and even the blaze of Mount Vesuvius--which was unaccompanied by any
natural overflow of the lava--were both easily effected by a simple
chemical process, and a few kindled faggots and barrels of gunpowder
thrown into the crater, they would most probably have been instantly
massacred for what the priests must have necessarily pronounced, for
their own safety, the most blasphemous of all possible impieties.

In writing, on the 28th of January, to the Honourable Mr. Windham, at
Leghorn, Lord Nelson thus foretells the fate of Tuscany, and of all the
Emperor of Germany's Italian dominions. "Alas!" says his lordship, "the
fancied neutrality of Tuscany will be it's downfall. You see it, and it
cannot fail soon to happen. Tuscany does not, or cannot, support it's
neutrality for us or Naples; only to protect the French, is this name
prostituted. Seratti, who is a man of sound sense, must see it. When the
emperor loses Tuscany and Naples--which, I am bold to say, the conduct
of his ministry conduces to do more than the arms of the French--his
newly-acquired dominions will not keep to him. Active, not passive;
actions, are the only weapons to meet these scoundrels with. We can, as
your excellency knows, have no desire to distress the Grand Duke by our
conduct; on the contrary, it is our duty to support his royal highness
against the tyranny of the French. Your excellency will be so good as to
say, for me, to his royal highness, that an English ship of war shall,
as long as he pleases, remain at Leghorn, ready to receive his person
and family; for, unless the emperor acts speedily, the British flag will
be his only security. Tuscany has the choice, to act like men, and take
the chance of war; or, in a few weeks, to become another conquest of the
French, and to form a new republic." Speaking of Naples, he, says--"We
have heard nothing since the 19th; and, from those accounts, it is
difficult to say, what turn the mob will take; at that time, they were
certainly loyal. The nobility, to a man, Jacobins. Mack has disappeared,