About seventy Jacobins were executed for their misdeeds, but Nelson was only concerned in the death of one of them. Commodore Francesco Caracciolo, the commander of the Republican Navy, had previously accompanied the Sicilian Court to Palermo, but when an edict was issued by the French that the property of all absentees would be confiscated, he had obtained King Ferdinand’s permission to return. Marshal Macdonald, then Commander-in-chief of the French Army of Naples, refers to the matter in his “Recollections.” “I had resolved,” he writes, “to induce Admiral Caracciolo to take service in the new fleet; he equipped a flotilla which secured respect for the port and coasts of Naples, frequently threatened by attempts of the English, who occupied the islands and were stationed in the roads.”[42] When Caracciolo’s position on sea became untenable, he sought a safer asylum in one of the forts, whence he eventually fled to the mountains disguised as a peasant. Here he was discovered and captured. The refugee was brought on board the _Foudroyant_ on the morning of the 29th June. Nelson at once instructed Count Thurn, Commander of the Sicilian frigate _La Minerva_, who had been in action with Caracciolo, to assemble five of the senior officers under his command to inquire if the prisoner were guilty of rebellion against his lawful Sovereign, and having fired at his Sicilian Majesty’s colours on board _La Minerva_. The trial duly took place; the sentence was death. This was to be carried out “by hanging him at the fore yard-arm of His Sicilian Majesty’s Frigate _La Minerva_, under your command, at five o’clock this evening; and to cause him to hang there until sunset, when you will have his body cut down, and thrown into the sea.” Such were Nelson’s instructions, which were obeyed. Parsons, who had charge of Caracciolo, describes him as “a short, thick-set man, of apparent strength, but haggard with misery and want; his clothing in wretched condition, but his countenance denoting stern resolution to endure that misery like a man.” The sympathetic narrator persists in calling him “veteran” and “old man.” The Commodore was only forty-seven years of age, although his wan appearance may have made him look considerably older. “At two o’clock in the afternoon,” Parsons adds, “the veteran, with a firm step, walked into Lord Nelson’s barge, and with a party of thirty of our seamen, under one of our lieutenants, was taken to his [Count Thurn’s] flagship, the gun fired, and the brave old man launched into eternity at the expiration of the two hours from the time the sentence had passed. The seamen of our fleet, who clustered on the rigging like bees, consoled themselves that it was only an Italian prince, and the admiral of Naples, that was hanging--a person of very light estimation compared with the lowest man in a British ship. His Majesty of Naples, the Prime Minister, Sir John Acton, and many of the foreign ambassadors, joined and took up