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Naples, when he privately announced his intention ofmaking an attack upon Sicily. Old Queen Caroline hadconceived for the English all the hatred that she heretoforehad bestowed upon her own people, the admirers of liberalmeasures, and the Republican French , who had encouragedthose sentiments so odious to royalty. The English Generalin Sicily , the worthy Lord W. Bentinck, had on several occa-sions interfered to check her tyrannical conduct, and shepanted for revenge. She therefore sent a confidential personto Napoleon, proposing to attack the English forces in Sicily with her own troops and armed people, and expel them theIsland , provided that Napoleon would allow of her familyholding the ostensible Sovereignty of the Two Sicilies ,which however, in fact, should be dependent upon France ,and governed entirely according to French institutions.Napoleon neither acceded to nor rejected the proposal. Hesaw the impossibility of its execution so as to insure theobservance of the compact by the Queen of Sicily ; he feltdisgusted with the base perfidy of the incorrigible wretch,but he abstained from exposing her to her friends, theEnglish , thinking that some, as yet unforeseen, advantagemight accrue from her hostile disposition towards them.

I am, however, inclined to think that it was mainly on thestrength of this communication from Queen Caroline thatNapoleon suggested to King Joachim the Sicilian expe-dition. Had such a league as that proposed by Caroline been adopted and acted upon by both parties, it was ofsuch a nature, as to make it impossible but that bothparties secretly intended to, and might, deceive the other.

On the 4th of May, (I think it was) 1810, an English frigate, the Spartan, Captain Brenton, was signalled sailinginto the bay of Naples. The king immediately gave ordersfor his squadron, then ready for sea, to go forth and attackit. This Neapolitan force consisted of one frigate, one

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