"I write to you with joy inexpressible! The brave and enterprising British Admiral Nelson has obtained a most signal and decisive victory. My heart would fain give wings to the courier who is the bearer of these propitious tidings, to facilitate the earliest acknowledgments of our gratitude. So extensive is this victory in all it's relative circumstances, that were it not that the world has been accustomed to see prodigies of glory atchieved by the English on the seas, I should almost question the reality of the event. It has produced, among us, a general spirit of enthusiasm. It would have moved you much, to have seen my infant boys and girls hanging round my neck in tears, expressing their joy at the happy tidings, made doubly dear to us by the critical period at which they arrived. This news of the defeat of Bonaparte's Egyptian fleet has made many disaffected persons less daring, and improved the prospect of the general good. Make my highest respects acceptable to their majesties of England. Recommend the gallant hero, Nelson, to his royal master. He has raised, in the Italians, an enthusiastic reverence for the English nation. Great expectations were naturally founded on his enterprising talents, but no one could look for so total an overthrow of the enemy. All here are frantic with excess of joy!" In a letter, of the 25th of September, written to Earl Spencer, by Admiral Nelson, after slightly mentioning the reception with which he had thus been honoured, particularly by their Sicilian majesties, he makes use of these modest and pious expressions--"You will not, my lord, I trust, think that one spark of vanity induces me to mention the most distinguished reception that ever, I believe, fell to the lot of a human being; but, that it is a measure of justice due to his Sicilian majesty and the nation. God knows, my heart is amongst the most humble of the creation, full of thankfulness and gratitude."