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 cess as carried on against the prisoners; for the culprits are seldom present while the trial is proceeding. By the Judge’s account, he is making a rapid progress: several of the villains are very rich.”

Some of the loyalists, with the characteristic impetuosity of Italians, did not wait for the decision of a Judge, as appears by the following extraordinary letter which Captain Troubridge received early one morning, with his usual basket of grapes for breakfast, from the shore:

So wretchedly were the affairs of the Sicilian government administered, that although the number of loyalists in Procida and Ischia, including emigrants from the main, amounted to at least 50,000 persons, a considerable period was allowed to elapse before any attention was paid to their wants, and had it not been for the flour with which they were supplied from the squadron, and the private stores, which the officers humanely distributed amongst them, many of those poor suffering creatures must actually have perished through hunger; all supplies from Naples and Castel-à-mare having been suspended immediately after the arrival of the British.

Even Nelson’s remonstrances on this occasion proved