"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.