the threshold of the sweeping administrative reforms instituted
by Peter Leopold, the archduke for whom Smollett relates that
they were preparing the Pitti Palace at the time of his stay.
This Prince governed the country as Grand Duke from 1765 to 1790,
when he succeeded his brother as Emperor, and left a name in
history as the ill-fated Leopold. Few more active exponents of
paternal reform are known to history. But the Grand Duke had to
deal with a people such as Smollett describes. Conservative to
the core, subservient to their religious directors, the "stupid
party" in Florence proved themselves clever enough to retard the
process of enlightenment by methods at which even Smollett
himself might have stood amazed. The traveller touches an
interesting source of biography when he refers to the Englishman
called Acton, formerly an East India Company captain, now
commander of the Emperor's Tuscan Navy, consisting of "a few
frigates." This worthy was the old commodore whom Gibbon visited
in retirement at Leghorn. The commodore was brother of Gibbon's
friend, Dr. Acton, who was settled at Besancon, where his noted
son, afterwards Sir John Acton, was born in 1736. Following in
the footsteps of his uncle the commodore, who became a Catholic,
Smollett tells us, and was promoted Admiral of Tuscany, John
Acton entered the Tuscan Marine in 1775.

[Sir John Acton's subsequent career belongs to history. His
origin made him an expert on naval affairs, and in 1776 he
obtained some credit for an expedition which he commanded against
the Barbary pirates. In 1778 Maria Carolina of Naples visited her
brother Leopold at Florence, and was impressed by Acton's
ugliness and reputation for exceptional efficiency. Her favourite
minister, Prince Caramanico, persuaded the Grand Duke, Leopold,