“‘His doom is sealed,’ said one of the lieutenants, conversing in an undertone with a brother officer, ‘no power on earth can save him.’ ‘On earth,’ rejoined the other, ‘no, nor in the air, nor in the ocean; for I suspect he will meet his death in the one, and find his grave in the other.’ ‘Yet surely,’ said the surgeon, who came up, ‘the admiral will remember his former friendship for the prince, who once served under him. Every sympathetic feeling which is dear to a noble mind must operate to avert his death.’ ‘All the virtues in your medicine-chest, doctor,’ rejoined the first, ‘would not preserve him many hours from destruction, unless you could pour an opiate on the deadly malignity of ----,’ here he put his finger upon his lip, and walked away. “Well, your honour, the old man was given up to his bitter foes, who went through the mockery of a court-martial,--for they condemned him first and tried him afterwards. In vain he implored for mercy; in vain he pleaded the proclamation, and pointed to his hoary head; in vain he solicited the mediation of Nelson, for a revengeful fury had possession of his better purposes, and damned the rising tide of generosity in the hero’s soul; in vain he implored the pardon and intercession of ----; but here I follow the example of my officer, and lay my finger on my lip. “The president of the court-martial was Caraccioli’s personal enemy, and the poor old man was not allowed time to make a defence; he was sentenced to be hung, and his body to be thrown into the sea. I was near him, your honour, when he entreated Mr. Parkinson, one of the lieutenants, to go to Nelson and implore that he might be shot. Oh, if you had but have seen him grasp the officer’s hand as he said, ‘I am an old man, sir, and I have no family to leave behind to lament my death. Indeed I am not anxious to prolong my life, for at the utmost my days would be but few; but the disgrace of hanging,--to be exposed to the gaze of my enemies,--is really dreadful to me!’ “But every attempt to obtain a mitigation or a change of the sentence was unavailing, and at five o’clock that afternoon the brave old man, the veteran prince, in his eightieth year, hung suspended from the fore-yard-arm of a Neapolitan frigate he had once commanded,--for he was an admiral, your honour. Never shall I forget the burst of indignation with which the signal-gun was heard by our crew, and a simultaneous execration was uttered fore and aft.