550 
N A P 
againft Jofeph Bonaparte. Villages, which refufed to 
admit French troops within their walls, or to pay the 
contributions demanded from them, were pillaged and 
burned; and in fome atrocious cafes, the wretched in¬ 
habitants were included, without mercy or diftindtion, 
in the conflagration, and, with their wives and children, 
prevented by French foldiers from making their efcape 
from the flames that continued their habitations. 
When fir John Stuart returned to Meflina from his 
glorious expedition in Calabria, he found lieutenant- 
general Fox arrived there from Gibraltar, with a corn- 
million of commander-in-chief of the Britifli forces in 
Italy. General Fox took upon him the command of the 
army on the 29th of July; and immediately appointed 
fir John Stuart to conduct the war, wdiich he had begun 
with fo much fuccefs, in the two Calabrias. This office 
fir John Stuart moll readily undertook, and in the pro- 
fecution of it, made a fecond expedition to Calabria, for 
the purpofe of reftcring fome degree of order in that 
country, and repreffing the exceffes of the maffe; but, 
when fir John Moore, his fenior officer, joined the army 
with reinforcements from England and became, of courfe, 
fecond in command, he preferred returning home to 
England, to continuing third in command in Italy. 
Soon after the arrival of fir John Moore, that gallant 
and experienced officer was difpatched along the coafl: to 
the bay of Naples, to collect information of the ftate of 
the country, and to confer with fir Sidney Smith about 
operations in which the affiftance of the navy might be 
wanted. The refult of fir John Moore’s inquiries was 
unfavourable to any new expedition to the continent. 
He found the population of Naples difcontented and 
ready to attempt an infurredtion, if encouraged by the 
prefence of a confiderable Britiffi army; but, without 
fome profpedt of co-operation from the upper part of 
Italy, he faw no advantage to be gained by encouraging 
thete difpofitions ; and, with refpedt to the war in Cala¬ 
bria, he was fatisfied that, by fupplying the people with 
arms and ammunition and exciting them to infurredtion, 
we were merely organifing and keeping alive a predatory 
civil war, ruinous and deitrudtive to individuals, while it 
was unattended with any real or permanent benefit to 
ourtelves or to our ally. The information colledted by 
general Fox at Medina, and the conduft of the maffe in 
Lower Calabria, coincided with the report of fir John 
Moore, and determined general Fox to make no expedi¬ 
tion to the continent, unlefs fome more favourable oppor¬ 
tunity prefented itfelf; and in the mean time to withhold 
from the maffe fupplies of arms and ammunition, which 
they were obvioufly employing in other ufes than fuch as 
a Britifli general could approve of. 
This determination was far from being acceptable at 
Palermo, where the court liftened greedily to every plan 
propofed to it for the recovery of Naples, and thought 
always the laft project laid before it the fureft to fucceed. 
The marquis di Circello, who had been appointed mi- 
nifter of foreign affairs on the refignation of fir John 
Adton, was a perfon of very middling abilities, but high 
in favour with the queen, and implicitly devoted to her 
fervice. It was natural for fuch a minifter, defirous of 
plealing /im/j a queen, and indifferent or blind to all other 
confequences, to propofe to the commander of the Britiffi 
forces, to engage, in conjunction with the troops of his 
Sicilian majelty, in a combined attack upon Naples: A 
temporary pof'effion of that city, he argued, though it were 
for twenty four hours only, if it did no other good, would at 
leaf, enable their majefties to tahe vengeance on their rebel¬ 
lious J'ubjeEls. Such a confiderntion was not calculated to 
difpofe a Britiffi officer in favour of their plan ; but there 
were other reafons, befides the difgutt arifing from the 
difclofure of fuch views, which determined general Fox 
to exprefs, in the moft peremptory manner, his decided 
difapprobation of the projedt, and to fignify that it was 
totally impoffible for the Britifli army to co-operate in 
fuch an expedition. 
L E S. 
Thwarted in its plan of operations by the refufal of the 
Englifh general to co-operate in a projedt at once ufelefs 
and diabolical, the court of Palermo was ultimately com¬ 
pelled to abandon its defigns upon Naples; though it 
affedted for fome time an intention of purfuing the enter- 
prife with its own forces, the greater part of which it 
affembled on the north coafl: of Sicily, under the prince 
of Heffe, on pretence of infpedting, arming, and clothing, 
the troops. But, when the relolution of general Fox 
not to concur in the expedition was found to be unal¬ 
terably fixed, the project was entirely given up, though 
with fome reludtance and ill-humour againft the Eng- 
liffi. 
Naples and Sicily may therefore be confidered as two 
diftindt kingdoms till we come to the year 1815. At the 
fame time that Jofeph Bonaparte was made king of Na¬ 
ples, Joachim Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, was de¬ 
clared duke of Cleves and Berg. About the middle of 
the year 1808, it was thought fit to make Jofeph Bona¬ 
parte king of Spain, and Murat was then placed on the 
throne of Naples. Such important changes were con¬ 
tinually making about this time, that this alteration 
palled as an ordinary occurrence, and is indeed fcarcely 
noticed in our annual regifters. 
In June 1809, a fruitlefs expedition againft Naples was 
undertaken by fir John Stuart, w'ho commanded the 
Britiffi forces in Sicily. Sir John firft proceeded againft 
Ifchia and Procida, and in a ffiort time captured both 
thefe iflands; but this fuccefs only afforded the means 
for afeertaining that the great objedt of the expedition 
was unattainable. Murat had recalled a confiderable 
force which was on its march to co-operate with the 
French in the north : he had likewife collected a body of 
national guards, and w r as further reinforced by the troops 
which had taken poffeffion of the papal ftates. In addi¬ 
tion to the refiftance to be expedted from this concen¬ 
trated force, the apathy of the Neapolitans, to any pro- 
pofal of deliverance, operated as a ferious obftacle. They 
chofe to fubmit to Joachim the ufurper rather than make 
any effort to reftore their legitimate fovereign, from whom 
they had not been taught to expedl any very earned: en¬ 
deavours for the bettering of their condition. Still lefs 
w'ere they defirous to tafte of the tender mercies of the 
queen, even for though it were for four-aud-twenty hours 
only; (fee above.) Some farther particulars of this ex¬ 
pedition will be found under the article London, vol. 
xiii. p. 196. 
Sicily, Calabria, and the coafl: of Naples, were the feenes 
of a few' gallant adtions, though of little importance, in 
the year 1811. for which fee the fame article, p. 265. But 
both kingdoms, as we may call them, were comparatively 
tranquil. Joachim of Naples made no attempts to difturb 
the Englith troops in their occupancy of Sicily; and, on 
the other hand, the importance of Sicily, the refources 
which it might be made to afford, and the means neceffary 
to be taken for conciliating the affedtions of its inhabi¬ 
tants, and roufing them againft the enemy, feem never to 
have entered into the contemplation of Ferdinand or his 
minifters. When the royal family were driven a fecond 
time to Sicily for ffielter and protedtion, the Sicilians had 
vainly imagined, that, in return for their affiftance and 
fidelity, they would be relieved from jealous and injurious 
reftridtions on their commerce and navigation, and raifed 
to greater w-eight and confideration in the councils of 
their fovereign than they had hitherto attained. Their 
ancient conllitution, the venerable forms of which were 
Hill exifting, they were defirous to re-eftabliffi; and, 
no lefs attached to the Englith by ancient traditions 
than by hatred of the French, they fondly expedted 
from us afliftance and countenance in this great un¬ 
dertaking. But it has been the misfortune of England, 
in the long war the has fuftained againft the different 
rulers of France, that, whether contending with a re¬ 
public, an oligarchy, or a monarchy, the has never had 
the people of any country on her fide. The protec- 
trefs 
