step, which the extreme necessity warranted, and which the
conduct of the Neapolitan court amply justified. For this court,
though terror-stricken by the French, was still actuated by hatred to
the English, and a jealousy of their power in the Mediterranean; and
in this so strange and senseless a manner, that we must join the
extremes of imbecility and treachery in the same cabinet, in order to
find it comprehensible. Though the very existence of Naples and
Sicily, as a nation, depended wholly and exclusively on British
support; though the royal family owed their personal safety to the
British fleet; though not only their dominions and their rank, but
the liberty and even the lives of Ferdinand and his family, were
interwoven with our success; yet with an infatuation scarcely
credible, the most affecting representations of the distress of the
besiegers, and of the utter insecurity of Sicily if the French
remained possessors of Malta, were treated with neglect; and the
urgent remonstrances for the permission of importing corn from
Messina, were answered only by sanguinary edicts precluding all
supply.
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