The kind of vanity of which the Admiral was guilty before the event is shown by his behaviour at the late battle, in which, with darkness coming on and without a chart, he took his fleet in to fight a squadron supported by batteries and land forces, which had enjoyed all the time they needed to make a position impregnable, actually sending half his ships into the shallow water between the French and the shore, to which they had anchored as close as they thought safe. Our Admiral's vanity before the event was of the do-and-die sort; he was ready to face destruction at any instant in order to take an advantage of an enemy who, not being equally ready, left certain risks at his mercy. He recalls to my mind the old story of the king who threw his daughter's glove into a lion's den, and told her two suitors that the first who brought it out should have her hand. The Golden Knight asked the Silver Knight if they should fight or draw lots to see who should have the privilege of making the first attempt. The Silver Knight said that no wife was worth such a risk, whereupon the Golden Knight leaped into the midst of the lions and picked up the glove without one of them offering to touch him. Our Admiral was always ready to leap into a lion's den. It was his vanity at this minute to consider that the conduct of affairs in Naples depended on his presence; but none the less, if he had believed that his presence could have captured Malta, he would have stayed there until he had captured it or died in the attempt. He was the last man to leave a thing undone which he believed he could do, and his idea of what might be achieved by desperate valour the affair of Teneriffe had shown. I had forgotten the Marquis of Niza, who had shown considerable energy and good-will in blockading Valetta--for which purpose, there being no likelihood of any French line-of-battle ships appearing, Portuguese _of the line_ did as well as any other. I cannot remember whether or no the Marquis was an admiral in his own service, but he was at all events superior in rank to any of the English officers left at Naples, and conceived it to be essential to his dignity that he should be recognised as being in command of the station while he was there. The Admiral, in his character of bluff British sailor dealing with a pretentious foreigner of whose capacity he had had no sufficient proof, and whom he could not believe to be comparable to Captain Troubridge, the English senior officer on the station, who was only a post-captain, wrote:-- "_Vanguard_, October 24th, 1798.