Pushing through the crush, Roger found Sir William and gave him the weighty leather satchel crammed with papers. Having thanked him the Ambassador said, ' Why not come with us? X pray you, do. With the King gone, anything may happen. It is certain that there will be riots and you might well be killed in one, or during the fighting when the French force their way into the city.'
Roger shook his head. ' No. It is good of Your Excellency to suggest it; but things can hardly become worse than they were in Paris during the Revolution, so I expect to be able to take care of myself. And when the fighting is over I still hope to make my way home overland.'
Very distressed at the sight of so much misery, Roger went out on deck, in spite of the rain, and huddled against a bulwark until he could get a boat to take him ashore. The inward trip was even worse than the outward one and the boat tossed as though a bucking stallion were beneath her. Before reaching the wharf Roger was violently sick, which strengthened his conviction that he had been wise to refuse Sir William's invitation to accompany the royal party to Sicily.
The next two days gave him still greater cause to be glad that he was safe on land. On the 22nd a gale of such ferocity raged that Nelson's ships could not set sail and, buffeted by huge waves, rolled back and forth as though they were barrels. On the morning of the 23rd they did set sail; but the wind and seas were still so high that the ships could not round the island of Capri, the topsails of Vanguard were blown out and, when night came down, the Squadron was still helplessly beating about the bay.
Later it was learned that the sufferings of the passengers had been appalling. The majority of the Italians remained night and day on their knees, alternately vomiting and offering up last prayers. Count Esterhazy, in the hope of appeasing the sea, threw into it a diamond-encrusted snuff-box with a portrait of his mistress on the lid. Sir William sat on his cot holding a loaded pistol, having determined to shoot himself at the last moment rather than drown. Alone among the women Emma, to her eternal honour, refused to succumb. All the royal servants were incapacitated; so she looked after the whole family, gave away her own bedding and could not be persuaded even to lie down until Vanguard, with considerable difficulty, got into the harbour of Palermo on the 26th. But even her devoted care could not prevent Prince Alberto, Queen Caroline's six-year-old son, from dying in her arms on the second day of that terrible voyage.
Meanwhile panic, confusion and mutiny reigned in the bay. On the morning of the 22nd, as soon as it became known that the Royal Family had abandoned Naples, hundreds of other families made up their minds to flee from the French. Sir William had sent word to the British residents, the majority of whom had been accommodated during the previous night in three transports. Nelson had made arrangements for two Greek polacres to take off the French Royalist exiles; but from first light onward, in spite of the raging storm, a large part of the Neapolitan nobility put out in a swarm of boats and begged to be taken on to the heaving ships.
There was trouble, too, in the Neapolitan Navy. The Commander, Commodore Caracciolo, naturally felt aggrieved that his King should have taken refuge in a British ship rather than in one of his own. To add insult to injury, a part of the royal treasure that had been sent aboard his flagship was later removed to the * greater safety' of Vanguard. But Queen Caroline did not trust the Neapolitans, and neither did Nelson.
They had some reason for that. As soon as Caracciolo's sailors learned that the Fleet was to put to sea, the majority of them refused to abandon their families and went ashore. Caracciolo reported that he had sufficient men to handle his flagship, and accompanied the exodus to Palermo—although only to be hanged from the yardarm by Nelson six months later on somewhat dubious evidence that he had turned traitor. But what was to be done about the other ships of the Neapolitan Navy that could not weigh anchor?
Nelson was in favour of sinking them there and then; but the King, the Queen and Acton, having almost bankrupted their country to build their Fleet, implored him to spare it. He was prevailed upon to do so, but left behind Commodore Campbell, who was in command of three Portuguese frigates, with strict instructions that in no circumstances was any part of the Neapolitan Navy to be allowed to fall into the hands of the French.
Ashore there was general turmoil. Before sneaking out of his palace, Ferdinand had "sent for General Prince Pignatelli. When the General arrived he found no King but a document, left carelessly on a table, appointing him Regent of Naples. Unfortunately he was both a weak and a stupid man, and hopelessly incapable of handling the situation. He took no steps whatever to place the city in a state of defence and when the Eletti, as the Municipal Council composed of nobles was called, urged him to form a National Guard for the maintenance of order he told them that such matters were nothing to do with them.
Had Pignatelli been a brave and able man it is quite possible that Naples might have been saved from the French, for their advance was being checked in a most unexpected manner. Now that the Neapolitan Army had been disembarrassed of its cowardly officers, the many thousands of soldiers who still remained in the field suddenly began to fight. The war they waged was entirely un-coordinated but, often led by fanatical village priests, they fell upon the French with extraordinary ferocity wherever they could find them. The French were very inferior in numbers and were forced to concentrate in solid bodies and, instead of advancing further, defend themselves in villages.
But no advantage was taken of this unlooked-for respite. On the contrary, matters in Naples went from bad to worse. Pignatelli, presumably on the King's instructions, endeavoured to set fire to the Arsenal. He was prevented by the Eletti, but they failed to stop him on December 28th from burning the hundred gunboats that were anchored off Posilipo and having the great store of powder and shot kept at Mergellina thrown into the sea. Ten days later Commodore Campbell, by then convinced that the Regent meant to hand over Naples to the enemy without striking a blow, turned the guns of his Portuguese frigates on the helpless Neapolitan vessels and sank all the bigger ships of the Fleet.
In defiance of Pignatelli, the Eletti decreed the calling up of fourteen thousand citizens; but the move proved abortive, as the Regent refused to release more than two hundred muskets from the castles. He declared his policy to be to do nothing to increase the enmity of the French but to levy a huge tax and use the money to bribe them to concede an armistice.
He appeared to be successful in this. On January 11th General Championnet agreed to spare Naples for two months on condition that various strong places and a great area of territory were ceded, that the ports of the Two Sicilies were declared neutral and that, within the current month, Naples paid an indemnity of ten million francs, half of which was to be forthcoming within the next three days.
During this fortnight of confusion and anxiety Roger played no part in events. Having sent off his despatches, he was free of all responsibility and he had no urgent reason for endeavouring to get home. With such patience as he could muster he continued to hope that in another month or so the peninsula would have been sufficiently pacified for him to risk setting out for France. In the meantime he kept himself occupied by riding every morning, practising in a fencing school near his hotel for an hour or so every afternoon and picking up the rumours of the day in cafes in the evening.