he wrote the admiral, "to receive the queen and royal family, should
such an event be necessary." Keith rejoined with a peremptory order
that no ships-of-the-line should be used for such purpose; the Queen,
he said, had better get to Vienna as fast as she could, and not think
of going back to Palermo. "If the French fleet gets the start of ours
a day, Sicily cannot hold out even that one day." "Lord Keith,"
commented Nelson, "believes reports of the Brest fleet, which I give
not the smallest credit to." "I own I do not believe the Brest fleet
will return to sea," he told Keith; "and if they do, the Lord have
mercy on them, for our fleet will not, I am sure." It was not the
least of his conspicuous merits that he was blind to imaginative or
exaggerated alarms. Keith saw too vividly all that might happen in
consequence of recent reverses--much more than could happen.

On the 24th of June the latter reached Leghorn in person. "I must go
to Leghorn," he complained, "to land the fugitives, and to be bored by
Lord Nelson for permission to take the Queen to Palermo, and princes
and princesses to all parts of the globe." The Queen was in a panic,
and besought him with tears to give her the "Foudroyant," but Keith
was obdurate. "Mr. Wyndham[7] arrived here yesterday from Florence,"
wrote Lady Minto on the 6th of July to her sister. "He left the Queen
of Naples, Sir William and Lady Hamilton, and Nelson, at Leghorn. The
Queen has given up all thoughts of coming here. She asked Lord Keith
in her own proper person for the Foudroyant to take her back. He
refused positively giving her such a ship. The Queen wept, concluding
that royal tears were irresistible; but he remained unmoved, and would
grant nothing but a frigate to convoy her own frigates[8] to Trieste.
He told her Lady Hamilton had had command of the fleet long enough.
The Queen is very ill with a sort of convulsive fit, and Nelson is
staying there to nurse her; he does not intend going home till he has