On the morning of the 7th, escorted by four villainous-looking mounted men armed to the teeth, he set out. Stoically he endured the jolting, while deriving such consolation as he could from the beauty of the scenery. To his right there was an endless succession of bays enclosed by wooded promontories and to his left, for the first three days, the magnificent cone of Etna continued to dominate the north-east of the island. On the afternoon of the 13 th he reached Palermo.
The walls of the ancient city were most impressive but he found the city within them composed almost entirely of slums, many of which dated back to the occupation of the city by Saracens and Normans. The British Embassy, he learned, had been established in the Villa Bastioni, and he went there as soon as he had paid off his escort. He found it to be a handsome mansion overlooking the Marine Promenade and adjacent to the beautiful Flora Reale gardens, but it soon transpired that the occupants were far from happy in their new home.
Sir William and Emma received him most kindly, but had a sad story to tell. In addition to bemoaning the loss of their fine Neapolitan properties and a great part of their possessions, they had found Palermo most disappointing. The Royal Family had never previously stayed there, except in summer, and then only at long intervals. In consequence, none of the palaces had fireplaces and most of them had fallen into disrepair. As the weather had been very inclement the refugees had suffered severely from the cold and Sir William had spent several weeks in bed with a fever. The King and Queen had installed themselves in the only habitable rooms in the Colli Palace and the Queen, still terrified of assassination, constantly moaned about it being two miles from the harbour, which would make it difficult to escape if the mob took it into its head to follow the example of that of Naples.
As it had taken Roger nearly four weeks to reach Palermo, the Hamiltons had much more recent news of Naples than he had, gleaned from refugees who had continued to arrive by sea. The disciplined French columns had forced their way through the rabble remnants of the Neapolitan Army and launched their attack on the capital on January 23rd, upon which the Liberal nobility in the Castel Sant'Elmo ran up the hated tricolour flag. The lazzaroni resisted the French with extraordinary ferocity. Thousands of them were killed as they defended every street and every house, but again French discipline triumphed. After several days of desperate fighting they crushed all opposition, and on February 'th General Championnet proclaimed the Kingdom of Naples as the Parthenopean Republic.
The news from northern Italy was no better. The French, infuriated by the Grand Duke of Tuscany's half-hearted attempt to move against them, had taken over in Florence; so the Duke, too, had to seek safety in exile. The Genoese of the Ligurian Republic had penetrated to Turin and had roused the Republicans there against their King, Charles Emmanuel IV. On December 9th he was forced to abdicate the throne of Piedmont and took refuge in his other kingdom, the island of Sardinia. This last event, although apparently a minor one among the upheavals that the French had caused over such a great area of Europe, was, a year later, to have consequences that altered the fate of a dozen nations.
On the credit side the beginnings of a Second Coalition against the French had at last matured. In the New Year of '99 Britain had signed an alliance with Russia and Turkey and it really looked now as if Austria meant to join them. Nelson's victory of the Nile had already established British supremacy in the Mediterranean and the capture of Minorca towards the end of the preceding year had provided the Admiral with another base. The addition of Russian and Turkish, as well as Portuguese, Squadrons now enabled the Allies to enforce a strict blockade on all enemy ports.
When Roger enquired after the gallant Admiral, Sir William pulled a long face and said, 'Since making Palermo his headquarters, our beloved hero has been much under the weather. Soon after our arrival here it was my most unhappy duty to hand him a despatch from an officer named Sir Sidney Smith, The despatch stated that Their Lordships of the Admiralty had charged Sir Sidney both to take over all negotiations with the Turks and to conduct all future operations in the eastern Mediterranean.'
' The name rings a bell,' Roger remarked. ' Surely he must be the man whom Talleyrand mentioned to me when I was last in Paris as being a prisoner in the Temple.'
' You are right; but he succeeded in escaping, with the aid of a French Royalist: one Colonel Phelippeaux. He subscribed his letter in most pretentious terms, as Knight of the Royal Swedish Order of the Sword, Minister Plenipotentiary to the Grand Turk and Chief of Operations by Land and Sea in the Levant. It is, of course, true that his younger brother is our Minister at the Porte, which should greatly assist his negotiations there, but-'
' But the insult! ' Emma broke in passionately. ' To deprive of one of his Squadrons the greatest sailor England has ever had and allow this popinjay to reap the glory of finishing off Bonaparte. The humiliation of it is beyond bearing. One can only suppose that their Lordships are gone mad.'
Roger would have given pride of place to no man in his admiration for the little Admiral's grasp of all naval matters, initiative and great personal courage, and he was shocked by this most ungenerous treatment of him. All the same, he thought that there was a possible reason for it. Although, as far as Nelson was able, he had for the past five months continued to control his distant Squadrons operating against Egypt, Malta and the Balearics and in the Gulf of Genoa, he had devoted his own energies entirely to the affairs of Naples. He had even promised that in no circumstances would he abandon Their Sicilian Majesties. The reason for that was not far to seek and was so generally known that tidings of it would long since have reached London. In Whitehall it might well be thought that, instead of remaining inactive in Palermo, he ought by now to be back in the Levant, doing his utmost to hamper the advance up the Syrian coast which it was known Bonaparte intended to undertake in the New Year. Therefore a more singleminded man had been sent to do it for him.
Naturally, Roger made no mention of his plausible speculations and Sir William was going on,' You will appreciate how aggrieved was so sensitive a soul as Sir Horatio by this belittling of him. He wrote at once both to Earl Spencer at the Admiralty and to St. Vincent, as his Commander-in-Chief, stating that he could not support having Captain Hood's Squadron taken from him by an officer junior to himself, and asking to be relieved of his Command.'
' I pray God they are not such fools as to allow him to give it up,' Roger said with all sincerity. Then he asked if Sir William would secure him an interview with the Admiral.
' He is residing here as our treasured guest,' said Emma, ' and we should be happy to have you, too, with us if you will forgive our putting you in a small room at the top of the house.'
Sir William added, with a sad little smile, ' It's that, or the company of bedbugs and rats. Palermo is now choc-a-bloc with refugees of a dozen different nationalities. The only passable hotel is full to overflowing and every moderately sanitary building is packed to the roof-tops.'
Roger's reason for not accepting the Hamiltons's hospitality in Naples did not pertain in Palermo, so he gratefully accepted and was shown up to an attic room. At supper that night there were some twenty people, the majority of whom were now penniless and living on Sir William's generosity although he had lost a great part of his fortune. A number of them seized upon Roger, as a newcomer, to pour out the tale of their misfortunes; but later in the evening the Ambassador took him to a room that had been set aside as an office for Nelson.