The British in Capri, 1806-1808. By Sir Lees Knowles. (J.
Lane. 15s. net..)—This large book, with many fine portraits and views, is devoted to a small and far from creditable incident in our military history. Capri was captured by Sir Sidney Smith's Marines and bluejackets in May, 1806, two months before the victory of Maida, and was garrisoned with Sir Hudson Lowe's battalion of Corsican Rangers and a Maltese battalion. In October, 1808, Murat, the newly appointed King Joachim of Naples, sent a force across the bay and induced Sir Hudson Lowe to evacuate the island after less than a fortnight's siege. Napier blames Lowe, but the War Office continued to employ him, and at length chose him to be Napoleon's gaoler at St. Helena. On Lowe's own showing, in a manuscript account here printed at length and in the papers laid Before Parliament, which are also given in full, the defence of Capri was singularly ill contrived, and the critical landing-places, which might have been held by a corporal's guard, were left in charge of notoriously undisciplined Maltese, who allowed the enemy to get ashore. The Navy and the Army failed to work together, and Lowe lost heart when reinforcements were on the way. The author's Introduction about Capri itself is most interesting. The moral, which he does not draw, is that an island unprovided with a good and defensible harbour is not necessarily the " key " of the sea which, on the map, it seems to dominate. Capri was really useless to both sides, and any troops stationed there were out of action. Probably Sir Hudson Lowe's superiors were secretly pleased that he had lost Capri.
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