[‘The Sicilians are not quite so well disposed towards us’: Edward Foord Bromley, Royal Navy surgeon and source of Tasmanian scandal.] Autograph Letter Signed to Sir Sidney Smith, from HMS America at Palermo, describing the unsettled state of Sicily.

An excellent letter, describing the state of affairs in Sicily during the period of British occupation, 1806-1814. The recipient Sir Sidney Smith (see Oxford DNB) was second in command to Sir Edward Pellew, head of the Mediterranean squadron which included Bromley’s ship HMS America, a 76-gun third-rater, launched only three years before, in 1810. The present letter is written with the ship on the verge of a notable engagement (described in the European Magazine, March 1814, pp.245-247, quoting from the London Gazette). From Bromley’s entry by P. R. Eldershaw in the Australian Dictionary of Biography it would appear that he was merely incompetent, and that the true embezzler of the £8388 Naval Office and Treasury funds discovered in 1824 was his convict clerk, Bartholomew Broughton. Bromley certainly did all he could to pay the money back. The present item is 4pp, 4to, on a bifolium. In good condition, lightly aged, with folds for postage. Signed ‘E F. Bromley’ and with valediction addressed to ‘my Dear Sir Sidney’. Begns: ‘My dear Sir: / by the return of the Thistle to the Fleet I embrace the opportunity of giving you my little Information of what is going on here: it would seem by the precautions taken that we are a little afraid. The Sicilians are not quite so well-disposed towards us as we could wish, - one Hundred Men as a Picquet from each of our Regts. mount Guard every night - the Artillery Horses are constantly kept saddled. and the troops told to hold themselves in readiness to turn out at a moments warning.’ He continues: ‘Their Parliament is now sitting - and have been extremely Violent on the Subject of Quarantine at Messina[.] Genl. Montreson [Sir Henry Tucker Montresor] had given their board of Health some cause of complaint resp[ectin]g his Interference, this came here officially, and they noted his conduct censurable, and that two of their Members should be sent to England with a Complaint to the Prince Regent, this was however lost in the House of Lords.’ He reports that, ‘such is their dread of the Plague’, that the Sicilians would not allow the ‘Horses lately arrived from Egypt’ to land: ‘they are gone to Spain - but to obviate the difficulty arising from the want of those Horses, they voted 15,000 Dollars for the purchase of others in this country’. The second half of the letter covers topics including Prince Belmonte’s departure from office, the king never going ‘to the city’, the throwing open of ‘all reserves res[pectin]g. Game’ that do not have ‘a wall of a certain Height around them’, the ill effects of ‘reg[ulatio]ns. resp[ecting]g the Necessaries of Life’: ‘Fish is hardly to be procured, - and yesterday not an Egg to be found in the Markett’, a report from Naples of a renewal of the armistice, ‘another from Messina Via Clabria says Austria has joined the Allies, and that Hostilities have recommenced’. Bromley concludes: ‘all here looking out anxiously for the expected promotion - I am much afraid I shall loose [sic] my good Captain [the future admiral Sir Josias Rowley (1765-1842)] who most probably will be Included. This loss I shall feel in no trifling degree - for I have experienced the utmost kindness from him’. After a reference to ‘Harris’ he ends with ‘respects to Captn. Smith’.