men, including a General of division and his suite, passengers, bound to Toulon, with an account of the capture of Malta, by the forces under General Buonaparte. On this occasion the Seahorse had 2 men killed, and 16 wounded. Among the latter was Mr. Willmott, the first Lieutenant. The enemy’s ship had 18 killed, and 37, including her commander, wounded. Among the effects on board the Sensible, were found a brass cannon formerly taken from the Turks, and which Louis XIV. had presented to the Knights of Malta; also a gilt-silver model of a galley.
In the spring of 1799, when the approach of the French fleet from Brest rendered it necessary for Lord Nelson, then at Palermo, to collect all his line-of-battle ships about him, Captain Foote was directed to take charge of the blockade of the Bay of Naples, and co-operate with a land force consisting of a few regular troops of four different nations, and with the armed rabble commanded by Cardinal Ruffo, his Sicilian Majesty’s Vicar-General and confidential agent[1]. On the 22d May, the Seahorse anchored off Procida, where Captain Foote found the Perseus bomb, San Leon and Mutine brigs, a Neapolitan frigate, and several gun-boats, the whole of which he took under his orders.
The transactions in that quarter during the ensuing summer, have been much" discussed both at home and abroad; and, owing to the perversion of facts, not generally with that
- ↑ In our memoir of Sir Benjamin Hallowell (See Note † at p. 472,) we have already alluded to the ineffectual attempt made by the King of the two Sicilies, to expel the French from his territories, as well as from those of the Holy Pontiff. On the 23d Jan. 1799, the Neapolitan army having been previously dispersed, a body of the republican troops under General Championet, notwithstanding the obstinate resistance they met with from the lazzaroni, or mob of Naples, possessed themselves of that place, from which the King and his family had already withdrawn, and been conveyed to Palermo in Lord Nelson’s flag-ship, the Vanguard. On the 2d April following, a detachment from his Lordship’s squadron, under the orders of Captain Troubridge, entered the bay, and after taking possession of Procida, Ischia, Capri, and the other islands in that neighbourhood, proceeded to blockade the city and adjacent towns, for the purpose of preventing the enemy in those places from getting any supplies of corn, or other articles, by sea. The ships of the line being required at Palermo to reinforce their Admiral, the command of the vessels left on that service devolved upon Captain Foote, about the middle of May.
