This officer hastened immediately from Minorca with 1000 men, assisted in the measures of defence which were taken, and did not return before he had satisfied himself that, if the Neapolitans were excluded from the management of affairs, and the spirit of the peasantry properly directed, Sicily was safe.

Before his coming, Nelson had offered the king, if no resources should arrive, to defend Messina with the ship's company of an English man-of-war.
Russia had now entered into the war.

Corfu, surrendered to a Russian and Turkish fleet, acting now, for the first time, in strange confederacy yet against a power which was certainly the common and worst enemy of both.

Troubridge having given up the blockade of Alexandria to Sir Sidney Smith, joined Nelson, bringing with him a considerable addition of strength; and in himself what Nelson valued more, a man, upon whose sagacity, indefatigable zeal, and inexhaustible resources, he could place full reliance.

Troubridge was intrusted to commence the operations against the French in the bay of Naples.