The money spent at Palermo gives discontent here; fifty thousand people are unemployed, trade discouraged, manufactures at a stand.

It is the interest of many here to keep the king away: they all dread reform.

Their villanies are so deeply rooted, that if some method is not taken to dig them out, this government cannot hold together.

Out of twenty millions of ducats, collected as the revenue, only thirteen millions reach the treasury; and the king pays four ducats where he should pay one.

He is surrounded by thieves; and none of them have honour or honesty enough to tell him the real and true state of things." In another letter he expressed his sense of the miserable state of Naples.