Great Britain, with a military alliance in mind, the queen deigned to meet the wife of the English ambassador, Emma Hamilton, in audience, despite the fact that the British Queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, had not yet received her. However, they soon struck up a friendship, Emma singing duets with the king and dining privately with the royal family. The queen, whom Emma thought "most excellent and strictly good and upright", was drawn closer to Emma by her willingness to betray Britain's diplomatic secrets. The Sémonville affair and the First Coalition King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette were arrested on 10 August 1792. Hence, the Neapolitan government refused to recognise French diplomatist Baron Armand de Mackau's recently arrived legation. Queen Maria Carolina was so horrified at what had happened at the Tuileries that day that she almost broke off relations with France altogether. The king and queen’s procrastination regarding Mackau's requests to be recognised as a representative of the French Republic caused tension with that country. John Acton, now Prime Minister of Naples, allayed Maria Carolina's fervent desire to go to war with France and tried to placate Mackau until he could rely on British military support. His plan, however, backfired when the French government intercepted a letter detailing how he sabotaged the diplomatic mission of Huguet de Sémonville to the Ottoman Empire. When France started making preparations for war in November to avenge this insult, the king and queen finally capitulated and begrudgingly recognized Mackau and the Republic. However, the national assembly had already sent 9 ships under Admiral Latouche Tréville to seek redress, which arrived on 17 December in Naples. Latouche stipulated that, if Acton did not apologise to him in person for the Sémonville affair, he would bombard and lay waste to Naples within an hour. The queen’s decision to accede to Latouche's demands earned her the criticism of some Neapolitan historians, like General Colletta, who overlook the fact that Naples was unable to mount a defence at the time as the navy was not mobilised. Maria Carolina's preventatives against Jacobinism were rendered useless in the face of the subversive actives of Latouche's fleet, which was obliged to return to Naples shortly after leaving by a storm. The French sailors, "republican agents", were allowed to land on this occasion, inculcating their anti-monarchical sentiments in the Neapolitans. Upon Latouche's departure, on 29 January 1793, Maria Carolina