"The prisoner, I am told, objected that Count Thurn, the senior Sicilian officer, who presided over the trial, was his personal enemy; which Count Thurn, as Commander of the Sicilian Navy, could not fail to be to a rebel. And as Commander of the Sicilian Navy it was impossible for him not to preside at the Court Martial. None of my officers who could speak Italian considered that Thurn showed the slightest unfairness; they were all agreed that Caracciolo bore himself well from the point of courage, but that his answers were vague, and supported by no evidence whatever--the last efforts of a man striving to save his life. "He claimed that he had been forced into the Republican service, had been compelled to perform the duty of a common soldier for a considerable time, when he was offered the command of the Republican Neapolitan Navy, _which necessity alone had at length compelled him to accept_. But it was clearly demonstrated that he had enjoyed opportunities of escaping, and on frequently being asked why he had not embraced these opportunities, no satisfactory reply was made. His silence on the point when his life was at stake can only be attributed to his conviction that he had no right whatever to claim protection from the capitulation. In all circumstances men are likely to be competent judges of what may best conduce to their own safety; and it is perfectly incredible that, if Caracciolo thought himself entitled to the benefit of the capitulation, he would not have referred to it. "The prisoner was charged with rebellion against his lawful Sovereign, and for firing at his colours, hoisted on board his frigate _The Minerva_. He stood further guilty of killing and wounding the subjects, both of his own Sovereign and His Britannic Majesty. When the court was cleared and sentence of death passed on the prisoner, it was duly transmitted to me by the President. I issued the order for its being carried into execution on the same evening at five, at which time he was removed from the _Foudroyant_ and hanged at the fore yard-arm of the Neapolitan frigate _La Minerva_. "I was shocked for Caracciolo, not sorry, for he was a traitor, and, as such, died the death. But that any man, after living for seventy years and serving his country faithfully (which here means only until temptation arises) for forty of them, should from fear of death, or as he confessed, from fear of the loss of property, turn traitor, seems to me so terrible that I own that his being hanged for it is less shocking to me than his offence." * * * * *