'pu^..Q.^.S<ic>iAXJU^^ 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DA 483.H21S56 
 
 3 1924 027 991 656 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924027991656 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
• It takes a hundred and fifty years to make a beauty — a 
 hundred and fifty years out of doors. . . . Without these 
 constant factors, beauty cannot be, but yet they will not 
 alone produce it. There must be something in the blood 
 which these influences gradually ripen. . . . Erratic, 
 meteor-like beauty ! For how many thousand years has 
 man been your slave ! The sentiment at the sight of a 
 perfect beauty is as much amazement as admiration. It 
 so draws the heart out of itself as to seem like magic' 
 
 Richard Jeffeeies. 
 
 ' I cannot make friends with all, but the few friends I 
 have, I would die for them. ' 
 
 Lady Hamilton to Lord Nelson, Oct. 1798. 
 Add. MS. 34,989, f. 84. 
 

 
EMMA LADY HAMILTON 
 
 FROM NEW AND ORIGINAL 
 SOURCES AND DOCUMENTS 
 
 TOGETHER WITH AN 
 
 APPENDIX OF NOTES AND NEW LETTERS 
 
 BY WALTER SICHEL 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' BOLINGBR.OKE AND HIS TIMES ' 
 ' DISRAELI, A STUDY ' 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1906 
 
TO 
 
 ^. E. S. AND G. H. T. 
 
Fi done ! Tu as I'ivresse du peuple.— 
 — C'est la bonne, c'est celle du plaisir. 
 Beaumarchais. 
 
 Ah, Emma, who'd ever be wise 
 If madness were loving of thee 1 
 
 Lord Bristol, Bishop of Derrv. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In attempting this theme, I found! that to do it real 
 justice, both from the personal and historical point of view, 
 I must perforce and in great measure begin afresh. Many 
 new manuscripts of the highest importance have passed 
 into the national collection during about the last twenty 
 years. And apart from these, much new and weighty 
 evidence exists. Much casts new lights both on the 
 character of Lady Hamilton, the whole story of her life, 
 and the history of Naples. Much has remained unknown 
 or unnoticed both in contemporary manuscripts and con- 
 temporary books, research into which is needful if a living 
 picture is to be formed ; for by such means alone we are 
 enabled to view things from the inside, to get, as it were, 
 behind the scenes, and close up to the persons. 
 
 Two at least among many manuscript collections in the 
 British Museum are new in their revelations, and have 
 escaped attention. 
 
 The first is the correspondence of Lady Hamilton with 
 Nelson in the autumn of the year 1798, after the Nile 
 victory (Add. MS. 34,989). Not only does this shed 
 immense light on her character, on the part that she played 
 with the Queen of Naples, and on the ripening of her 
 Nelson-worship, but I was fortunate enough to discover 
 in it a letter of June 17 (reproduced in this volume) to 
 which Nelson's famous and much-debated ' I have kissed 
 the Queen's letter' is, without question, the immediate 
 answer. This conclusively upsets some of the ingenious 
 theories put forward by modern sceptics in criticising Lady 
 
viii EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Hamilton's claim to have procured what enabled Nelson 
 to water and provision the British fleet. Both in this 
 respect, however, and in others regarding Lady Hamilton's 
 several 'services,' I had from other documents arrived at 
 independent conclusions. This collection further comprises 
 many most material letters of later dates, and among them 
 a series written by Lady Hamilton to Mrs. William Nelson 
 during 1801, relative to the hitherto unnoticed 'Prince 
 of Wales ' episode which figures in these pages, and bearing 
 also both on Nelson's hurried visit to London before he 
 started for the Baltic, and the life led by him and the 
 Hamiltons on their first installation at Merton. These 
 and the correspondence of 1798 are of such novel interest, 
 that they . are both transcribed, with a number of other 
 new and enlightening letters, in the Appendix, which 
 also contains the longer and the controversial notes, so 
 as not to over-encumber the narrative. The whole series 
 was not acquired by the British Museum until 1896, and 
 therefore neither Mr. J. Cordy JeafFreson nor Professor 
 Laughton could have used it. 
 
 The second, however, was purchased in 1886, but possibly 
 it may not have been available in 1887 and 1889. Had 
 it been so, it would certainly have modified their views. It 
 is the long and remarkable series of Sir John Acton's 
 correspondence with Sir William Hamilton (Egerton MS. 
 2639-2640), penned in the quaintest English, illuminat- 
 ing events and characters, and indispensable to a right 
 understanding of the persons and the period. With these 
 should be studied further letters of the same Neapolitan 
 Minister, which are to be found both in the Hamilton 
 correspondence (Egerton MS. 2634-2641) and in a mis- 
 cellaneous collection (Egerton MS. 1623), which to many 
 documents of human interest adds letters both from Acton 
 and from the Queen of Naples. There is besides, much 
 regarding Lady Hamilton herself to be gleaned from the 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 correspondence of Sir J. Banks with Sir W. Hamilton (Eger- 
 ton MS. 2641); and something — especially as to Romney 
 and Lady Hamilton — in a manuscript collection of Hayley's 
 correspondence (Add. MS. 30,805). Moreover, there are 
 isolated letters of interest and value, such as that from Sir 
 William Hamilton to Greville about Emma (Add. MS. 
 34,710 D) which ranks with those in the Morrison Auto- 
 graphs ; and another of Nelson to Emma, also hitherto 
 unquoted, but perhaps the most striking of any that he 
 ever addressed to her, from a collection, too, of the highest 
 value otherwise (Add. MS. 34,274). There are also various 
 other manuscript sources which I need not here specify. 
 
 There are, of course, the Nelson Papers, much used, on 
 which these and kindred sources shed fresh and considerable 
 light ; and there exist still further and most valuable collec- 
 tions which have hitherto been either unconsulted or insuffi- 
 ciently examined. Such is the correspondence of Nelson's 
 brother and successor (Add. MS. 34,992), which contains, 
 with much else concerning his conduct after Nelson's death, 
 a conclusive document which will be found in the Appendix. 
 Then there is the correspondence of Nelson's confidential 
 friend Alexander Davison (Egerton MS. 2240), a minute 
 inspection of which reveals much that is new in the lives 
 and characters of Lady Hamilton, her husband, and Nelson. 
 Nor would it seem that the Hamilton Papers above men- 
 tioned have themselves been fully scrutinised in all their 
 historical bearings, since the erasures and interlineations in 
 one at least of Sir William's official drafts perhaps assist the 
 main evidence of what seems to have happened privately. 
 
 The manuscript letters of Maria Carolina, Queen of 
 Naples, in more than one series in the British Museum, 
 have many of them been quoted both by English and 
 foreign writers; but her crabbed handwriting has some- 
 times caused material mistranscriptions. Nothing more 
 touching can be imagined than these reliquaries, so to 
 
X EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 speak, of past emotion, with their inclosures of sad 
 mementoes and Emmais own indorsements on their covers. 
 The royal flight from Naples to Palermo in December 1798 
 played a great part in her career, as she herself played an 
 even greater part in its thrilling scenes. From the Queen's 
 letters of this date (Egerton MS. 161 5 and 1623) combined 
 with others from the Vienna Archives (in Baron Helfert's 
 Life of Fabrizio Ruffo), the Acton letters, and those in the 
 Morrison Autographs, I have tried to reconstruct this 
 melodrama as if it were a sensation of yesterday. 
 
 I have further been able to secure originals and copies 
 of many unknown and striking letters touching Lady 
 Hamilton's actions and circumstances throughout her career. 
 Nor should I omit the great assistance afforded by the pub- 
 lished excerpts from many autographs in Messrs. Sotheby's 
 Catalogues of Sale. Placed in their proper context, these 
 enable one to understand much which without them would 
 remain obscure ; and the Appendix includes a number of 
 these also. 
 
 I am under the deepest obligation to Mrs. Alfred 
 Morrison for her kindness in lending me a printed but 
 unpublished copy of the autograph Hamilton and Nelson 
 Papers. These letters, invaluable alike to psychologist 
 and historian, are only of complete use when they can 
 be consulted in their entirety, and in their full relations 
 both to themselves and to companion letters. Had Mr. 
 Jeaffreson closely studied them he would have come to 
 different conclusions on many subjects — the mysterious 
 Emma ' Carew,' for instance, among minor matters, and 
 the affectionate intimacy of Nelson's sisters, sister-in-law, 
 and their children with Lady Hamilton, consistently main- 
 tained up to the very end. Perhaps he may have been 
 unable to do so, because when he wrote they may not yet 
 have been privately printed or fully catalogued. 
 
 Like considerations touch the relevance of all these 
 
PREFACE 
 
 XI 
 
 sources to history, to controversial criticism, and to Captain 
 Mahan's characterisation, so far as his delightful book affects 
 Lady Hamilton. That book explains Nelson's tactics far 
 more than it penetrates the hidden springs of motive and 
 temperament, based as*' it is mainly on published and 
 acknowledged records. It hardly fathoms the secret of 
 two hearts. 
 
 Some critics, in trying to dispute the date or authenticity 
 of material letters, have urged the unlikelihood of Nelson 
 and Sir William Hamilton addressing each other during 
 1798 as 'my dear Nelson,' or 'my dear Hamilton,' but 
 the Morrison Manuscripts of this date comprise one in 
 which Hamilton does so address Nelson ; and in less trivial 
 examples also, the distinction between the wording of 
 private and ofKcial correspondence has often been over- 
 looked. Again, a state-document most relevant to the 
 events of July 1798 (' The Governor of Syracuse's despatch ') 
 is explained by a letter from Sir John Acton in this series ; 
 while many other papers outside it supply a key to the 
 diplomatic situation which underlies and interprets most 
 of the Neapolitan communications during this period. It 
 has also been objected that Nelson could not, in June 
 1798, have referred (as he does) to the 'sufferings' of the 
 royal family. Acton's manuscripts of this date, however, 
 many of the Queen's letters, a notable draft by Hamilton 
 (Egerton MS. 2635, f. 287), and a mass of other, private 
 and official, correspondence, unite in establishing the fitness 
 of the phrase. 
 
 These and kindred mistakes are mere links in a chain of 
 evidence ; but, broadly speaking, all Lady Hamilton's claims 
 will be found to receive fresh and important corrobora- 
 tion. Some of the statements in her several ' Memorials ' 
 have been misconstrued, while most have been traversed. 
 Their verification, however, in these pages by new evidence 
 is some argument for the substantial truth of the rest. 
 
xii EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 It has been assumed, for instance, that her mention of 
 the ' secret passage ' in her narrative of the royal family's 
 melodramatic flight to Palermo is a myth. Acton's corre- 
 spondence, however, displays this incident as an historical 
 certainty. Lady Hamilton, again, pleaded in her 'Prince 
 Regent Memorial' of 1813 that her late husband on his 
 deathbed had urged his nephew to press the Government 
 for some recognition of her services. Greville's own letter, 
 transcribed in the Appendix, not only confirms her state- 
 ment, but protests that the truth of her 'Claims' was 
 within the knowledge of the Foreign Office. It has been 
 taken for granted that the reason for disregarding them 
 was official disbelief. The real causes were very diffisrent 
 and scarcely creditable to the ministers. Nor has it been 
 borne in mind that Sir William Hamilton's own claims 
 were equally ignored. A lack of thorough investigation, 
 moreover, or of available materials, has often caused 
 misinterpretation. Several new episodes have been here 
 unearthed which a preface cannot detail. It may sur- 
 prise many to learn that Nelson's bequest of an annuity 
 to the woman of his heart was long withheld from her, 
 and never paid in advance — as the will stipulated — till the 
 year before her death. 
 
 I venture also to hope that Nelson's own character and 
 achievements stand more fully revealed by the fresh lights 
 and sidelights which serve to bring his extraordinary 
 individuality into relief, to explain his policy, and to clear 
 up some vexed passages both in his private and his public 
 actions. As England absorbed him, so did Emma. 
 
 With regard to books, I may say that I have endeav- 
 oured to study every contemporary work that can possibly 
 illustrate the life of Lady Hamilton or the imbroglios of 
 history in which she became involved: no odd corner, 
 whether in print or manuscript, has been left unsearched ; 
 nor have I omitted those clues regarding either her or any 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 of her friends (however slight their parts in the drama) that 
 even parish registers afford. The apocryphal Memoirs 
 of 1815, frequently repeated, aver that she signed her 
 marriage register under a false name. The Marylebone 
 parish books show that this was not the case ; and it will 
 be found, moreover, that previous conjectures as to the date 
 of her birth have been inaccurate. It may be added that 
 most of the striking material for Emma's life in the 
 Nelson Letters'^ (surreptitiously published in 1814) has 
 passed unnoticed. These two volumes include one of her 
 few surviving letters to Nelson, some of Sir William's 
 private epistles to her in 1792, as well as two of her letters 
 to Greville, some from him and Lord Bristol, and of course 
 a long series of private letters from Nelson himself. 
 
 In striving to understand the inner workings of the 
 Neapolitan Revolution of 1799, I have gone straight to the 
 many Italian sources ; and here I may express my admira- 
 tion of Mr. Gutteridge's most scholarly monograph on 
 Nelson and the Neapolitan Jacobins, published last year for 
 the Navy Record Society, which summarises almost every 
 available authority, and with the conclusions of which I 
 cordially agree. I can only trust that my mite of research 
 may not be wholly useless in the exploration of this 
 comparatively forgotten but most interesting back-water 
 of history. 
 
 Without further enlargement, then, the foregoing con- 
 siderations must furnish an excuse, if excuse be needed, 
 for endeavouring to grapple with the subject, and a justifi- 
 cation for thinking that Lady Hamilton's history needs to 
 be rewritten with all the new lights and authentic records 
 that time has added, and that the survey, if condensed, 
 should aim at being comprehensive. 
 
 ' Their full title is, ' The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, with a 
 Supplement of Interesting Letters by Distinguished Characters. London. For 
 Thomas Lovewell & Co., Staines House, Barbican.' 
 
xiv EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 It is a career of widespread interest and unusual fascina- 
 tion — a 'human document' of many problems that well 
 repay the decipherer and the discoverer. My aim through- 
 out has been to quicken research into life, and to furnish a 
 new study of her striking temperament and the temperaments 
 which became so curiously interwoven both with each other 
 and with history. I have sought, however imperfectly, to 
 render investigation vivid rather than to register statistics 
 about Lady Hamilton. I have tried to stage anew, and 
 with fresh scenes, a drama surprising both in plot and 
 character, and to picture the peculiar psychology of the 
 Triajuncta in uno, as well as their psychological moments. 
 
 In conclusion, my repeated thanks are due to Mrs. Alfred 
 Morrison for so kindly allowing me to have copies of 
 the two volumes of the catalogued manuscripts printed 
 for private circulation ; to my friend Mrs. Hampden of 
 Ewelme for copies of most interesting manuscript letters, 
 some wholly unpublished, others partially. My acknow- 
 ledgments are also due, among others, to Mr. Sabin and 
 Mr. Robson for allowing me to have copies of the letters in 
 their possession ; to Messrs. Sotheran for permitting me to 
 inspect a very curious collection of cuttings, autographs, and 
 portraits ; to the Reverend Canon H. Drew, the Reverend 
 Canon E. C. Turner, the Rector of Marylebone, and the 
 Reverend C. Jagger of Merton, for their kind compliance with 
 my request for information on many points from the parish 
 registers of Hawarden, Neston, Marylebone, and Merton ; 
 to Miss Andalusia Harvey for being so good as to acquaint 
 me with the basis for her family traditions regarding 
 Ickwell Bury and Lady Hamilton ; to my friend Mr. 
 C. C. Lacaita for his suggestions concerning sources for 
 the events of the Neapolitan Revolution of 1798- 1799; and 
 to Mr. Neville-Rolfe, our Consul at Naples, for his helpful 
 information. My thanks are further due to the Hon. Herbert 
 Gibbs for most kindly allowing me to reproduce his original 
 
PREFACE 
 
 XV 
 
 of ' Circe ; to Signor Monaco of the San Martino Gallery 
 at Naples for permitting the recently acquired portrait of 
 Sir John Acton to be photographed ; to Mr. Jones, parish 
 clerk of Hawarden, for much kind assistance; to Messrs. 
 E. Parsons for being so good as to let me photograph 
 the portrait of Lady Hamilton in their possession; to 
 Mr. Urban Noseda for consenting to the reproduction of 
 his mezzotint of ' Euphrosyne ' ; and to Mr. Sanderson of 
 Edinburgh for kindly placing a photograph of his historical 
 table at my disposal. 
 
 It is hoped that the illustrations — comprising, besides 
 the miniature sold this year from the Capel-Cure Collec- 
 tion, original and unreproduced studies and sketches by 
 Romney as well as rare and unknown likenesses of her 
 and her friends — will add fresh and special interest to this 
 epitome of the 'sad vicissitude of things.' 
 
 WALTER SICHEL. 
 
 Sefitemier 1905. 
 
 *^* At the last moment I find I must waive two out of three surmises 
 from alleged discrepancies between Sir W. Hamilton's draft despatch 
 and his formal despatch to Lord Grenville of June 1798 (referred to in 
 Appendix n. G. and on pp. 206-7). Most of these discrepancies were 
 based on some mistranscriptions of my own, since corrected. The 
 surrender, however, of such minor points in no way affects the validity 
 of my real arguments in favour of Lady Hamilton's claim ; and with 
 regard to this technical case of Hamilton's draft, I still think that the 
 date and nature of his alterations are suggestive. 
 
 I may be permitted here to point out that all the remaining letters 
 
 from Lady Hamilton to Nelson are given in this volume, including one 
 
 (p. 347) from the Egerton Manuscripts. And, finally, may I venture to 
 
 hope that, with fuller knowledge and insight, the worn label of ' common 
 
 adventuress' may no longer adhere to this true and strange daughter 
 
 of democracy ? 
 
 W. S. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 rAGB 
 
 vii 
 
 Preface ..... 
 
 I. Prelude : Lady Hamilton's Temperament . i 
 
 II. The Curtain Rises : 1 765-1 782 . -33 
 
 III. The 'Fair Tea-maker of Edgware Row': i 782-1 784 56 
 
 IV. ' What God, and Greville, pleases' : To March 1786 79 
 
 V. Apprenticeship and Marriage : 1787-1791 
 VI. Till the First Meeting : 1 791-1793 . 
 VII. ' Stateswoman ' : 1 794-1797 
 VIII. Triumph: 1798 
 
 IX. Flight: December 1798 — ^January 1799 
 X. Triumph Once More: To August 1799 
 XI. Homeward Bound : To December 1800 
 XII. From Piccadilly to 'Paradise' Merton: 1801 
 
 XIII. Exit 'Nestor': January 1802 — May 1803 
 
 XIV. Penelope and Ulysses : June 1803 — January 1806 
 
 XV. The Importunate Widow in Liquidation : February 
 i8o6 — ^July 1814 .... 
 
 XVI. From Debt to Death: July 18 14 — January 18 15 
 
 b 
 
 97 
 137 
 168 
 201 
 242 
 262 
 312 
 341 
 384 
 405 
 
 433 
 464 
 
PAGE 
 
 xviii EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 APPENDIX 
 Part I. — Notes 
 
 A. Evidences as to the date of Lady Hamilton's birth 47° 
 
 B. Dr. James Graham -476 
 
 C. Emma'Carew' 479 
 
 D. Lady Hamilton's Letter in French to the Countess of 
 
 Lichtenau . . . • • .481 
 
 E. New Inferential Evidence for Lady Hamilton's General 
 
 Services to England in 1 794- 1 795 . . . • 481 
 
 F. Lady Hamilton's Claim concerning the King of Spain's 
 
 secret letters in the spring of 1795 ^od the autumn of 1796 
 further considered ...... 483 
 
 G. Lady Hamilton's Claim to have procured the watering of the 
 
 British fleet in the summer of 1798 further considered . 486 
 
 H. An Abstract of the legal document of May 6, 1814, whereby 
 Lady Hamilton received her first payment in advance of 
 Lord Nelson's annuity ..... 489 
 
 Part II. — New Letters 
 
 A. Lady Hamilton's Correspondence with Lord Nelson in 
 
 September and October 1798 ..... 489 
 
 B. Lady Hamilton's Correspondence with Mrs. William Nelson 
 
 in February and March 1801, and in the following Novem- 
 ber ; together with two extracts from letters addressed to 
 Lady Hamilton by Mrs. William Nelson (afterwards Sarah, 
 Countess Nelson) in 1804 and 1805 respectively, and a 
 letter of September 20, 1802, from Lady Hamilton to 
 A. Davison about the Welsh trip . . . .501 
 
 C. Later and other New Letters from and to Lady Hamilton — 
 
 (i) (a) Extract from a letter firom Lady Hamilton to J. D. 
 
 Thomson, September 14, 1805 . . . 507 
 
 (V) Lady Hamilton to Earl Nelson about the 'last 
 
 codicil,' November 14, 1806 . . . 508 
 
 (2) Earl Nelson's answer to the preceding, November i6, 
 
 1806 ....... 508 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XIX 
 
 \3J) («) Lady Hamilton to William Hayiey, Jane 5. 1806 ;o8 
 
 ^d"; Lady Hamilton to the Re*. A. J. Sa*t (a vin- 
 
 dicatjon), September ~, 1S06 . . . 509 
 
 4' Snmmaiy ol a letter finun Lady Hamilton to Sir R. 
 Barday regarding the sale of the Meiton estate, 
 Riclimtuid, iSq5 . . .510 
 
 .5 (a) Extract fiom a letter from Lady Hamilton to J. 
 
 Heariside, surgeon, Jane 5. 1808 . .510 
 
 {f) Extract fitun a letta fiton Lady Hamflton to the 
 
 Hm. C. F. Greville, NoxTember 1S08 . . 510 
 
 (6) (a) Extract firom a l^tw fitHn Lady Hamilton to Mrs. 
 Girdlestone respecting her mother and the Dnke 
 of Sassex^ Angost II, iSii . . 511 
 
 (i) Extract from a letter frtm Lady Hanulton to Captsun 
 
 Rose, iSor ...... ;i2 
 
 -> Snmmaiy of a Ittter from Lady Hamilton to Mrs. RasseU 
 
 about the 'Prince Regent' Manorial, Dec rS. 1812 . 512 
 (8) Lttter fiom the same to Lord St. Vincoit ,?' on the 
 
 same subject vci. Note E. in Part l.\ FdHoary 7, 1S13 512 
 (9} Extract frun a letter from die same to Mr. and 
 
 Mrs. Rossdl about 'the onfortmiate Jevitt,' 1813 . 512 
 
 (10) («) Extract from a letter fiom Lady Hamiltan to Sir 
 
 William Scott ^afrenrards Lord StoweUX fiom 
 'The Common of St. Peer's, two miles fiom 
 Calais,' September 12, 1814 . - 313 
 
 xi". Lady Hamilton^ letter to the newsps^ieis abont the 
 mmoarswfaidi had been pabiished,S^>tember is. 
 1814 ....... 513 
 
 Adikxda 
 
 (11) Extract fiom a l^ter of Lady Hamihon to Flaxman, 
 
 January (?) 1801 ...... 514 
 
 (12) Extract fiom a letter of W. Hayl^ to Flaxman 
 
 rdatii^ to :he same, November i", 1805 -514 
 
 (13) Extract fitm a letto- <d Lady Hamihon to Lady Nebon. 
 
 November (?) 1800 - 514 
 
 ^14} I. Account of Haberdashery supfdied to Lady HamiltCHi 
 
 fiH- mourning after Sir William's death . . 515 
 
 2. John Saher^ ImD for jeiieDery snpfdied to her fiom 
 
 January 1802 to March 1803 .... 515 
 (15' Extract fiom a letter of Lady Hamihtm to Tyson, 
 
 May 8, 1805 . . - 515 
 
XX EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 PAGE 
 
 D. New Letters from Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton — 
 
 (i) {a) Extract from a letter from Lord Nelson to Lady 
 
 Hamilton, Si. Georg-e, March 7 [iSoi] . • 5^5 
 
 (6) ' Si. Georire off Rostock,' May 24, 1801 . ■ 5^6 
 
 (2) (a) Extract from letter, 'Medusa at Sea,' August 24, 180 1 517 
 (d) Extract from a letter from the same to the same 
 
 regarding Merton, Amazon, September 23, i?oi 518 
 
 (3) Letter from Lord Nelson relating to Sir William 
 
 Hamilton's death, April 6, 1803 . . .518 
 
 (4) Extract from a letter from the same to the same, n- 
 
 dorsed May [4 ?] 1803, about the reading of Sir "■ . 
 Hamilton's will . . . . .518 
 
 (5) Extract from a letter from Lord Nelson to Laay 
 
 Hamilton, ' Fzrft^^y, August 24, 1803' . . . 518 
 
 (6) Copy from the original, Amazon, October 14, 1801, 
 
 showing variations from its transcription by Pettigrew, 519 
 
 (7) Extracts from two letters from the same to the same, 
 
 (a) May 4, 1805, Victory ; {b) August 18, 1805, Victory 
 
 off Spithead ...... 520 
 
 (8) Victory off Carlisle Bay, Barbadoes, June 4, 1805 . 521 
 
 (9) Victory, showing the passages omitted by Pettigrew, 
 
 August 27, 1804 . . . . . .521 
 
 E. Other New Letters from Lord Nelson — 
 
 (i) Extract from a letter from Lord Nelson to the French 
 
 Commander at Malta, October 1798 . . . 522 
 
 (2) Extract from a letter regarding Malta from the same to 
 
 Sir James St. Clair Erskine, Naples, 23rd July 1799 . 522 
 
 (3) Extract from a letter regarding Minorca and his policy, 
 
 from the same to the same, Naples, August 2, 1799 . 523 
 
 (4) (a) Extract from a letter from the same to Lady Hamil- 
 
 ton, 5a«y<7je/"[Brixham], February 11, 1801 . 523 
 (3) Extract from a letter from the same to the same, 
 
 February 14, 1801 ..... 523 
 
 F. Supplementary Letters — 
 
 (i) From the Hon. C. F. Greville to Lord Hobart or Lord 
 Pelham regarding Lady Hamilton's services, April 
 12, 1803 .534 
 
 (2) The Rev. A. J. Scott's Account of the Battle of Trafalgar 
 
 in a letter to his uncle, Victory, October 27, 1805 . 524 
 
 (3) Account by the same of Lord Nelson's death in a letter 
 to the Right Hon. George Rose . . . cje 
 
 Index 
 
 S27 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 1. Lady Hamilton (Emma Lyon), Frontispiece 
 
 •■ From an original sepia-study by G. Romney. (Pro- 
 W iably the first skeUhfor • Sensitility.') 
 
 2. Lady Hamilton (Four Attitudes), . to face page 17 
 
 Prom an original sepia-study by G. Pomney. 
 
 3. Lady Hamilton, . . . „ 21 
 
 Prom a water-colour miniature by H, Tresham. 
 
 A. Lady Hamilton, . . . ■ ., 33 
 
 Prom an original sepia-study by G. Romney. (Pro- 
 bably the first sketch for her as ' Emma.') 
 
 5. The Honourable C. F. Greville, . „ 35 
 
 Prom a mezzotint by Meyer. 
 
 6. The Cottage at Hawarden inhabited by 
 
 Lady Hamilton's Grandmother,. . „ 41 
 
 Prom a drawing, after a photograph, by Plorence Holms. 
 
 7. Jane Powell, Actress, „ 45 
 
 Prom an old print, 
 
 8. Lady Hamilton (Emma Lyon) as an Orange- 
 
 Girl, . . . . . „ 46 
 
 PrabailybyJ. Opie. 
 
 9. Paddington Church and Green, . . „ 56 
 
 Prom an old print. 
 
 10. Study in Pen and Wash, by Romney, of 
 Emma seated in his Studio: Greville 
 entering, . . . „ 62 
 
xxu 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 II. The Right Honourable Sir William 
 
 Hamilton, .... to face page 67 
 
 From a rare engraving, proldbly by Gravelol. 
 
 12. LADy Hamilton Dancing the Tarantella, . 
 
 From an engraving after the drawing by Lock. 
 
 13. Sir John Acton, . . . ■ 
 
 From the portrait acquired by the San Martina Gallery 
 at Naples. 
 
 14. Lady Hamilton as ' Cassandra,' 
 
 From the mezzotint in Hayley's Life of Romney. 
 
 15. Lady Hamilton (1792), 
 
 From the original miniature in water - colours by 
 Miss Carr, afterwards the wife of General Cheney, 
 Aide-de-camp to the Duke of York. 
 
 16. Lord Nelson, . . . . • 
 
 From an engraved medallion. 
 
 17. Lady Hamilton as 'Circe,' . 
 
 From the original oil painting by G. Romney. 
 
 18. Lady Hamilton as ' Euphrosyne,' . 
 
 From a mezzotint by Hury, 
 
 19. Lady Hamilton as 'Serena' in the Boat of 
 
 Apathy, ..... 
 
 From an original oil-sketch by G. Romney. 
 
 20. The Table presented by Nelson to Lady 
 
 Hamilton, and probably painted by Angelica 
 Kauffmann, ..... 
 From a photograph. 
 
 21. Lady Hamilton, .... 
 
 From the original oil-portrait by J. Masquerier, 
 
 2 2. Lady Hamilton (Emma Lyon) in an atti- 
 tude OF Dejection, 
 
 From the original sepia-study by G, Romney. 
 
 109 
 123 
 
 137 
 
 169 
 201 
 
 256 
 262 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii 
 
 23. Lord Nelson, .... to face page 341 
 
 From an original chalk-sketch by G. Romney. 
 
 24. Merton Place, . . . . ,,384 
 
 From an engraving after the drawing by Locker. 
 
 25. George Romney, . . . . „ 394 
 
 From a rare engraving by Madame Bovy after the 
 medallion by Alphonso Hay ley. 
 
 26. Lady Hamilton as a Pompeian Dancer 
 
 WITH a Child, . . . „ 399 
 
 From the shaded edition of the Altitudes. 
 
 27. The Earliest Sketch of Emma Lyon, . „ 443 
 
 By Miss Thomas of Hawarden, daughter of her first 
 employer. 
 
 AUTOGRAPH COLLOTYPES 
 
 1. Lady Hamilton's Letter of June 17, 1798, to face page 209 
 
 2. Admiral Nelson's Immediate Answer of the 
 
 same date, . . . .,,211 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PRELUDE : LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 
 
 Among the lovely faces that haunt history (and they may 
 be counted on the fingers), none, surely, is lovelier than 
 that of Emily Lyon, who abides undying as Emma, Lady 
 Hamilton. Yet it was never the mere radiance of rare beauty 
 that entitled her to such an empire over the hearts and 
 wills of several remarkable men and of one unique genius, 
 or which empowered a girl humbly bred and basely situated 
 to assist in moulding events that changed the current of 
 affairs. She owned grace and charm as well as triumphant 
 beauty; while to these she added a masculine mind, a 
 native force and sparkle; a singular faculty, moreover, of 
 rendering and revealing the thoughts and feelings of others, 
 that lent an especial glamour to both beauty and charm. 
 Her beaux yeux need no more bewilder us. But that glamour 
 of endowment, emanating from diverse elements of a most 
 complex and vigorous character, and bound up even with 
 its ugliest blemishes and imperfections, demands analysis 
 before the curtain rises on a drama of most manifold in- 
 terest Nor can the subtle lights and shadows of her 
 character be duly appreciated without those new clues 
 which the preface has detailed. It may be helpful also at 
 the outset to hint something by sidelights of the tempera- 
 ments of three main associates of her destiny. Such a 
 survey, so far from forestalling the coming picture, will 
 rather illuminate it by examples. 
 
 It will be found that Lady Hamilton, by turns fulsomely 
 
 A 
 
2 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 flattered and ungenerously condemned, was a picturesque 
 power and a real influence. She owned a fine side to her 
 puzzling character. She was never mercenary, often self- 
 abandoning, and actually noble. Her courage, warm- 
 heartedness, and gift of staunch friendship, her strength in 
 conquering, her speed in assimilating circumstance, the 
 firmness mixed with her frailty, were conspicuous ; and it 
 was the blend of these that, together with her genuine 
 grit, appealed so irresistibly to Nelson. She must be 
 largely judged by her capabilities. Her faults were greatly 
 those of her antecedents and environment. Her sins were 
 involved in the after-falsities that the birth of Horatia was 
 to entail. In this prelude it will be a more pleasing task 
 to dwell partly on her better aspects, and in so doing to 
 repeat the praises — long forgotten — of such as knew her 
 best. In any case the reader is asked to suspend opinion 
 until he has considered all the new and striking evidence 
 to be laid before him. 
 
 Her temperament was in essence both impressionable 
 and sensitively expressive. By sheer and extraordinary 
 expressiveness she was able not only to interpret the moods 
 and thoughts of others, but to unveil them unconsciously 
 to themselves. Throughout, she not only acted without 
 art, but was a prompter also. She could suggest possi- 
 bilities beyond her part, and image more even than she 
 performed. Throughout, moreover, a sense of destiny 
 encompasses her. She rose suddenly to situations and 
 fulfilled them, while these again led her both to climax and 
 catastrophe. She worked long and hard, and with success ; 
 she took a strong line and pursued it. She became a 
 serious politician in correspondence with most of the 
 leaders in the European death-grapple with Jacobinism. 
 So far, as has been represented, from having proved the 
 mere tool of an ambitious queen, it will appear that more 
 than once she swayed that beset and ill-starred woman 
 into decision. So far from having craftily angled for 
 Nelson's love, it will be shown that the magnet of her 
 enthusiasm first attracted his. She was indeed singularly 
 capable of feeling enthusiasm, and of communicating and 
 enkindling it. It is as an enthusiast that she must rank. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 3 
 
 Many and most various are the ministers of enthusiasm, 
 and even the least worthy deserve a niche. 
 
 The two refrafns of her being, harped on with delight 
 and astonishment from the first by the most various ob- 
 servers, were ' Nature ' and ' Sensibility^ She was eminently 
 a child of Nature, and her plastic fibre, like some ^olian 
 harp, vibrated to every gust or whisper of the emotioris. 
 
 ' Sensibility ' was an eighteenth century catchword. It 
 did not mean ' sentimentality ' (and Emma was never senti- 
 mental), though the fantastic whimsies of Sterne — one of 
 Romney's earliest patrons — have in part persuaded us to 
 think so. It meant rather the intuition that imparts as well 
 as absorbs the moods and feelings outside it ; an impro- 
 vising sympathy, so to speak ; a sensitiveness eloquent and 
 appealing ; what Nelson in one of the ' poems ' that ' Henry ' 
 composed for his ' Emma '^ calls ' a heart susceptible and true.' 
 And ' Sensibility ' is to be contrasted with those two other 
 catchwords of that century, ' Sense ' and ' Benevolence' the 
 one the set morality of worldly prudence (incarnate in 
 Greville), the other the good nature of rationalism,* a lead- 
 ing strain in Sir William Hamilton. ' Sensibility ' has 
 been finely characterised by Byron through his vignette of 
 ' Aurora ' in the sixteenth canto of Don Juan, where he 
 sketches it under another, and a French, name : — 
 
 ' So well she acted all and every part 
 
 By turns — with that vivacious versatility 
 
 Which many people take for want of heart. 
 They err — 'tis merely what is called mobility, 
 
 A thing of temperament and not of art, 
 Though seeming so, from its supposed facility. 
 
 And false, though 'true ; for surely they 're sincerest 
 
 Who are strongly acted on by what is nearest. 
 
 ' Several of these will be given hereafter. Nelson never tires of repeating 
 this phrase to Emma. ' Henry ' and ' Emma ' ate names borrowed from Prior's 
 poem of that name, which contains many lines curiously apposite to their own 
 case. 
 
 ^ Lord Bristol, Bishop of Deny, himself always styled by the Queen of 
 Naples ' L'Archeveque b^n^volent,' writing to Emma in November 1798, says 
 of Hamilton : ' . . . Remember me in the warmest and most enthusiastic stUe 
 to your friend, and my friend, and the friend of human kind,' — Nelson Letters 
 (1814), vol. i. p. 261. 
 
4 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 This makes your actors, artists, and romancers 
 Heroes sometimes, though seldom — sages never ; 
 
 But speakers, bards, diplomatists, and dancers. 
 Little that's great, but much of what is clever ; 
 
 Most otators, but very few financiers.' 
 
 It was this receptive naturalness and artlessness — which 
 make all her unpunctuated and interjectional letters the very 
 echoes of her heart — this quick ' sensibility,' that in her very 
 beginnings so strongly impressed Greville, the man of studied 
 Art and ' Sense.' Her good points and her bad were alike 
 impromptu. She was the creature of impulse, and even her 
 falsities and frailties were spontaneous. Her 'sensibility' 
 sprang from volition, and little in her was designed. This 
 may be shown by several passages in different parts of 
 her varied career. As a young girl of less than twenty, 
 writing to Greville with tears in her eyes from Parkgate 
 in the summer of 1784, and assuring him how indelibly 
 his ' angelic ' goodness has touched her, she continues : 
 ' And oh ! Greville, did you but know when I so think, 
 what thoughts, what tender thoughts, you would say Good 
 God ! and can Emma have such feeling sensibility ? . . .' ^ 
 Greville himself, corresponding with his uncle a year and 
 a half afterwards, repeated to his ' dear Hamilton ' that, 
 whereas from the first 'she had good natural sense and 
 quick observation,' and was ' perfectly to be depended on,' 
 "... she is no fool, but there is a degree of nature in 
 her . . . and yet she has natural gentility and quickness 
 to suit herself to anything, and takes easily any hint that • 
 is given with good humour.'^ The 'but' and 'yet,' by 
 the way, stamp Greville to the life. Again, shortly after 
 her first appearance at Naples, when within a few months 
 of the summer of 1786, her improvement and industry were 
 marching by strides, when King, Queen, and Court were 
 already entranced, and she 'had turned the heads of the 
 English,' the neighbouring peasants — from the days of 
 Augustus worshippers of ' Madre Natura ' — eyed her de- 
 voutly as a vision from another sphere, and actually knelt 
 
 ■ Morrison MS. 126. 
 
 " Ibid. 138, June 1785 ; 142, December 3, 1785. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 5 
 
 to her as the Madonna ; even priests crossed themselves 
 as they beheld her.^ And in after years Beckford recalls 
 to his kinsman, then her husband, an actual occurrence 
 which might well inspire a charming picture: '. . . Re- 
 member me in your kindest manner to the lovely Emma, 
 whose friendship for me throws a bright ray over my whole 
 existence. I cannot help looking upon her as a sort of 
 superior being — so good, so candid, so ingenuous, that the 
 poor old woman who mistook her in the dawn of the morn- 
 ing for a statue of the Holy Virgin, need not have been 
 ashamed to renew her homage in the open daylight. . . .' * 
 Thirteen years later again, when she was the all-powerful 
 Lady Hamilton — as 'great a lady as can be imagined,' 
 said Madame Le Brun — Sir William wrote of her to Nelson, 
 just before she started with both of them on her ' adored ' 
 queen's fateful errand to insurgent Naples: '. . , Poor 
 Emma is unwell and low-spirited with phantoms in her 
 fertile brain that torment her. In short, she has no other 
 fault than that of too much Sensibility, and that at least is 
 a fault on the right side.'* It was her extreme naturalness, 
 moreover, and complete disregard of formalities, that a 
 starched diplomatist * and Madame Le Brun ^ herself both 
 singled out for censure. Once more, the scienufic Sir 
 Joseph Banks, in a letter to his old crony Sir William 
 Hamilton, of November 179S, thus refers to Emma, whom 
 he knew well and liked much: 'I hear of her beauty, 
 affability, and prudence from all quarters. I hear of them 
 with an interest which all who have seen her must feel 
 for her welfare.' ® 
 
 But under Nature and Sensibility simmered another 
 and more overwhelming quality, both for good and 
 
 ' Morrison MS. i68. 
 
 " Ibid. 235, February i8, 1794. Long before this, in a letter to Hamilton, he 
 concludes : ' Je me prosterne aux pieds de la Madonne.' The reader will recall 
 the central incident of Droz's Autour d'tine Source. 
 
 ' Add. MS. 34,912, S. 3 and 4. 
 
 * Elliot in 1800. 
 
 " In 1790: Memoirs (translated by Lionel Strachey), p. 68. She complained 
 that after doffing the costume in which she was painting her, she appeared in a 
 simple one at dinner. 
 
 ' Egerton MS. 2641, f. 157. 
 
6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 evil, the implanted instinct — doubly remarkable if we 
 remember her beginnings — of needing and aspiring to 
 play a grand part on a great stage. I have said 
 that Emma was unsentimental. There lurked in her, 
 indeed, more of the storm than of the flirt of the 
 fan, more of the torrent than of the cascade; and this 
 understrain it was that fired her enthusiasm and the 
 enthusiasm of others. ' She,' wrote of her the shrewd and 
 calculating collector, only six months after he had parted 
 from her with the pain of a prudent mariner who sinks his 
 treasure to save his ship — ' She is capable of aspiring to any 
 line which would be celebrated, and it would be indifferent 
 when on that key whether she was Lucretia or Sappho, 
 or Scaevola or Regulus ; anything grand, masculine or 
 feminine, she could take up, and if she took up the part of 
 Scaevola, she would be as much offended if she was told 
 she was a woman, as she would be, if she assumed Lucretia, 
 she was told she was masculine.'^ Twelve years after- 
 wards, admired and beloved at Naples, the confidante of 
 a queen by one of those strokes whereby the whirligig 
 Time brings about his revenges, she thus delivered herself 
 to Nelson a few days after the convulsing news of the 
 battle of the Nile had privately reached her, and in one of 
 the new letters ^ transcribed in our Appendix : ' How I 
 felt for poor Troubridge ! He must have been so angry on 
 the sandbank. In short, I pity those who were not in the 
 battle. I wou'd have been rather an English powder- 
 monky \sic\ or a swab in that great Victory than an emperor 
 out of it' And again : ' How I glory in the Honner of 
 my country and my countryman. I walk and tread in air 
 with pride, feiling I was born in the same land with the 
 victor Nelson and his gallant band.'* Rhapsody and 
 ecstasy succeed ecstasy and rhapsody. She is dressed all 
 ' alia Nelson,' anchors for earrings and buttons, her very 
 seal stamped with the Nile and Nelson. She and her 
 husband are ' be-Nelsoned ' all over. Europe and Naples 
 have been rescued from the jaws of death. The impetuous 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 156, Nov. 15, 1786. Greville to Hamilton. 
 =! Add. MS. 34,989, f. 4, Sept. 8, 1^98. 
 « Ibid. 34,989i, f. 14. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT ^ 
 
 queen cries, hysterical with joy, over her ardent children ; 
 even her stolid husband walks frantically round the room, 
 as they invoke blessings from their ' swollen ' hearts on their 
 ' deliverer.' Naples is en fite. Not ' a French dog dares 
 show his face.' Maria Carolina — incognita, for war is not 
 yet declared— sends a ring to 'that brave lad' Captain 
 Hoste, and casks of wine and presents of money to every 
 English sailor within reach. And Emma sees and stirs it 
 all, mounting her highest horse in the delirium of the 
 moment, proud of the young officer whose genius and 
 heroism Sir William and she had discerned and welcomed 
 five years agone; and whom, as will be proved hereafter, 
 she had actually and secretly helped to this glorious issue. 
 She sings, in that pure soprano which had long delighted 
 her various hearers — she sings ' See the Conquering Hero 
 Comes ' (rewritten and reset by herself) every day for ten 
 days before the arrival of the man who avowed himself, ' if 
 it be a sin to covet glory,' ' the most offending soul alive.' ^ 
 When the news first reached her, and Naples blazed with 
 illumination and resounded with songs and sonnets, she 
 lights up the English Embassy for three nights. ' 'Tis, 
 'twas covered with your glorious name. Their were 3 
 thousand lamps, and their shou'd have been 3 millions 
 if we had had them. All the English vie with each other 
 in celebrating this most gallant and memorable victory.' 
 What a time, what a scene, what a triuniph ! Emma is all 
 exultation, apostrophe, crescendo, superlatives, and italics. 
 And yet it is not bombast; her sympathy and genuine 
 gratitude are as manifest in these natural outpourings as 
 her heroics and swell of spirit. A little later, and she is as 
 indignant as her husband that the saviour of the situation 
 has been begrudged a viscountcy, but her queen shall make 
 amends : ' If I was King of England, I wou'd make you 
 the most noble . . . Duke Nelson, Viscount Pyramid, Baron 
 Crocodile, and Prince Victory, that posterity might have you 
 
 ' Nelson is quoting Shakespeare's Henry V., and he misquotes, for the word 
 is ' honour,' not ' glory.' From the same play he constantly repeats the phrase 
 ' band of brothers.' Emma's own familiarity with Shakespeare is evidenced by 
 some of Lord Bristol's unpublished letters to her in the writer's possession, and 
 these ^Iso evidence her acquaintance with some Latin. 
 
8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 in all forms.' 1 Some six weeks afterwards, when the 
 aigrette of honour comes from the Grand Signior, she 
 blesses the ' good Turban soul,' cries ' Viva il Turk I ' and 
 longs to 'smell, touch, and taste' the magnificent pelisse 
 which accompanies it ; yet when she presented Troubridge 
 to the queen, what pleased her most was that he was 
 touched at the sight of the royal children: 'he thought 
 of his own.' ' How you are beloved, for not only with 
 her Majesty, but with the general [Acton] you was our 
 theme, and my full heart is fit to Burst when I hear your 
 honoured name.'^ She is still 'the same Emma,' who 
 made tea in Edgware Row, who wept over that letter 
 from Parkgate, who invited Romney and Hayley to Caserta 
 directly she had quitted London. How homely she was 
 and remained, will be traced in another portion of this 
 chapter. 
 
 In October, while vacillation still reigned in the per- 
 plexed palace, and faintness tinged every preparative for 
 war, she thus again addressed Nelson, and with the same 
 characteristic exaltation which led him five years onwards 
 to praise her denouncing ' eloquence ' against corruption 
 in high places : ' I flatter myself WE SPUR them on, 
 for I am allways with the queen and I hold out your 
 energick* language to her, . . . And I tell her Majesty /t?^ 
 
 1 Add. MS. 34,989, f. 16. 
 
 ' Add. MS. 34,989, f. 18. Passages like these explain her proud enumera- 
 tion of Nelson's triumphs in her letter to him — which is a sincere tirade — of 
 some four years subsequent, on the first anniversary of the battle of Copenhagen. 
 —Eg. MS. 1623, f. 38. 
 
 ' Nelson also spelled the word thus. After her self-education Lady Hamilton 
 still retained many slips in grammar and orthography ; though that they arose 
 rather from haste and carelessness than from ignorance is shown both by her 
 spelling and misspelling the same words in the same letter—' has ' and ' as,' for 
 example— while she always spells 'have' correctly; and from the difficult words 
 like ' physiognomy ' being almost invariably correctly spelt. In an early letter 
 to her Sir Wilham Hamilton banters her on writing ' except' for ' accept,' and 
 adds :' ... It is only for want of giving yourself time to think ' {Nelson 
 Letters (1814), vol. ii. p. 171) ; while in another he says that she neglects 'her 
 handwriting too much ' ; but as what she writes ' is good sense, everybody will 
 forgive the scrawl ' (lb. p. 145). Her spelling and grammar are no worse than that 
 of many who enjoyed far greater educational advantages. Even Greville and 
 Sir William trip— (• extreordinary,' for instance; 'apoligy,' 'nonsence,' «delit- 
 tante,' «enimy,' '■ Amalphi,' ' Paisilippo,' etc.). 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 9 
 
 God's sake, for the country's sake, for your own sake send 
 him \i.e. General Mack] of [f ] as soon as possible ' ; ^ and 
 shortly afterwards :'...! flatter myself I did much, for 
 while the passions of the queen were up and agitated, I got 
 up, put out my left arm, like you, spoke the language of 
 truth to her, painted the drooping situation of this fine 
 country, her friends sacrificed, her husband, children, and 
 herself led to the Block, and eternal dishonner to her 
 memory, after for once being active, doing her duty in 
 fighting bravely to the last to save her country, her 
 Religion from the hands of the rapacious murderers of 
 her sister [Marie Antoinette] and the royal Family . . . 
 that she was sure to be lost if they were inactive, and 
 their was a chance of being saved if they made use of 
 the day, and struck now while all minds are imprest 
 with the Horrers their neighbours are suffering from these 
 Robbers. In short there, was a Council, and it was deter- 
 mined to march out and help themselves. . . .' ' If,' she 
 continued, warming herself as she proceeded, ' things take 
 an unfortunate turn here and the queen dies at her post, I 
 will remain with her, if she goes, I follow her. I feil I 
 owe it to her friendship uncommon for me.'^ That this 
 and many like outbursts were no passing froth, is shown by 
 her own private endorsements at the time on the envelopes 
 of Queen Maria Carolina's letters. One of these was to 
 record: 'Emma will prove to Maria Carolina that an 
 humble-born Englishwoman can serve a queen with zeal 
 and true love even at the risk of her life.'* She displayed 
 the same spirit when in the preceding year she protested to 
 Nelson that she would rather have ' her flesh torn off by 
 red-hot pincers ' than betray tlie trust of the secret which 
 he had reposed in her.* It was this spirit that endeared 
 her to the Lazzaroni and their leader, whom she boldly 
 armed and organised in 1799, to Nelson's admiration.* 
 The same spirit animated her in the summer of 1800 to 
 harangue a raging mob assembled below the queen's 
 
 1 Add. MS. 34,989, f. 14-16. = Add. MS. 34,989, f. l8, July 2, 1779. 
 
 ' Egerton MS. 1616, f. 38. * Add. MS. 34,989, f. 30. 
 
 ° Morrison MS. 411. This unknown episode of Pali, ' the head of the Lazza- 
 roni,' and Lady Hamilton, will be found post, chap. x. 
 
10 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 balcony at Leghorn and appease them. That these were 
 not mere gasconades will appear from the wearying exertions 
 undertaken, the real risks run in contriving the royal flight 
 in December 1798, and from the unremitting care which 
 she, as, in Lord St. Vincent's grateful words, ' the patroness 
 of the navy,' bestowed on all the seamen who came under 
 it. These were the qualities which from the first drew 
 Nelson — himself 'electric,' as Lord Malmesbury's diary 
 recorded on his death ; ^ Nelson hailed the sympathetic 
 spark that met and reinforced his own. One of his earliest 
 mentions of her in 1798 attests the nature of her influence. 
 ' Her Ladyship's . . . inexpressible goodness to me,' he 
 wrote, ' is not to be told by words, and it ought to stimulate 
 me to the noblest actions ; and I feel it will.' Under that 
 same influence, he declared to a friend, the year before 
 he died, his own ' exertions doubled.' ^ He perpetually 
 urged, both in conversation,* his private letters, his early 
 draft wills, and his last codicil, that it was she who had 
 helped and encouraged those actions ' which had won ' him 
 honours and rewards.' It was these very qualities of 
 ambitious ardour and of vehement sympathy that made 
 him repeatedly apply to her the word used of Miranda in 
 The Tempest — ' a nonpareil ' ; * these again, that made him 
 remind the 'friend' of his ' bosom,' ^ that he had 'often 
 heard her say' that 'she would not quit the deck' if 
 ' she came near a Frenchman ' ; ^ and to remark of her 
 patriotism, 'It is your sex that make us go forth and 
 seem to tell us " None but the brave deserve the fair," and 
 if we fall, we still live in the hearts of those females who 
 
 • Vol. i. p. 136. 'He added to genius, valour, and energy, the singular 
 power of electrifying all within his atmosphere.' 
 
 " Nelson to Dr. Mosely: Victory, March ii, 1804; excerpted in Messrs. 
 Sotheby's catalogue for July 8, 1905. The previous sentence is given in 
 Mr. Long's republication of the Memoirs; it occurs in a letter to Lord St. 
 Vincent. 
 
 ' At Dresden, for example, in 1800. 
 
 * Nelson in an early letter also uses this word of Troubridge. ' 1 have been,' 
 wrote Nelson to her in February 1801, ' the world around, and in every corner of 
 it, and never yet saw your equal, or even one who could be put in comparison 
 with you.' — Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 24. 
 
 ° Morrison MS. 543, March 11, 1801. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 136. 
 ' Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 161. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT it 
 
 are dear to us. It is your sex who cherish our memories.' ^ 
 AH this is of a piece with what Greville wrote of her, long 
 before so large a range was opened out to her, that ' she has 
 a generous mind and a true woman's that is regardless of 
 self and its interests when affection is put into competition 
 with reason.' 2 Thus she and the queen 'touched them- 
 selves ' (in Emma's words) into terms of rapture, wonder, 
 respect, and admiration ; thus ' Sir William laughs at us, 
 hut he owns women have great souls, at least his has.'* 
 Thus in the same series she writes of the Turk who has 
 honoured Nelson that he ' is turned Christian, although I 
 fancy he denies souls to women.' Like Sterne, and like 
 Heine repeating him, she too ' was positive ' she had ' a soul.' 
 One may characterise her as naturally theatrical. She 
 did not 'pose,' she acted, till she became the Maenad 
 of the emotions which she typified. And this truly 
 Celtic faculty for dramatic transport frequently swept 
 her steps astray, and sometimes contributed to her 
 glaring blemishes. Curbed under the chill guidance of 
 Greville, but fostered by Sir William, and eventually 
 adored by Nelson, it gradually grew into a habit. As a 
 ' wild and giddy girl ' * of seventeen, thankful to one who 
 had rescued her from admiration without affection, cling- 
 ing to her reprimander as a trustful pupil to a beloved 
 preceptor, she had laboured to restrain her wayward out- 
 bursts. Greville's express wish from the first was to lead 
 her to ' value ' herself and ' be respected.' ^ Her temper was 
 ' unequal,' as even then the nephew assured the uncle, 
 while praising her normal sweetness,* and as a few years 
 afterwards the uncle reinformed the nephew. Through 
 Romney — Greville's client— to whom she first 'opened 
 
 ' Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 24. Cf. ' You have sent your dearest friend, and 
 I have left mine. The conduct of the Roman matron : Return with your shield, 
 or upon it ; so it shall be my study to distinguish myself, that your heart shall 
 leap for joy when my name is mentioned. — Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 442, March 13, 
 1801. ^ Morrison MS. 147, March 11, 1786, and cf. 136. 
 
 ' Add. MS. 3498, ff. 18-24, October 24, 1798. * Her own words. 
 
 ° Morrison MS. 177, May 26, 1789. 
 
 ' Cf. Morrison MS. 138 and passim under all dates, and Nelson's first 
 description of her to his wife (1793) : ' She is a young woman of amiable 
 manners and who does honour to the station to which she is raised. '^-Pettigrew, 
 vol. i. p. 42. 
 
12 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 her heart,' she became acquainted with Hayley and his 
 didactic 'poem,' The Triumphs of Temper. The example 
 of its heroine 'Serena' she acknowledged as a leading 
 influence for good ; but for it, she told Romney in 1791, her 
 ' girdle,' unlike Serena's, ' had burst' After Nelson's death 
 had already set in motion the thickly gathering troubles 
 which were to culminate in catastrophe, when she had 
 proved ' Victime de secours plus que la douleur' she may 
 be found conveying the same assurance to the same 
 Hayley : ' . . . I was leaning my cheek upon my hand 
 very unhappy ; but I did try to get a victory over myself 
 and seemed to be happy though miserable. . . . Now, 
 indeed, again must I read your Triumphs of Temper'"^ 
 Long before and long afterwards, she was always repeat- 
 ing her diplomatist-husband's pet exclamation, ' Patienza 
 per forca ! ' ^ She wished and tried, often with success, ' to 
 be an example of good conduct, and to show the world that 
 a pretty woman is not a fool.' * But her self-discipline was 
 never achieved ; and underneath incessantly smouldered 
 a southern fire, which a freak of Nature had engendered in 
 a county raw even for the north of England, and which a 
 stroke of fate equally curious had restored to the volcanic 
 soil of its affinity. Had she only ' had a good education,' 
 sighed the poor girl of nineteen, 'what a woman might she 
 have been';* an opinion echoed later by her protector, 
 himself agreeing with Sir William that she was an ' extra- 
 ordinary ' and gifted being. Her intellectual nurture, at first 
 one of accomplishments, never became a severe discipline 
 of the mind, though her serious study astonished even the 
 learned. She trained herself into some acquaintance with 
 art, literature, and history, she became an excellent linguist.^ 
 
 ^ Autograph letter, June Si 1806, in Mr. Sabin's possession. Cf. App., 
 Part n. C. (3)3. 
 
 " In an early letter he warns her never to be in a hurry. Nelson Letters, 
 vol. ii. p. 166. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 189, January 1791, when she says also ' Ma patienza, io ho 
 molto.' * Morrison MS. 128, July 1^84. 
 
 " Eg. MS. 2641, f. 139. After her early proficiency in French and Italian, 
 she added such a knowledge of Spanish and German as to be able to teach 
 them to Horatia during her closing years. Cf. her letter of September 12, 
 1814,- to Sir William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, excerpted in Sotheby's 
 catalogue for July 8, 1905. Cf. App. Part 11. C. (io)a. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 13 
 
 Her moral training had been one mainly of discretion and 
 esteem. The wandering steps of her extreme youth were 
 retrieved (though they were never forgiven or forgotten), 
 but a lofty level was never reached. Once having seized 
 the opportunities of a big arena, she gave full rein to her 
 native glow of irrepressibility. 'Difficult,' as she avowed 
 to Nelson, ' and unable to make friends with all,' ^ she easily 
 lost balance when once congenial or caressing fondness 
 had fastened her passionate friendship. Her sympathetic 
 gratitude hymned hero-worship in bravura. She some- 
 times became headstrong, hysterical, frantic, grandiose to 
 the verge of hallucination. Good opinion once gained 
 must be kept, and at all hazards. Though eager to part 
 with her all for her friends, though from the first the 
 interested Greville praised her as the most disinterested 
 creature existing, and indeed to be scolded for her readi- 
 ness to share ' her last shilling,' ^ though ' loving to do a 
 benefit,' as the queen of the two Sicilies was proud to 
 avow,' though she could not rest, when her husband had 
 given her a new gown, till her poor old grandmother, 
 who had so often helped her young need out of her own 
 aged poverty, had received her annual gift,* though kind 
 to the ungrateful, she wilfully exacted praise and greedily 
 hoarded fame. Flattery soon duped her thirst for admira- 
 tion ; she could seldom forfeit esteem by facing the truth, 
 or confess that she or her friends were other than what she 
 wished or fancied them. Prosperity indeed warped her 
 less than adversity. The suddenness of her rise turned 
 her head the less, because from the first she had nourished 
 extravagant ambitions. Her very simplicity had always 
 been self-conscious. It was the fury of her feelings, easily 
 fired and with difficulty quenched, that spasmodically 
 warped her reason, and, in one fatal instance, her con- 
 science. The riot of sympathetic emotion perpetually 
 tended to run away with her, till it hurried her unaffected 
 
 1 Add. MS. 34.989. ff- 18-24. 
 » Cf. Morrison MS. 137. 142. and 154. 
 3 Eg. MS. 161S, f. 95- 
 
 * Morrison MS. 215, December 4, 1792. ' I cannot,' she here wrires, 
 ' divest myself of my original feelings.' 
 
14 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 sincerity into false positions, despite its many intervals 
 of sense and judgment. At the root of this highly-strung 
 and adaptive temperament lay a nervous physical organisE'^ 
 tion that in part accounts for it. Throughout her life she 
 was ever swooning at moments of crisis. On hearing of 
 the Nile battle, she swooned and hurt herself;^ on greet- 
 ing the victor's return she swooned again; at the song 
 which celebrated his death she swooned thrice. When 
 her friends were in affliction she lost her sleep ; under the 
 strain of energy she neither ate nor slept. Though muscu- 
 larly robust, she was fundamentally delicate;^ she was 
 always ailing, often morbid. Her constitution seemed to 
 crave violent excitements and grew to feed on them. 
 Without an audience she could not relish existence, though 
 it was seldom a public audience that she craved — rather 
 a circle small, but responsive. 
 
 And bound up with all these instincts, in one ever easily 
 led by kindness, was her sharp resentment not only at 
 affront, but at being crossed. Although these gusts were 
 fleeting, she could ill brook to be thwarted, and her un- 
 chastened spirit rose up in arms and sent her distracted. 
 * Ay,' wrote Nelson of the child Horatia, ' she is like her 
 mother : will have her own way or kick up the devil of a 
 dust' * ' She has the devil of a temper,' said Beckford, 
 •when she is set on edge.' And Romney's 'divine lady' 
 could strike the beholder with awe as well as admiration. 
 An English savant at Naples, shortly after she first dawned 
 on its horizon, was ' frightened ' by a certain ' Majesty and 
 Juno look ' with which she received him.* 
 
 A strong element of all this effervescence was her delight 
 in defeating expectation. ' You know,' she observed of her 
 singing at Naples, ' I love to surprise people.' ^ And cer- 
 tainly surprise followed surprise. 
 
 She had always surprised her kinsfolk and her mother, to 
 whom by common consent she was unselfishly devoted, and 
 
 1 Add. MS. 34,989, f. 4. 
 ^ Cf. Morrison MS. 142. 
 
 * Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 158, and cf. p. 162, Oct. i8, 1803. 
 
 * Morrison MS. 163, Jan. 18, 1787. 
 
 = Ibid. 172, to Greville, Jan. 8, 17S8. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT ij 
 
 who was never parted from her except by death. She sur- 
 prised the unemotional Greville alike by her prudence, by 
 her self-sacrificing constancy, and by her abilities. She sur- 
 prised her doting husband successively by her gifts, her 
 behaviour, and her application, by her ' divine ' music, and by 
 her landscape drawings at Sorrento ; ^ nor least, by con- 
 verting him from the lukewarm companion in sport and 
 cards of a sluggish king, into the fiery partisan of a great 
 hero and an indefatigable queen ; by arousing the quality, 
 always dormant in him but alert in Nelson, of ' doing nothing 
 by halves.' ^ Twice she saved his life by nursing him unre- 
 mittingly night and day for more than a week. She sur- 
 prised him also by her 'domesticity.'* She struck the 
 Neapolitan court and society by the ' example ' which she 
 'set' to the Italian ladies of quality.* Her 'Attitudes,' 
 privately performed and perpetually varied, joining, by 
 universal consent, to the grace and intensity of Greek 
 statues the most delicate gleams of impersonation, as- 
 tounded Goethe himself on his ' Italian Journey,' and a 
 succession of distinguished and sometimes hostile observers. 
 Her vocal powers surprised equally the prima donna 
 Banti, and the musicians Hart and Aprile. English and 
 Spanish impresarios often offered large sums for a public 
 performance, but she surprised them by her refusals. At 
 Palermo, in 1799, her talents roused tame poets into rapture, 
 and an unfriendly diplomatist* into unfeigned wonder that 
 'she manages everybody and rules everything.' She 
 amazed the gifted Lady Diana Beauclerk and the beautiful 
 Duchess of Argyll, after them the two famous Duchesses of 
 Devonshire, into unceasing attachment. Nor was she ever 
 jealous of bewitching rivals ; *• while in many other concerns 
 
 ^ ' Drawing is as easy as A, B, C,' Morrison MS. 164. And afterwards her 
 drawings pleased the artistic queen; cf. Eg. MS. 1616, f. S3 (J"ly I799)i 
 '. . . I thank you too for the three drawings. Every one admires them. ' 
 
 2 This phrase, habitual both to Sir William and to Nelson, is first employed 
 by the former in a letter of June 1773. Morrison MS. 30. 
 
 ' Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. IS3, 'You are certainly the most domestic 
 young woman I know ' ; and Morrison MS. passim. 
 
 * Sir William noticed this especially to Greville : they were 'preaching up' 
 Emma as a model of propriety. = Rushout, Elliot Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 138. 
 
 » Cf. the episode given post, chapter v., of her friendship in January 1787 
 with Beatrice Acquaviva, Morrison MS. 160. 
 
i6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 also she evinced an entire lack of pettiness. Her assailants 
 were always men ; women, high and low, with one very just 
 exception, had ever a good word for her. How she enthralled 
 Nelson we shall observe as the narrative proceeds. She 
 enchanted his homely sisters, and riveted the love of their 
 children, as the Morrison Manuscripts testify in abundance. 
 She surprised the rugged and caustic ' Peter Pindar,' the 
 eccentric and Voltairean Bishop of Derry. She surprised 
 that astonishing Anne Hyde, Marchioness of Solari, whose 
 brilliant vicissitudes almost outdid her own. She surprised 
 the erudite Banks, the fastidious Gavin Hamilton, the savant 
 Saunders. She surprised the clever, critical, the artificial 
 and tainted author of Vathek. She amazed the unsur- 
 prisable Horace Walpole. Herself she amazed, alike by 
 her achievements, her struggles, her ' idolisation '^ of Nelson, 
 and consequent calamities. She dazzled the ever-green 
 bucks and cynics of the Regency, and many more reputable 
 luminaries of fashion whom she won into regard and respect.^ 
 She astounded alike her friends and her foes. Her phases 
 — less abrupt than has been supposed — form one long chain 
 of surprises. Her romping spirits continually captivated 
 and cheered the few for whom they were reserved. Romney 
 she enchained, as he confesses, by that infinite and inspiring 
 power of expression which held him from 1782 to 1786, 
 which has mutually immortalised them on canvas, and 
 bereft of which in 1791 he gradually drooped and withered, 
 till his death in 1802. 
 
 He, an unlettered son of the people, welcomed in her an 
 unschooled daughter of the soil, with all its untempered sap 
 and the wild gaiety of its hedgerows. She, the least con- 
 ventional of interpretesses, appealed to him, the least 
 conventional of painters. Romney, indeed, won his spurs 
 by defying the conventions which then exacted that 
 soldiers in a modern battle-piece should be classically clad ; 
 after the same manner Talma was to win his, by refusing 
 
 ^ 'Idol' is her refrain. It occurs in the last letter that she wrote to him, 
 Morrison MS. 845, Oct. 8, 1805. 
 
 ^ Such were the Duke of Sussex, who for more than twenty years remained 
 not only her good friend, but her mother's ; and Lord Northwick and Sir Brooke 
 Boothby. 
 

LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 17 
 
 to play 'Titus' in peruke. Whether on the stage Emma 
 would have proved a great actress in sustained efforts may be 
 doubted, but in flashes and glimpses, as an actress of impres- 
 sions, she stands supreme — a lyricist of passion and emotion. 
 And, contrasted with the realism of Reynolds, Romney 
 remains an impressionist also. Between the two, indeed, 
 are many coincidences extending to words and handwriting, 
 though he lacked her fluency of phrase. They hailed from 
 neighbouring provinces, and both spoke with something of 
 the same twang ; ^ he too shared what the Bishop of Derry 
 soon longed to be near once more, together with 'woodcock 
 pye ' and ' humble port ' in his ' garret at Caserta ' — ' dearest 
 Emma's Dorick dialect.' ^ He was to her a ' friend ' and 
 'father' — a father-confessor to whom she poured out her 
 heart ; * while she to him was the ' divine lady,' deigning 
 to pose for one who also then laboured under many slights 
 and disadvantages. According to Hayley's line, her 'smile 
 to him was Inspiration's beam.' She was all effluence ; he 
 was shy, often moody, taciturn, dejected; always expressing 
 his ideas more easily by the brush than by his awkward 
 speech' and pen. As peasant-artist he welcomed the superb 
 expressiveness of a country girl. • At a glance he discerned 
 her Nature and Sensibility, which he embodied among his 
 first presentments of her. 
 
 To form any idea of her varied emotional suggestiveness, 
 rivalling the future range of her activities, we must gaze on 
 their countless phases in Romney's sketches and pictures 
 alone. As Cassandra, she is all despairing Destiny. ' As 
 Miranda, she looks out on a world of wreck and hurricane 
 with a wild and pitying wistfulness. As Sensibility, how 
 tenderly her lips tremble, in answer to her eyes. As Nature 
 how sylvan she appears, how simply she rejoices to be alive ! 
 As Circe, standing in sovereign silence, while Ulysses sails 
 away behind her, how imperiously the sorceress resigns 
 her reign as, with wand down-pointed, she beckons her 
 
 ^ These are phrases common to both. In June 1808 she wrote to Heavyside, 
 her doctor, who had just saved her life : ' You have been like unto me a father, 
 a good brother' (a letter in Mr. Sabin's ownership) ; and in 1784 her sentence, 
 •the wild, unthinking Emma has turned philosopher,' is quite in Romney's 
 manner. Morrison MS. 1261. 
 
 " Morrison MS. 305. " Ibid. 208. 
 
 B 
 
i8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 savage beasts back into humanity! As Joan of Arc (a 
 memorial of Romney's French visit), she is patriotism 
 inspired and inspiring. As Saint Cecilia, she is the soul 
 of rapt melody ; as ' Mirth,' the ideal of careless laughter ; 
 as 'Comedy,' bending over the infant Shakespeare, she 
 reflects frolic motherhood ; as ' Euphrosyne,' ^ she seems 
 arch ' L'Allegra ' herself, all ' wreathed smiles.' Two less 
 familiar but most idyllic representations of her as a tired 
 Bacchante, piping amid the grass, and a fervid, tragic 
 Muse, long went by the names of ' Tragedy ' and ' Comedy,' 
 but have now, I believe, been called ' shepherdesses.' As 
 Bacchante,^ as Magdalen, as a Sibyl, she imparts, not 
 receives, moods, ideas, emotions. I have seen a chalk 
 sketch of her as a vision of Hellas, all majesty and terror ; an 
 oil sketch of her as Ophelia, ethereal and fading, in the dis- 
 array of her spirit, as the field-flowers in her hair. Romney 
 studies of her are extant, as agonised or martyred suppliant, 
 as an incarnation of listlessness or pensive regret, as clinging 
 Juliet abandoning herself to Romeo. The picture of her as 
 Medea, the figure, as Romney wrote to her, ' sitting with her 
 hair floating in the air,' ^ has vanished, but another ' Medea ' 
 remains which, although a mere outline by the architectural 
 Rehberg, is left with that wonderful 'Thamar' among the 
 ' Attitudes,' and recalls some impression of the tragic mother 
 hastening her child and herself in horror-stricken fear to 
 Nemesis. The ' Serena in the Boat of Apathy ' * has at last 
 been found ; so also the original portrait-study of ' Emma ' 
 with all its speaking brightness of expression. She was 
 
 ' I cannot a^ree with Messrs. H. Ward and W. Roberts that one of these 
 ' Euphrosynes ' is a portrait of Mrs. Crouch. 
 
 ' John Romney in his Memoirs of George Romney mentions another of her in 
 this character for Sir W. Hamilton, and ' lost, I believe, at sea on its return to 
 this country.' 
 
 ' Letter of August 1786, quoted in Mr. H. Ward's and Mr. W. Roberts's 
 Life. 
 
 * Hayley, writing to her in 1804, and signing himself 'The Hermit,' says that 
 in his ' little marine cell ' he could ' entertain ' her ' with a sight of yourself 
 in three enchanting personages, Cassandra, Serena, and Sefisibility. These 
 three ladies are all worth seeing, whether the old Hermit is so or not ; so, pray, 
 come to see us whenever you can. Adieu.' — Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 597. John 
 Romney in his Life of his father, says it was painted for Mr. Christian Curwen 
 (p. 180). 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 19 
 
 never ashamed of having been a servant, and in this guise 
 too Romney has painted her as well as in that of a gypsy.^ 
 Mr. Hargreaves of Liverpool possesses an early portrait of 
 her as a country girl. Of Romney's many portrayals, per- 
 haps the loveliest is that in the present possession of Mr, 
 Alfred de Rothschild ; but a rival to this exists in the fine 
 likeness of her as ' Ambassadress,' completed on her wedding 
 day in September 1791, and immediately after her return 
 from Marylebone Church. She sits dressed in white with 
 a blue band round her waist, and one of those large blue 
 velvet hats which were her favourites, and which Greville 
 used often to forward to Naples, in meek obedience to her 
 behests, after she had become his aunt Romney also 
 painted her in that 'Turkish dress' with which she greeted him 
 on her return to London in the spring of that year. He 
 painted her reading a book — one of the most charming of 
 his unfinished likenesses ; he painted her in every posture 
 and aspect. Romney's own choice among all his portraitures 
 of her was that where her staid sweetness is personified as 
 ' The Seamstress,' which should be distinguished from the 
 even more beautiful ' Spinstress,' also painted for Greville 
 and parted from (like the original) with a pang of almost 
 pious resignation, to Mr. Christian Curwen.^ 'The sight,' 
 wrote Romney to her in 1786, soon after her first appearance 
 in Naples, ' of such a head as the Cassandra,' which he was 
 copying for Hayley, always ' inspires ' him ; but as for his 
 subsequent sitters, ' ladies of fashion,' since her departure, 
 ' all fall far short of the Sempstress ; indeed, it is the 
 sun of my Hemispheer and they are the twinkling stars.' * 
 Emma was eminently ' when unadorned, adorned the most' 
 Greville, remarking on her discretion in conduct and choice 
 
 * Emma sent for this picture in 1 786, soon after her arrival at Naples, but 
 it seejns to have vanished. It is interesting to note that so late as 1799 Sir 
 Alexander Ball, writing from Malta, reminds her how she had dressed up 
 in gypsy guise at Palermo, and told his fortune. Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. 
 
 P> 233- 
 ' Cf. Greville's letter to Romney, February 25, 1788, quoted in John Romney's 
 
 Life of his father, p. 184. 
 
 ' Cf. the letter of August 1786, found in one of Romney's sketch-books by 
 Mr. Fairfax Murray.and given in Mr. H. Ward's and Mr. W. Roberts's Life of 
 Romney, vol. i. p. 67. 
 
20 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 of acquaintance, also noticed her neatness and fondness for 
 plain if good attire. Sir William, writing to her from a 
 shooting-box some years before her marriage with him, and 
 after she had graced without jewels a Neapolitan ball where 
 all the wives of the corps diplomatique glittered with gems, 
 observed that she was the ' brightest jewel ' there ; and in 
 another letter : ' Take my word,' he told his wife, ' that for 
 some years to come the more simply you dress, the more 
 conspicuous will be your beauty, which, according to my 
 idea, is the most perfect I have met with, take it all in all.'^ 
 None the less, her simplicity suffered as she won applause, 
 and the earlier pictures of her are the most touching. 
 
 It is needless to pursue the dreamland which she created 
 for Romney. Scores of other artists, at home and abroad, 
 painted, sculptured, modelled her in wax, carved her on 
 intaglios or enamelled her on boxes. Tischbein, Hackert 
 and the Italian Rega were prominent.^ Romney's friend 
 Tresham was always painting her. The great Sir Joshua 
 is not ascertained to have painted any other semblance of 
 her than the ' Bacchante ' — commissioned by Sir William 
 Hamilton, his old ally, to whom he wrote among the first 
 about the foundation of the Royal Academy.® But 
 Hoppner and Lawrence limned her more than once ; * 
 Gainsborough also painted her,^ though I cannot agree 
 that his ' Musidora ' resembles her ; rather it is like Mrs. 
 ' Perdita ' Robinson. Cosway drew and miniatured her. 
 There are two among several representations by Angelica 
 Kauffmann, one as Cleopatra, the other a really fine study 
 of Ariadne deserted, though not to be compared with 
 Romney's presentment of her in that forsaken character. 
 ' Angelaca ' (as Emma styled her) painted her also as an 
 Italian Contadina resting by a pillar of the Caserta home- 
 
 ' Nelson Letters, Jan. i8, 1792. From Persano, whither he accompanied 
 the king. 
 
 " The writer has one of these ; another, in the British Museum, was used by 
 Nelson as a seal. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 17, March 1769. Reynolds, however, is believed to have left 
 at least one sketch of her. 
 
 * In Sir Walter Armstrong's Life this portrait is catalogued as ' Ex Bishop of 
 Ely.' 
 
 " He drei* her at least twice — once after Sir William's death ; but his 
 Bacchante holding a cherry is the sole work of significance. 
 
Lady Hamilton. 
 
 From an early ivaier-colonr sketch by H. Tresham. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 21 
 
 stead, or perhaps in Rome, and this portrait, which lacks 
 distinction, is now in the South Kensington Museum. But 
 she also delineated her naturally as 'A Lady Resting.' 
 Cipriani made, it is said, a delicate water-colour of her towards 
 the close of his life, while she was still on the threshold of 
 youth. Gavin Hamilton drew her as ' Thalia,' and the head 
 of this still masquerades in England as a work of Romney. 
 Madame Le Brun's ' Bacchaate on the Seashore ' is familiar, 
 but she further portrayed her as a Sibyl and also as 
 ' Bacchante ' in a different attitude. Cuzzardi — a mediocre 
 painter — portrayed her both at large and in miniature. 
 Opie seems to have painted her as an orange-girl ; Single- 
 ton drew her as ' Maternal Attention ' and as ' Laughter' — 
 reminiscent of Romney. The Irish Barry also tried his 
 hand ; Wells, too, limned her as ' Inquiry ' and ' Nerissa ' ; 
 others as ' Hebe,' as ' Industry,' as ' Idleness.' Even 
 Westall could not vulgarise her as ' St. Cecilia ' and 
 'Sappho.' The second-rate Masquerier took her portrait 
 in England about 1802. Saye's mezzotint has a Neapolitan 
 background, but the original, unearthed at the end of last 
 year, shows an English park, possibly that of Fonthill. 
 There were, moreover, masses of apocryphal portraits, 
 especially in Paris, where the Jacobins delighted to malign 
 even her face from imagination. She may be said to have 
 founded both a type and a vogue, for more than one fashion- 
 able lady was taken 'as Lady Hamilton.' Her play of 
 expression was indeed extraordinary. She could so trans- 
 form her face and gestures in harmony with her moods as 
 to become a separate impersonation. In repose her counte- 
 nance looked wholly different from its aspect under agita- 
 tion, and her profile differs from her full face. 
 
 To Romney then, as afterwards to Nelson, she was a 
 Muse ; a Muse communicating and inspiring, or, at least, a 
 medium of inspiration. To the part of Muse the symmetry 
 of her form and features — those of a Greek statue or in- 
 taglio ^ — the classical yet mobile mouth which artists from 
 
 * When Sir William, the most zealous of connoisseurs and antiquarians, made 
 a tour in 1789 to the southernmost region of Italy, he acquired an intaglio which 
 he averred the image of Emma. In 1800 he called her his 'fair Grecian.' Cf. 
 Cyrus Redding's Fifty Years of my Life, 
 
22 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the first singled out as a miracle,^ the auburn tresses 
 touched with gold, that, released from their fillets, swayed 
 around her dancing feet, the clear, deep grey-violet of 
 the large, soulful eyes,* all lent themselves. The old 
 Bishop of Derry, Sir William's friend and schoolfellow, 
 scarcely blasphemed in asserting that Emma's creation 
 betokened a 'glorious mood' in her Creator.* True, she 
 was often a muse of the green room, a free and easy muse 
 of Bohemia, sometimes a muse with something of the fury * 
 behind her, on occasion a muse of dare-devilry, a volatile 
 muse too, a muse also that could 'cook "Sir Willum's" 
 apple pies,' * or enjoy the Irish stew which her own mother 
 had dressed,"" and, above all, a muse that gloried in having 
 sprung from the people, and could snap her fingers gaily in 
 the face of kings.^ But a muse, notwithstanding, she 
 endures. She could never have fixed the respectful wor- 
 ship of Romney and the reverent passion of Nelson had 
 not this prerogative been hers. 
 
 Or, if exception be taken to so fine a metaphor, let me 
 explain my meaning otherwise. Emma was by nature a 
 model — a model that called forth the slumbering ideals or 
 sensations of others. To Romney she was the model of all 
 the possibilities of feeling, and every beauty in action ; she 
 transformed his art, as may be seen by comparing his 
 pictures before with those after he knew her. To Hamilton 
 she was the model of antique art. To Nelson, of glory, 
 of Britain. All these she may not have been, but it was 
 her strange faculty to realise and revive them in others ; 
 to them, these she was. How many models of loveliness in 
 pictures have faded away nameless, while Emma abides! 
 And just as the study for a great picture has the wfekness 
 
 ' So said Gavin Hamilton. 
 
 2 One of them had a small brown speck upon it. The writer owns a water- 
 colour likeness by Romney which defines the colour ; Mrs. St. George in her 
 Journal calls them ' blue.' 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 248, November 1794. A letter &om Joseph Denham, who 
 recalls the saying to her mind. 
 
 * Tischbein painted her in this character, and as ' Iphigenia.' 
 " Minto Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 365. 
 
 • Journal of Mrs. St. George [Melesina Chenevix, afterwards Mrs. Richard 
 Trench]. Cf. post, ch. xi. 
 
 ' She did so once in the face of Ferdinand of Naples. Cf. fast, chap, xi. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 23 
 
 peculiar to studies, but a special charm of its own tran- 
 scending the finished work, and tingling with the soul in 
 unison with the hand, so Emma was such a study for that 
 which often she never attained, but constantly inspired. 
 There is a strain of ' Trilby ' about Lady Hamilton, and 
 Du Maurier's pathetic apology for his heroine's lapses 
 applies to her also. 
 
 Yet fully to understand a faculty so chameleon, we 
 must recognise, as was certainly the case, the grave 
 drawbacks that it entailed. Although there was a sub- 
 structure that was always Emma, she was yet possessed 
 by the reigning influence of the hour. She was what she 
 felt. Under Greville's rule she was prudent, childlike, 
 scrupulously exact even in the household accounts which 
 survive. With Hamilton she became a diplomatist anxious 
 to shine, and rather an economist of fame than money, 
 which she lavished on both public and private purposes, 
 more indeed than his Highland hospitality and the demands 
 of a pinched connoisseur approved ; ^ but even then for her 
 own expenses she never exceeded her most moderate allow- 
 ance, much of which was bestowed on charity. While she 
 was the queen's comrade she caught from Maria Carolina 
 the terse, broken over-emphasis of her style. With Nelson 
 she turned heroine, and it will be found that her heroics 
 meant real heroism. When he died, however, and no ruler 
 of her life was left, the Duke of Queensberry's set, rapacious 
 Italian refugees, the demands of kinsfolk, the burden of 
 Merton improvements, prompted extravagance at every 
 turn. She relapsed into a mere tissue of embedded 
 memories and of bygone selves, unsteadied by controlling 
 mastery. And after her mother's death in i8io, only her 
 unvarying attachment to the child Horatia regulated her 
 at all. The muse as medium, the muse of mutual inspira- 
 tion was dead. 
 
 Few will question that here was an original woman, whose 
 iridescent nature was not that of the common herd, but a 
 compound of strange opposites. This was no cultivated 
 
 1 In one of his letters of 1801 Nelson reminds Emma how her husband used 
 to stint in candles and other trifles. As early as 1774 Sir R. Keith banters him 
 from Vienna on ' economising' in postage. Morrison MS. 32. 
 
24 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 type of the Renaissance such as Diane de Poitiers with 
 the fin sourire of her epoch. She was no vulgar or venal 
 adventuress, still less the wanton minx or pariah of tradi- 
 tion. She was not a daughter of pleasure at all. Nor did 
 she resemble those of her contemporaries, like Lady May- 
 nard and Lady Seaforth, whose mere frailty found refuge 
 in titled wedlock ; or those refined intrigantes, the Countess 
 of Lichtenau and 'Princess Elizabeth,'^ whose romantic 
 adventures drew both to Naples, and whose pitiful ends 
 proved that royalty is perhaps the weakest reed of all on 
 which to lean. Nor was she a fetnme galante like her luck- 
 less friend Mrs. Billington, or like that nobly-born and 
 winning wanderer Grace Dalrymple Elliott, or the sad, 
 sentimental 'Perdita.' Emma's good name was absolutely 
 untarnished from the date of her marriage until 1800; she 
 could fix, as hundreds of epistles witness, not only r^ard 
 but respect One of their foundations was her inherent 
 homeliness. 
 
 This homeliness, Propriety-Impropriety-Greville — the 
 pattern of precision — always gratefully acknowledged. She 
 had not been long with Sir William before he too vaunted 
 that she was very 'domestic' 'Good and kind,' Nelson 
 often wrote, she was to everybody, ' knowing how to reward 
 merit in rich or poor, b^gar or prince,' and he loved her to 
 row him on the tiny Nile at Merton.* ' I assure you, my 
 dear friend,' he exclaimed in October 1801, ' I had rather 
 read and hear all your little story of a white hen getting 
 into a tree, or an anecdote of Fatima [Horatia], or hear you 
 call "Cupidy, Cupidy," than any speech I shall hear in 
 Parliament ; because I know ' — he adds, referring to an 
 episode which long affected her fate — 'although you can 
 adapt your language and manners to a child, yet that you 
 can also thunder forth such a torrent of eloquence that 
 corruption and infamy would sink before your voice in 
 however exalted a position it might be placed.' Children 
 
 ^ This extraoidinaiy woman claimed (and perhaps rightly) to be the Czarina's 
 daughter by Connt KasoomowskL After an edncation in Persia and many 
 wanderings, she appealed to the aid of the Sultan, besought Hamilton's assist- 
 ance at Naples, was betrayed by the Rnssian Minister, Orlo^ to the Court of 
 St. Petersburg, where she languished a prisoner till she died. 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters (1814), toL iL passim. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 25 
 
 and animals and all young things were her joy. She 
 shrank from those enormous battues which Sir William 
 shared annually with the King of Naples, and her compas- 
 sionate heart bled for its victims. Never, once wrote 
 Nelson to her, would any live thing be hurt in her neigh- 
 bourhood. Tranquillity, repose, the details of a farm 
 superintended by her own hands, sat on her as easily at 
 Merton as flutter and excitement in Piccadilly. She long 
 bestowed care on the education of Nelson's nieces, includ- 
 ing the future Lady Bridport. Horatia's, mismanaged as 
 it was, engrossed her from the moment when the child 
 could be received under her roof. And in her heroic days 
 at Naples she performed the humblest services. She 
 was an excellent nurse, perhaps from her early servi- 
 tude as a poor little maid of thirteen. She was always 
 nursing her old husband, and she nursed him affec- 
 tionately to the end. She received Lord St. Vincent's 
 written thanks for nursing Nelson. She was constantly 
 nursing sick friends. And she was ready to tend and mend 
 the entire fleet. There is an amusing passage in one of our 
 new letters of 1798 from her to Nelson in this connection. 
 It concerns an Irish orphan, a lad in Nelson's ship when 
 in the October of this year he was settling affairs at Leg- 
 horn. Emma thus wrote to her hero : ' My dear little 
 fatherless Fady — tell him to keep his head clean and when 
 he comes back I will be his mother as much as I can ; 
 comb, wash, and cut his nails ; for with pleasure I loved 
 to do it all for him.' ^ The Morrison Collection is full of 
 grateful thanks from all sorts and conditions of men and 
 women for her kindnesses towards them. One of these 
 speaks of her ' divine urbanity and condescension by 
 which you have attracted to yourself the admiration and 
 respect of mankind.' * 
 
 Such was the woman that Nelson's intense attachment 
 has idealised. How he idealised her the following excerpt 
 from an unpublished letter, written on the St. George off 
 
 ' Add. MS. 34,989, f. 18, October 24, 1798. Sir W. Hamilton in one of his 
 letters to her (Nelson Letters) looks forward to the same attentions, and so does 
 Nelson in another (Morrison MS. ). 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 453. From T. Roche, Feb. 14, 1800 — a welcome Valentine. 
 
26 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Rostock some seven weeks after the Copenhagen battle, 
 will indicate. Its praise was caused by her rejection of 
 the overtures of the Prince Regent and his graceless crew, 
 circumstances which called forth some of the most extra- 
 ordinary letters ever written by Nelson.^ Sir William had 
 been selling his pictures at Christie's, and among them, to 
 Nelson's rage, portraits of Emma herself. Nelson com- 
 missioned the purchase of Romney's ' St. Cecilia,' and 
 it eventually found its way to his cabin : ' Yesterday I 
 joined Admiral Totty where I found little Parker with all 
 my treasures, your dear kind friendly letters, your picture 
 as Santa Emma, for a Santa you are, if ever there was one 
 in this world. For what makes a Saint? The being so 
 much better than the rest of the human race. Therefore 
 as truly as I believe in God, do I believe you are a Saint, 
 and in this age of wickedness you sett an example of 
 great Virtue and Goodness which if we are not sunk ia 
 Luxury and Infamy ought to rouse up almost forgot 
 Virtue. . . . And I am one of those who believe that in 
 England the higher the class, the worse the company. I 
 speak generally. I will not think so bad of any class but v 
 that there may be some good individuals in it. How can I 
 sufficiently thank you for all your goodness and kindness 
 to me, a forlorn outcast except in your generous soul.' ^ 
 
 Hyperbole from a lover's lips ! — and so amazing that it 
 brings one to a halt. It sounds incredible until the curious 
 episode that underlies it is unfolded with our story. And 
 even then, a lover's hyperbole it remains. Their mutual 
 troth was no common passion, but a deep and lasting love. 
 It led him to idealise her beyond comparison, to find in her 
 the fulfilment of his dearest and highest dreams. Her 
 idealised image was for him none the less an inspiriting 
 reality. Good Dr. Johnson deemed his plain wife a beauty. 
 Nelson knew that Emma had been a heroine, and here he 
 proclaims her a saint ! 
 
 But his devotion led him to invert the accepted stan- 
 dards ; to consecrate a love that discarded wedlock, and to 
 exalt wifeliness far above wifehood, to regard the one in the 
 
 ' Cf. chap. xii. , where they are reproduced for the first time. 
 
 2 Add. MS. 34,274 G., May 24, 1801. Cf. Appendix, Part 11. D. (i). 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 27 
 
 light of convenience, the other in the light of conviction. 
 No one can read his later letters, especially the new and 
 striking instances given in the Appendix,^ without realising 
 to what lengths he carried these transposals. Just as the 
 conventional morality often canted against him, so Nelson, 
 by spiritualising his defiance, may be said in a manner to 
 have canted also. But for him it was all truth itself. And 
 she was no less genuine. Her ill-regulated ideals of kindness, 
 of feeling, and of glory — all these she realised in Nelson. 
 Hitherto she had been lovingly grateful to varying selfish- 
 ness. Nelson's unselfishness transfigured her to herself; 
 she became capable of great moments. And she was born 
 for friendship. ' I would not be a lukewarm friend for the 
 world,' she wrote to him at the outset in one of our new 
 letters. ' I cannot make friends with all, but the few 
 friends I have I would die for them.' ^ She was always 
 warm-hearted to a fault, as will amply appear as her 
 character grows up in these pages. So far from numbing 
 Nelson, she nerved him ; nor did she ever debase — far less 
 befoul — any within the range of her influence. 
 
 But she was also a born pagan, and a born rebel. If 
 such a temperament could admit of saintliness, if such a 
 thing could be as a lawless, an unregenerate saint, then, 
 perhaps, Emma had earned her profane halo far more than 
 would be readily conceded. If courage alone, and generosity, 
 and tenderness, and energy, and big-heartedness, and a 
 will over-defiant of opinion, could make a ' saint/ the phrase 
 had not been overstrained. But Emma never learned the 
 lesson of self-renouncement ; rather she sought to realise 
 herself. 
 
 I have reserved to the last perhaps the most singular, 
 and certainly the most blameworthy, phase of her develop- 
 ment, which really led to all the miseries and wrongs of her 
 closing years, for 
 
 ' . . . II est juste 
 Qu'on soit puni par oii I'on a pdchd.' 
 
 From the disguised birth of Horatia in January 1801, 
 
 1 Appendix, Part II. D. (l) (a) and (b), and (8) (2) (a). 
 
 2 Add. MS. 34,989, f. 24, Oct. 28. See Appendix, Part 11. A. 
 
28 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 involving both Emma and Nelson, each from their wish to 
 defend the other, in a degrading conspiracy of silence, she 
 was constrained to play the part realised by Sudermann in 
 the heroine of his play Es lebe das Leben. Lady Hamilton 
 thenceforward, like 'Beate,' craved a triple realisation of 
 existence in the strong lover, the weak but still cherished 
 husband, and the tenderly guarded child. It was and ever 
 will be a futile quest. But the Muse in search of a Hero, 
 and the Hero in search of a Muse, encountered each other, 
 and there was an end. To ' warm ' three ' hands before the 
 fire of life ' is incompatible with the very basis of society, 
 and she wronged irretrievably that blameless, if narrow and 
 inadequate, woman who had been united to him in hasty 
 and regretted wedlock.^ Nelson always hoped to have 
 been able to legalise his and Emma's union of hearts. She 
 was his ' pride and delight,'^ ' his wife before God ' ; his love 
 for her was ' unbounded ' as his element ' the ocean ' ; * he 
 would take unto him a wife ' more suitable to his genius ' 
 than the once ' valuable ' Fanny. To Emma, Nelson was 
 ' the dearest husband of my heart,' her ' idol,' her ' man of 
 men,' * her ' Hero of Heroes,' * her ' all of good ' — surely a 
 very sweet and genuine expression, and occurring in the 
 last letter but one that she ever addressed to him.® All 
 his enemies were hers, and all his friends." For him she 
 lived ; in the faith that she would meet him again, she 
 
 ' In one of her letters Mrs. Bolton, Nelson's sister, says that Lady Nelson 
 only 'pretended to love him.' But his family were biassed against her. Her 
 real faults will appear as the chronicle advances. 
 
 ^ From an unpublished passage in a letter belonging to Mrs. Hampden : 
 ' Victory, off Carlisle Bay, Barbadoes, June 4, 1805.' In another from the same 
 source (one of his last): ' Victory, off Portland, Sept. 16, 1805.' ... 'I love 
 and adore you to the very excess of the passion. . . . Should I be forced, I will 
 act as a man, neither courting or ashamed to hold up my head before the greatest 
 monarch in the world ! I have, thank God, nothing to be ashamed of.' These, 
 among other letters belonging to Mrs. Hampden, were originally Pettigrew's, 
 but such as he printed were published with the fervour stoned out of them. Cf. 
 Appendix, Part II. D. 
 
 ' Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 135, Aug. 26, 1803. He also calls her his ' Alpha 
 and Omega.' 
 
 ^ Eg. MS. 1623, f. 32, April 2, 1802. " Eg. MS. 2240, f. 151. 
 
 " Morrison MS. 844, Oct. 24, 1805. 
 
 ' Ibid., passim, and ci. post, chapters xi. and xii. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 29 
 
 died.i Never was a pair more tenderly attached, or indeed 
 wrapped up in one another. It should be recollected, too, 
 that from their first and brief acquaintance in September 
 1793, till his death in October 1805, the sum total of time 
 that could be spent in each other's company did not extend 
 to as much as four years. This ordeal of absence, while it 
 heightened their longings, proved a hard strain for endeared 
 affection. But none of this can excuse Nelson for putting 
 away his jealous wife as rashly as he had wedded her, or 
 absolve Lady Hamilton's fanning of his flame, or her atti- 
 tude towards the woman she had foiled, and who had 
 slighted her. And so surely as the imploring wraith of 
 Emma is indissociable from his image on the column of 
 heroism and glory, so surely, even granting her pettier 
 nature and her grievance over shattered social ambitions, 
 that other wraith of the injured wife mutely and justly 
 turns her indignant back on its base. She was unfor- 
 giving, but so was the revengeful rival who had supplanted 
 her. 
 
 ' Forgiveness to the injured doth belong, 
 He never pardons who hath done the wrong.' 
 
 Fair Rosamund was probably relentless towards Queen 
 Eleanor before the appearance of the dagger and the bowl. 
 There were, it is true, many palliations; and one un- 
 doubted and curious fact of psychology seems to have been 
 overlooked. None can combine all Nelson's many private 
 letters, scattered through many collections, without realis- 
 ing his intense desire for fatherhood. His wife had never 
 borne him children, while his devotion to his drunken step-; 
 son had all along been ill-repaid both by 'the cub' himself 
 and by the mother, who alternately petted and persecuted 
 her son. Lady Hamilton, too, by nature motherly,^ yearned 
 for a child that she might freely acknowledge. Writing to 
 Nelson so early as the autumn of 1798, in one of our new 
 letters, she ends it thus : ' Love Sir William and myself, 
 for we love you dearly. He is the best husband, I wish I 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 959. 
 
 " Cf. the letters of 1784 in the Morrison MS. about that poor ' little Emma,' 
 of whom she was deprived, and of whom more hereafter. 
 
30 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 cou'd say father allso, but I shou'd be too happy if I had 
 the blessing of having children, so must be content.' ^ 
 
 For some years she had even then been rather the spoiled 
 daughter than the wife, the nurse and chatelaine more than 
 the partner of her ageing husband, who had so long prided 
 himself on perennial youth. She was sincerely attached to 
 him and he to her, despite those tiffs towards the close of 
 his life, arising from her marked attentions to the man 
 whom both loved and tended. His last letter to her pro- 
 claims that to her alone he remained attached beyond the 
 bounds of friendship, while the words of his will praise 
 Nelson as the most loyal friend and gentleman of his 
 long experience. It is almost impossible to believe that 
 such a practised worldling should have been blind to the 
 real relations which matured so suddenly. His very fond- 
 ness might have set him guessing, for 'who dotes,' in 
 Shakespeare's adage, ' doubts.' One might exclaim with 
 Beaumarchais — 
 
 ' Qui est-ce done que Ton trompe ? Tout le monde est du secret.' 
 
 The probability is that with his placid bias and love of 
 ease, he deliberately shut his ears to the insinuations of 
 Greville and others. Rather than risk ' scenes,* or disturb 
 the lives of the two that he loved best in the world, he 
 hoodwinked himself into a fool's paradise. At any rate, 
 both Nelson and Emma (in whose arms he expired) were 
 with him to the last.^ 
 
 But the retribution to Lady Hamilton came in her. 
 enforced attitude towards Horatia, and Horatia's towards 
 her. Until the alleged offspring of ' Mrs. Thomson ' could 
 safely be lodged at Merton, she had perforce, during their 
 joint visits to the baby in Little Titchfield Street, to stand 
 apart and aloof, despite her yearning. Horatia herself — 
 
 1 Add. MS. 34,989, f. 18. That she had one child already (though no more) 
 will be proved as we proceed. What she means is no child of Hamilton that 
 she could be allowed to cherish in her home. 
 
 2 The actual account of the closing scene is given by Nelson in a letter imme- 
 diately after Hamilton's death.— Eg. MS. 2240, f. 157. This letter has never 
 been published, and will be cited in its place. It will be found that his last 
 conversation with Greville before he died concerned his desire that the 
 Government would acknowledge and reward her services. 
 
LADY HAMILTON'S TEMPERAMENT 31 
 
 her mother's last companion — called her * My Lady,' and 
 was afterwards reared to believe her birth a nameless 
 mystery, though a mass of conclusive evidence leaves no 
 shadow of doubt as to whose child she was. Here surely 
 was some burden of punishment. Emma suffered for her 
 sin. 
 
 Nor should we forget the tone and standard of the age. 
 Two currents were contending. The one, of a materialist 
 aristocracy (still regarded as demi-gods by the people), 
 championing the outward biensiances. Such were the 
 Warwicks, the Hamiltons, the Pembrokes, and the Port- 
 lands. The other, of the equally hedonist sansculottes, 
 who transformed an opera-dancer into the statue of their 
 goddess. Reason ; or of such English Jacobins as Miss Wil- 
 liams, herself crowned in Normandy as the same presiding 
 saint. Unconscious hypocrisy was confronted by conscious 
 licence. Old barriers were openly upheld by those who 
 covertly sneered at them; while those who broke them 
 down stood naked and not ashamed. Everywhere, too, as 
 authority and reverence tottered, while all boundaries bade 
 fair to disappear, was quaffed and handed on from lip to 
 lip the intoxicating cup of emancipation. 
 
 In the following pages her good and evil qualities will 
 alike be scrutinised. No attempt will be made to blink 
 her errors, which are reviewed and re-examined. But 
 she has been constantly blamed in the wrong instances 
 for lack of a full knowledge, while praise for the same 
 reason has often been inappropriately bestowed. The sole 
 endeavour of my research — the only aim for which research 
 should exist — is truth. With a wide background, and in a 
 full light, the reader can here see her as she lived, and form 
 his own independent judgment. That she played a hand in 
 the hard game of history will be amply manifest. Was it 
 for her own hand that she chiefly played, or did she play, 
 and with her own cards, for others ? One fact is certain : 
 in loving Nelson when she was most powerful and most 
 respected she risked her all, and from mutual help arose 
 their mutual love. Throughout she will be found urging 
 the interests of others before her own, and immediately 
 after Nelson's death first advocating his family's advan- 
 
32 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 tage. Contrary to the received version, she did not address 
 Nelson's brother on her own behalf till more than a year 
 after her hero's death.^ 
 
 Whatever sentence the reader may pronounce on the 
 evidence to be submitted, he cannot fail to mark the 
 psychological problems of her being. In any case, with all 
 her blots and failings. Lady Hamilton presents one of the 
 most fascinating studies in the eternal duel of sex. To her 
 may well be applied the line which her future husband 
 quoted in his book of 1772 : ^ — 
 
 ' Tantarum femina rerum.' ' 
 
 ' Cf. post, chap. XV., and Appendix, Part ll. C. (i) (a) and (2). 
 ^ Observations on Mount Vesuvius, Mount Etna, etc. 
 ' From Cornelius Severus' poem on Etna : — 
 
 ' The heroine of a thousand things. ' 
 

 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CURTAIN RISES — 1765-1782 
 
 On the morning of January 10, 1782, the punctilious and 
 elegant Honourable Charles Francis Greville, gloomy still 
 over the loss of his Warwick election, but consoled by a 
 snug, if unsafe, post in the Board of Admiralty,^ much 
 exercised, too, in his careful way, about minerals, animals, 
 science, the fine arts, and the flickering out of the American 
 war, was even more exercised by a missive from a poor 
 young girl who had already crossed his path. Fronting 
 him in the dainty chamber of his mansion in the new ^ arid 
 fashionable Portman Square, swung a pet monkey,* and 
 hung the loaned ' Venus ' by Correggio, slightly retouched 
 with applied water-colour.* This over-prized picture had 
 been for years the cherished idol of his uncle and alter ego. 
 Sir William Hamilton, K.C.B.,^ Fellow of the Antiquarian 
 and the Royal Societies, member of the Dilettanti, the 
 Tuesday, and other clubs, foster-brother of the now 
 George III., and sometime both his and his brother's equerry ; 
 the busy man of pleasure, the renowned naturalist and 
 
 ^ Cf. Morrison MS. 95-9?, September and October 1780. He had formerly 
 enjoyed a better post in the Board of Trade. — Morrison MS. 29, May 11, 
 
 1773- 
 
 ' Fortman Square, begun in 1764, was not completed till twenty years later, 
 Greville had previously lived in Charles Street and St. James's Square, with 
 intervals of ' King's Mews,' to which too afterwards he reverted. In the end he 
 returned to Paddington, and the last surviving letter from Emma to him (during 
 her troubles in 1808) is addressed to the scene of their earliest memories. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 96. 
 
 * By 'Henry Morland,' 'painter and picture-dealer, a friend of mine.' — 
 Morrison MS. 36, June 28, 1774. 
 
 ' In 1773. 
 
 C 
 
34 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 virtuoso of Portland vase celebrity,^ and already for about 
 eighteen ^ years His Britannic Majesty's amiably-grumbling 
 Ambassador at the Court of the King of the two Sicilies. 
 The monkey's health had disquieted Greville a year before, 
 but this letter almost excited him. It was franked by him- 
 self on a wrapper in his own neat handwriting, bore the 
 Chester postmark, and contrasted strongly with the tasteful 
 tone of the room and its superfine owner. 
 
 It ran as follows : ' Yesterday did I receve your kind 
 letter. It put me in some spirits for, believe me, I am 
 allmost distracktid. I have never hard from Sir H.,^ and 
 he is not at Lechster now, I am sure. I have wrote 7 
 letters, and no anser. What shall I dow? Good God 
 what shall I dow. ... I can't come to toun for want of 
 mony. I have not a farthing to bless my self with, and 
 I think my friends looks cooly on me. I think so. O. G. 
 what shall I dow? What shall I dow? O how your letter 
 affected me when you wished me happiness. O. G. that 
 I was in your posesion* or in Sir H. what a happy girl 
 would I have been ! Girl indeed ! What else am I but 
 a girlin distres — in reall distres? For God's sake, G. write 
 the minet you get this, and only tell me what I am to 
 dow. Direct same whay. I am allmos mad. O for God's 
 sake tell me what is to become on me. O dear Grevell, 
 write to , me. Write to me. G. adue, and believe [me] 
 yours for ever Emly Hart. 
 
 'Don't tel my mother what distres I am in, and dow 
 afford me some comfort. 
 
 ' My age was got out of the Reggister, and I now send it 
 to my dear Charles. Once more adue, O you dear friend.' * 
 
 1 For his early difficulties in disposing of it, cf. Morrison MS. 61, 1776. Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, writing to Hamilton in 1769 of 'the grace and genteelness of 
 some of the figures ' in the Neapolitan galleries, calls him ' so great a patron and 
 judge.' — Morrison MS. 17. ^ Cf. Morrison MS. 90. 
 
 ' Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh, of Up Park, Sussex, who lived to correspond 
 in middle age with her in terms of the most deferential friendship. His name 
 is thus spelt in his letters. 
 
 * Misprinted by Mr. Jeaffreson as 'position.' 
 
 " Morrison MS. 112. This letter has been given with its answer, though 
 with one inaccuracy, by Mr. Jeaffreson. The enclosed duplicate of the baptismal 
 register was, as we shall shortly see, inaccurately copied by the then curate of 
 Great Neston, Cheshire. 
 
The Honoukabi.e Charles Fkancis Gkevii.i.e. 
 By G. Romnev. 
 
 A fter the Mezzotint by H, iilejir. 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES 35 
 
 Who was this girl in ' reall distres,' what her past ? who 
 were the friends who looked ' cooly ' on her, and for what 
 reasons ? These questions will shortly be answered so far 
 as replies admit of real proof. But first a brief space 
 must be devoted to Greville himself, since his individuality 
 is as necessary to the coming plot as her own. 
 
 The Honourable Charles Francis Greville was now thirty- 
 two. 
 
 The second son of the Right Honourable Francis, Earl 
 of Brooke (afterwards Earl of Warwick), and of Elizabeth 
 Hamilton, one of Sir William's sisters, he was born at 
 Fulham on May 12, 1749, and baptized on June 8 follow- 
 ing.^ He was born prematurely old, parsimoniously extra- 
 vagant, and cautiously careless. His cradle should have 
 been garlanded with official minutes, and draped with 
 collectors' catalogues. From his earliest days he was prim, 
 methodical, and pedantic beyond his years. The unlikeli- 
 hood of surviving his eldest brother had been ever before 
 his eyes, and he was set on the emoluments of a political 
 career, promising much to one so highly connected. While 
 still in his teens he began amassing virtu with discernment, 
 and specimens of mineralogy on a ' philosophical ' system. 
 Some years before his majority he had struck up a brotherly 
 affection with his free-hearted uncle, nearly twenty years 
 his senior, who relied on a precocious judgment, invaluable 
 to one compelled by long absences to entrust to others 
 the management of his wife's Pembrokeshire property,^ 
 indispensable also to both in the keen pursuit of their 
 common tastes, the one in Italy, the home of art, the other 
 in England, the nursery of science. From a very early date 
 the student of beauty and curios, the investigator of shells, 
 marine monsters, and volcanoes, 'Pliny the Elder,' as he 
 came to be called, was always exchanging rarities with 'Pliny 
 the Younger,' or commissioning him to buy, sell, or rafiHe 
 Dutch and Italian pictures, Etruscan urns, Greek torsos, 
 and Roman vases. Hamilton was a true man of science, 
 and a really great archaeologist. When he first came to 
 
 ^ See the Register. Lyson's Environs of London, vol. ii. p. 389. 
 ' Brought him through marriage (in i7S7) with Miss Barlow, a Welsh 
 heiress. His cousin married another Welsh heiress, Miss Williams of Gwint. 
 
36 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Naples in 1764 he spent months in his Villa Angelica, on 
 the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, taking observations and 
 excavating antiquities. He was far less a trafficker in 
 objects of art and learning than his nephew. He presented 
 both books and specimens of value to the British Museum. 
 His aim, in his own words, was that of 'employing his 
 leisure in use to mankind.'^ Not quite so, however, was 
 that of Pliny the Younger, who in his turn bought 
 crystals and works of art with equal zest of connoisseur- 
 ship. Greville was barely twenty-one when he went the 
 Italian tour, stayed with his uncle at Naples, then in the 
 full fever of unearthing buried chefs-d'oeuvre at Hercu- 
 laneum and Pompeii, which were so soon to experience 
 many fresh escapes from re-destruction by earthquakes and 
 eruptions.* From Rome, in this year, the nephew indited 
 two of the most self-assured letters of grave gossip and 
 counsel that any youngster has ever addressed to one nearly 
 twice his age. They are so like himself that a small part 
 of them must be given : ' I begin with a subject that I 
 have resolved every time I have wrote to mention, and now 
 particularly I am under an obligation to remember, as for 
 the first time my handkerchief has been knotted on the 
 occasion. It is to desire you to enquire for two books 
 I left in my room at your house ; 2 pocket volumes of 
 Milton's works. I borrowed them, and left them with an 
 intention they should be sent to Mr. Harfrere to whom they 
 belong. . . . The ink bottle has this moment oversett, but 
 you see I am not disconcerted, so pray don't make observa- 
 tions, and the letter is as good as it was. Pray let me 
 
 1 Observations on Mount Vesuvius, etc. (1772). The villa was probably called 
 after the artist. Hamilton constantly ran great danger in observing and record- 
 ing violent eruptions. He was indefatigable in superintending excavations, and 
 he mentions being present at Pompeii when a horse with jewelled trappings and 
 its rider were unearthed. He was a munificent patron alike of discoverers, 
 travellers, scientists and artists, including Flaxman and Wedgwood. He was 
 a trustee of the British Museum, and a vice-president of the Society of Anti- 
 quaries. A big book on his Greek and Roman antiquities was written by 
 D'Harcauville (Naples, 1765-177S ; Paris, 1787)- Besides the book already 
 mentioned, supplemented in 1779, Hamilton wrote Campi Phkgreei (Naples, 
 1776-7), and the famous work on Greek and Etruscan urns, etc., illustrated by 
 Bartolozzi. A Life worthy of him ought to be written. 
 
 "^ 1779> 17831 1794 w^"^^ "*^ worst. 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES 37 
 
 beg you to avoid every mention of prices, I have done so 
 once before. Pray let me send and be favoured with the 
 acceptance of some baubles. ... I am in the best of 
 humours. I received this morning a line from Lord Exeter 
 who informed me of the Douglas cause being decided in 
 his favour.^ ... I am running about the antiquities from 
 9 to II with Byres, from 11- 12 with Miss A., so you see 
 I gain Horace's happiness, omne tulit punctum qui miscuit 
 utile dulci. , . . Pray let me lay on you a disagreeable task, 
 choose me a handsome pattern for an applicde, have it 
 wrought for me instantaneously, and sent to Rome. I 
 wish an Etrusc vase could be introduced. It must be 
 handsome and rich ; as to its elegance, anything, particu- 
 larly Etrusc, conducted by your taste cannot fail to be 
 elegant. If a contrivance could be hit on for making it 
 less regular and straight, ... I should be pleased. Yours 
 is charming, but rather too much like a lace. . . . The 
 spangles must be caution'd against and well fastened. 
 There have been some fine conversations since the Emperor 
 has been here. The Grand Duke asked after you of me. 
 . . . The E. has lessened the talk about the D. However 
 I like the D. best : more of engaging and gentlemanlike 
 deportment, and more of the world. . . . By the Bye if 
 you can pick up any vases, of which you have duplicates, 
 lay thenj aside for me, and don't buy them if not well 
 conserv'd and good ; nor many of a shape, a few elegant 
 and good. Adieu my dear Hamilton.'^ 
 
 Certainly Greville proved the Horatian mixer of pleasure 
 with profit ; and since he, like his far franker uncle, was 
 ever complaining of a narrow purse tantalised by the 
 temptations of viriu, that other trite Horatian maxim, 
 Virtute me involve, would also admirably fit them. 
 Wrapped in their mantles of Virtu, they both bewailed 
 means far too slender for their tastes. The richer Sir 
 William, indeed, expending in antiquities what he re- 
 trenched elsewhere, seems in his correspondence all debt 
 and Correggio ; while Greville removed to his mansion 
 under pretext of its size being a bargain. Each sought 
 
 ' This eventually enabled ' Old Q.' to succeed to his honours. 
 ' Morrison MS. 14, Rome, March 1769. 
 
38 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to serve Jthe other, and Greville in his youth persistently 
 charged his uncle to be his diputd?- As time proceeded. 
 Sir William with an ailing wife and a buried daughter,* his 
 nephew ever on his watch-tower for an heiress,* confided 
 to each other their little gallantries, and peccadilloes also. 
 As for Greville, just as in the case of the ' applicee,' ' con- 
 trivances ' were soon ' hit on ' for making him ' less regular 
 and straight' Already, in 1781, this solemn frequenter 
 of new Almack's had acquired the Reynolds picture of 
 ' Emily in the character of Thais,' which had been left 
 on Sir Joshua's hands.* His character was that of a free- 
 living formalist, the reverse of austere, but with all austerity's 
 drawbacks. 
 
 Yet there were some excellent points in this queer com- 
 pound of the Pharisee and the Publican, something between 
 a Charles and a Joseph Surface. If none was more prone 
 to sin with self-righteousness, and to excuse to himself 
 half-shabbiness as unselfish generosity,^ if none could write 
 more glibly of a 'good heart,' he was not consciously a 
 hypocrite; though par excellence the man of taste rather 
 than the man of feeling. 
 
 He displayed scrupulous honour in all' money transac- 
 tions, much dignity and reticence, with grace of demeanour 
 (if not always of behaviour) ; independence too of mind, and 
 a public-spirited industry that often kept him sitting on im- 
 portant committees six hours at a stretch. He was a stead- 
 fast friend, and the early death of his Pylades, the brilliant 
 Charles Cathcart, was a real blow to him and an irretrievable 
 loss. He was an ideal trustee. He could say with truth, 
 ' I am a good jobber for a friend, but an awkward one 
 
 ^ Cf. Morrison MS. 20, Greville from Vienna to Hamilton, April 1769 
 
 " ' Little Checille,' Morrison MS. 14. Possibly adopted. 
 
 ' Cf. Morrison MS. 40, December 20, 1774, where Hamilton recommends 
 him a Miss St. George with income of ;^5ooo and nez retroussi. In May 1778 
 he wanted to marry Lord Granby's daughter. — Morrison MS. 81. 
 
 * Cf. Morrison MS. 102, April 3, 1781. I am not satisfied that this was the 
 portrait of 'Emily Pott,' alias Coventry. The face is not unlike Lady 
 Hamilton's. In the Complete Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1824), the 
 picture is alleged to be the portrait of Mbs Emily Pott, or Bertie, or Coventry, 
 ' who went to India, where she died.' 
 
 * In 1773, when ' halving ' purchases with Hamilton, Greville had written : 
 ' This may be selfish, but I will show you it is not so.' — Morrison MS. 29. 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES 39 
 
 for in)rself.' ^ He ^vas worthy of his uncles confidence, and 
 to the last superintended his affairs and those of others 
 with integrity and tact Nor did he neglect the welfare 
 of Hamilton's tenants at Milford. He was capable of 
 limited disinterestedness as well as of true patriotism. His 
 father's death and his brother's accession to estates and 
 title in 1773 reduced his allowance afresh, and all his 
 resource was needed to repair the deficiency. 
 
 Socially a disciple of the old-fashioned Chesterfield, and 
 affecting to fiout the opinion of a world that he was far 
 from despising, politically he was a trimming \Mug, but an 
 unbending supporter of all authority and establishment. 
 He throve on coalitions, and lamented with reason the 
 nearing end of that coalition ministry which was still 
 in power when this chapter opened. 
 
 Such is an epitome of the man who still holds the sm- 
 disami ' Elmily Hart's ' letter in his hands. It is her origin 
 and past that now demand re-investigation. In view of 
 her instinctive independence^ and her native appetite for 
 gloiy, the notion of which grew with her expanding horizon, 
 these tri\-ial beginnings are not unimportant, while some of 
 her cousins played a prominent part in the later scenes of 
 her life. 
 
 Emily (or ' Emy ') Lyon was bom on April 26 in 1765, 
 the year of her baptism, unless, without reason, we are 
 to assume her ill^timacy. The Xeston parish rasters 
 prove the marriage of her parents to have taken place 
 on June il, 1764. The rumours and fictions about bar 
 early advoitures, seemingly requiring a longer space than 
 ho' extreme girlhood affords, have impelled Mr. Jeafiineson 
 and others to antedate her birth by so much as four j^eais. 
 But many references, both in Greville's letters and Hamil- 
 ton's, with other evidence outside them, entirely tally with 
 
 ^ MonisQn M& 123, Sept. irS^ — a letter c^ coodolence on 6>e deaith of the 
 fiist Lady Hanuhao. There are seT<enl instances. In one he traitsed the 
 Rossian Ambassador against boyii^ inferior pictures for which he had his 
 masters tmrtt HsM.i^ ; and then Gte-viUe bought the bet dieaply and gate 
 than to him. 
 
 ' In a letter to Sr miliam Scott, viittea foar months before h» death, and 
 excapted in Soth^y's catakgoe for July S, 1903, occms thb sentence: 
 * . . . Think what I most feel who na^ used to |^ God only knows P>ow 
 much], and now to ask.' 
 
40 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the date that I have assigned.^ She was christened ' Emily ' 
 (of which ' Emy ' and not ' Amy,' as has been alleged, is 
 the contraction), though from the 'Emy' she may in 
 childhood have been called ' Amy ' at times. The copy 
 of the baptismal register sent to Greville is incorrect, as 
 will be seen in the note below. Her marriage register, it is 
 true, is signed ' Amy Lyons ' according to the Marylebone 
 clerk's information, but this again seems a natural mis- 
 reading of her rapid and often indistinct handwriting for 
 ' Emy Lyon.' *. 
 
 Her father was Henry Lyon, ' Smith of Nesse,' and her 
 mother Mary Kidd of Hawarden, Flintshire. In their 
 marriage register both sign by marks, although her mother 
 soon afterwards became 'a scholar.' Her father died at 
 Neston . in the year of her birth ; but there is no vestige 
 of her mother's re-marriage to one ' Doggan ' or ' Doggin,' 
 to which has been attributed her after-name of Mrs. 
 Cadogan from the present period in London to that when 
 she became ' La Signora Madre dell'Ambasciatrice,' and 
 the esteemed friend both of Hamilton and of Nelson. 
 'Emy' has always been described as an only child, but 
 she seems to have had a brother or half-brother, ' Charles.' 
 Thomas Kidd, an old salt and cousin, writing from 
 Greenwich in 1809, to thank for past and beg for future 
 favours, observes : ' I have to inform you that your brother 
 Charles is in Greenwich College and has been here 
 
 ' For the whole subject cf. Note A. of the Appendix. 
 
 * The actual regiiter of baptietn in the parish church of Neslon, copied thi» 
 
 year (1905) by the Vicar, Canon E. C. Turner, is :— 
 ' Emy, dr. of Henry Lyon, Smith of Nch, by Mary his wife. May 12, 1765.' 
 The copy sent to Greville in the aboTe-mentioned letter from ' Emly ' ran j — 
 ' Amy(ly) daughter of Henry Lyon of Ne«s by Mary his wife, bap. tlie 12th 
 
 of May 1765. The above is truly copied from the (J. Neston Uegislc^r by 
 
 R, C&riet, Curate,' 
 Evidently the ' E ' in ' Emy ' resembles nn ' A,' as it does in the Marylebone 
 
 Marriage Register. The ' ly ' is added in another hand, and the moaning is lo 
 
 show its correspondence to her signature in the letter. 
 The marriage register of her parents in the Neston parish book* is : — 
 'Henry Lyon and Mary Kidd, June 11, 1764, by banns, by G. Gardener, 
 
 Curate. 
 
 X the mark of Henry Lyon. 
 X the mark of Mary Kidd.' 
 
The CoTiAGB at Hawarden where Ladv Hamii.tox's grand- 
 mother LIVED, AND where LaDY HaM[I,TOX STAVED 
 IS CHILDHOOD. 
 f'rum a sketch (after a plwtograpli ) by Floretice Holmes. 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES 4« 
 
 aace tt»e 6tli inst';* but I can find no ftnrtfier trace of 
 this 'brotito^,' nor is thefe anytecortl of relatives (m the 
 fi>thor*s side. This Thomas Kidd may well have been the 
 son trf a William Kidd. labourer,* who, as 'widower" in 
 S^traonber 1769 in the Hawarden registos, marrkd one 
 •Maiy Pova.*» And WiUiam Kidd is possibly Lady 
 Hamilton's coostn or uncle, idio was at one time a 
 pnUkan, and who used to ccMnplain that he was * never 
 brought up to work.' If tins be so, som^faing of the 
 paternal strain seems to have descended to the son, wiio, 
 in tiie l^to- just mentioned, excuses his remissness in 
 calBi^ as requested, by the insinuatii^ remark diat 
 'I dedaie my small doaths are scandoloas, and my hat 
 has tike crown part nearly off' ; while he q>eaks piuntedfy 
 of the attritions of a *Mr. Ii^ram,* ^irfio in turn refers to 
 his 'justifiable character' in *His Majesty's service,' 
 and su gge sts diat, since both the porter of the west gate 
 and the ' roasting cook ' of tilie college are infirm and iU, 
 tiiere b a choice of probable fHomotioos awaitii^ him. 
 In after years it was not tteiy hu^ humble kinsiblk, whom 
 ^le never forsook, that were to impcutune Emma fiu' 
 advancements. 
 
 The Kidds were mostly saikns or labourers. Lady 
 Hamitt(m''s grandmother, widi whom in girlhood ^le often 
 stayed, and whom she always cared for and cfamshed, 
 dwelt in one of some thatdied cottages, two of which 
 still remain. Tbat Mary Lyon, met Kidd, was a supeiior 
 woman, is dbown by her after-acquirments. Traditicm 
 associates ho- both with dressmaking and with domestic 
 service. If tradition a^ain is trustworthy, she may have 
 been cook in die houseiioki td Lord Halifiajc, who is 
 abo r^xxted to have educated boUi her and her diild. 
 But L»iy Hamilton herself, writing to Mr. Bowoi of 
 Portman Square (and of Merton>' in 1S02 about Chartotte 
 Xdson's education, declares that her own did not begin t^l 
 sjtMs was sevoateen— diat is to say, under GreviDe's ausp ir ei. 
 
 ^ >knEiie MS. 963. Nov. r. 
 
42 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 I have seen none of her mother's letters before 1800, and it 
 is not improbable that mother and daughter began their 
 education together. She was always an energetic house- 
 keeper and a most resourceful home-physician. Her letters 
 to Emma, to George Rose, and others, are neither ill-worded 
 nor ill-spelt. At Naples and Palermo we shall find her 
 visited by the Queen, The King of Naples was in the 
 December of 1798 to call her an 'angel' for her services 
 during the hurricane attending the royal escape to Palermo,* 
 though he also, if we may trust the Marchioness of Solari, 
 had before dubbed her ' Ruffiana.' « The Duke of Sussex 
 highly esteemed her. Nor can the accomplished Miss 
 Cornelia Knight have found her intolerable, for on the 
 return of Nelson, the Hamiltons, and herself to London 
 after the ill-starred continental tour of 1800, she drove 
 straight ofif and stayed with Mrs. ' Cadogan ' at the hotel 
 in St. James's,* There is no evidence as to how this homely 
 and trustworthy woman came by her grand name. Her 
 second husband, however, may not be a myth ; although the 
 Marchioness of Solari mentions that ' C<7dogan ' was the 
 name by which ' Emma's reputed mother ' caused her to be 
 known at Naples before her marriage ; * and at any rate it 
 is a singular coincidence that Earl Nelson's companion 
 when he went to Calais to fetch Horatia away, after Lady 
 Hamilton's death in 181 5, was to be a Mr. Henry Cadogan, 
 a relation of the late and well-known Mr. Rothery, 
 
 Only two sisters of Emma's mother are generally 
 mentioned. Both of these seem also to have risen above 
 their station. The one married a Mr. John Moore,* after- 
 wards, it would seem, successful in business at Liverpool, 
 but at one time addressed by Emma at the house of a 
 
 ' Morrifon MS. 370. 
 
 " Venice uncUr the Yoke of Prance and Austria, by a Lady of Rank (2 vote., 
 1824). In punning allusion ateo, perhaps, to the rongh but ready Cardinal 
 Rnfib. 
 
 ' Miss C. Knight's Diaries. 
 
 * Venice under the Yoke of France and Autiria, vol. iL p. 66, This is not 
 so, however. She was known as ' Hart ' ; cf, Goethe's Ilalieniiche Reiie, 
 and of. a letter in which she so signs herself at Naples in 1787, excerpted in 
 Sotheby's catalogue for May 17, 1905, and another of May 25, 1787, 
 
 ' In the Hawarden registers is a tnptismal entry of January 15, 1763, ' Thos., 
 son of Eph. and Cath. Moore.' 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES 43 
 
 Mr, Potter in Harley Street. The other was a Mrs. Connor, 
 who had six children, all of them long supported by Lady 
 Hamilton : one of them, Sarah, to be the governess both at 
 Merton and Cranwich, was well educated ; another, Cecilia, 
 became an accomplished singer, and also a (though a less 
 capable) preceptress. Ann, the eldest, and Eliza both rose 
 above their sphere, though they proved most ungrateful ; 
 while Charles, who entered the Navy under Nelson's pro- 
 tection, could write an excellent letter, but unfortunately 
 went mad, for, as Lady Hamilton recorded in a very curious 
 statement r^arding four of them, 'there was madness in 
 the family.' 1 Ann's showed itself in eventually asserting 
 that she was Lady Hamilton's daughter, which she certainly 
 was not; indeed, to her must be traced the ridiculous fiction 
 spread by the chronique scandaleuse of the time that Ann, 
 Eliza, and Charles were Greville's three children. Mary, 
 too, was to be popular, and with all her sisters intimate 
 with the whole Nelson and Hamilton family, as well as 
 with Sir William Hamilton's relations.* 
 
 Lady Hamilton's mother had also a third sister, Ann, 
 who married ' Richard Reynolds, Whitesmith,' in 1774, and 
 whose daughter Sarah (often called ' Reynalds ') also figures 
 as an educated woman, and a beneficiary of her titled 
 cousin, in the Morrison correspondence. She may further 
 have had another brother or cousin, William, an entry 
 regardii^ whom and his wife Mary finds place also in the 
 Hawarden parish books ; and there were also the ' NicoUs,' 
 whom, just before her own bankruptcy, Emma is found 
 continuously maintaining with the rest of her connections.' 
 And finally there remain some traces of a few better-placed 
 family acquaintances, a Mrs. Ladmore and a Mrs. Down- 
 ward.* 
 
 ^ Monison MS. 959, Richmond, October 16, 1808. There are many allu- 
 sions to Charles Connor both in this collection and in the Nektm Letters. 
 
 ^ For these details cf. Morrison MS. passim, and the later chapters of this 
 volmne. These Connors who, nnder that name, or as ' Connah ' or ' Conna,' 
 find no less than twenty-eig^t mentions in the Hawarden r^;isters between 1759 
 and 1765, were possibly the oflfepring of ' Charles and Mary C<Hina of Ferry,' 
 baptisms of whose children nnder the names Mary, Charles, and Eliza appear in 
 these records. 
 
 ' Cf^ post, chap. xiv. 
 
 * Cf. Morrison MS. 127, July 1784. 
 
44 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 When we remember the clever, lively letters that remain 
 of this Connor family, their artistic temperaments, and the 
 way in which they were treated and received, the fairy-tale 
 of Lady Hamilton's conquest over circumstance seems to 
 have extended also to her relations. 
 
 Nothing can be proved of Emma's childhood but that it 
 was passed at Hawarden in extreme poverty, that she was 
 a madcap,! and that she blossomed early and fairly into 
 stature and ripeness beyond her age. At sixteen (or per- 
 haps thirteen) she was already a grown woman, which ex- 
 plains the puzzled Greville's inquiry for the register of her 
 baptism. The most ridiculous romances were spread during 
 her lifetime and after it. Hairbreadth escapes and Family 
 Herald love-stories, regardless of facts or dates, adorn the 
 pages of a novel published in the fifties, and professing to 
 be circumstantial ; 2 while Alexandre Dumas has em- 
 broidered his Souvenirs d'Une Favorite with all the wild 
 scandals of a teeming imagination. The earliest certainty 
 is that at some thirteen years of age she entered the service 
 of Mr, Thomas of Hawarden, the father of a London 
 physician, and brother-in-law of the famous art patron, 
 Alderman Boydell of London. Miss Thomas was the first 
 to sketch Emma while she was their nurse-maid. The 
 drawing survives at Hawarden, and the Thomases always 
 remained her friends. Whether it is possible that the 
 roving Romney may have seen her there must be left to 
 fancy. It is at least a curious fact that she came so early 
 into indirect touch with art. The loose rumour ascribing 
 her departure from Hawarden to the severity of her first 
 master or mistress is entirely without foundation. A far 
 more probable conjecture is that she left Hawarden for 
 London because her mother left also. As is evident from 
 the letter to Greville, already quoted, as well as from 
 Greville's answer, which will soon follow, Mrs. ' Cadogan ' 
 was already in some London situation known to and 
 approved of by Greville. 
 
 > Morrison MS. 126, June 22, 1784. 'She \i.e. little Emma] n a* wild and 
 thoughtless as somebody when she was a little girl ; so you may guess how 
 that is.' 
 
 " Nelson's Legacy. 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES 45 
 
 About the end, then, of 1779 or the beginning of 1780, 
 when Emma was some fifteen years of age, she repaired 
 with her mother to the capital ; and there seems little 
 doubt that she found employment with Dr. Budd, a surgeon 
 of repute, at Chatham Place, near St. James's Market.^ A 
 comrade with her in this service was the talented and 
 refined woman afterwards famed as the actress, Jane 
 Powell, who is not to be confused with the older Harriet 
 Powell, eventually Lady Seaforth. When Sir William and 
 Lady Hamilton returned home in 1800, they attended a 
 performance at Drury Lane, where Emma and her old 
 fellow-servant were the cynosure of an audience ignorant 
 of their former association. When Lady Hamilton was at 
 Southend in the late summer of 1803 she again met her 
 quondam colleague. Pettigrew possessed and quoted a nice 
 letter from her on this occasion.^ It is assuredly not 
 among the least of the many marvels attending Emma's 
 progress that an eminent surgeon should have harboured 
 two such belles in his area. 
 
 And now Apocrypha is renewed. Gossip has it that she 
 served in a shop ; that she became parlour-maid elsewhere, 
 and afterwards the risky ' companion ' of a vicious ' Lady of 
 Quality ' ; that she had before entered the service of Mr. 
 Lindley, the manager of Drury Lane,* and even that for a 
 space afterwards she ran the gauntlet of degradation. All 
 that can be said is that not a shred of proof exists for 
 these assertions, and that so many events could scarcely 
 have been crowded into the period before 1781 when 
 something like history begins. The Prince Regent, who 
 
 ' Pettigiew had known Dr. Budd, and his baditions in this regard must be 
 respected. 
 
 * Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 594. It runs as follows : — 
 
 ' Southend. Dear Lady Hamilton, — I cannot forbear writing a line to inform 
 your Ladyship I am at this place, and to tell you how much your absence is 
 r^retted by all ranks of people. Would to Heaven you were here to enliven 
 this at present dull scene. I have performed one night, and have promised to 
 play six, but unless the houses are better, must decline it. Please to remember 
 me most kindly to your mother and every one at Merton. — I am, dear Lady 
 Hamilton, your oblig'd Jane Poweix.' 
 
 ' Internal evidence, however, favours some association with the theatre. Her 
 language horn the first was that of plays, and to the last she was passionately 
 fond of them. 
 
4<S EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 was years afterwards to admire and be repulsed by her, 
 used to declare that he recollected her selling fruit with 
 wooden pattens on her feet ; ^ but he also used to insist, it 
 must be recollected, on his own (iresence at the battle 
 of Waterloo. About these canards there is no certainty 
 and little reason. What underlies them all is that she was 
 miserably poor ; but it scarcely follows that she wnn vicious. 
 On the contrary, writing to Romney after her marriapc, in 
 a letter which seems to imply that she had known him even 
 before her acquaintance with Grevillc, Lady Hamilton thus 
 recalls her past : ' You have seen and discoursed with me 
 in my poorer days, you have known me in my poverty 
 and prosperity, and I had no occasion to have lived for 
 years in poverty and distress, if I had not felt .something of 
 virtue in my mind. Oh, my dear friend, for a time I own 
 through distress my virtue was vanqui-shed, but my 8en.<ic 
 of virtue was not overcome' ' Some three years earlier, 
 when she had insisted on accompanying Sir William 
 on a shooting expedition, her answer to his remon- 
 strances about hardship wan that for years she had been 
 accustomed to rough lodging. We may dismiss from 
 our minds therefore all the prevalent twaddle of 'guilty 
 splendour.' 
 
 But probably about the spring of 1781 — when she was 
 only sixteen — she did yield to the false allurements of a 
 lover. It must be remembered that she was already so 
 beautiful that passers-by in the street turned, spellbound, 
 to look at her, though in years she was almost a child. 
 The name of her betrayer has been constantly and 
 circumstantially given as that of Captain, afterwards 
 Rear-Admiral, John Willet-Payne, man of fashion, member 
 of Parliament, and eventually treasurer of Greenwich Hospi- 
 tal. Tradition has added that she first encountered him in a 
 bold attempt to rescue a cousin from being impressed into 
 the service. This may or may not be. The only possible 
 though doubtful sidelight on uncontradicted rumour exists 
 in an unnoticed letter from Nelson of 1801. This letter 
 was occasioned by a remarkable episode to be detailed 
 
 ' Memoirs of Madame Le Bruti. 
 
 '^ Morri»on MS. igg, (MHcrla, I;econ:iber ao, 1701. 
 
S?n^^7iayj3^^7/?y<-2aa^ii^!a'^n6Mff^zy 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES 47 
 
 hereafter,' and it proves that she had confided a great 
 part of her past to her hero : ' That other chap did throw 
 away the most precious jewel that God ever sent on 
 this earth.' ^ This can hardly refer to Fetherstonehaugh, 
 who will shortly cross the scene, since he emerges friendly 
 and even respectful in later years.* 
 
 Her relations with the Captain can scarcely have lasted 
 more than about two months. If she was his Ariadne, he 
 sailed away in haste, nor does he darken her path again. 
 It was perhaps on his sudden departure that this lonely 
 girl fell in with Dr. Graham, the empiric and showman. 
 How she met him is unknown : that he was anything to 
 her but an employer has never been suggested ; that he 
 ever employed her at all rests merely on a story, so 
 accredited by Pettigrew, who had known several of her 
 early contemporaries, that one can hardly doubt it. The 
 sole evidence that she ever ' posed ' for him is to be found 
 in Greville's reply to Emma's appeal already cited : in it 
 Greville speaks of the last time you came to ' G.,' which 
 Mr. Jeaffreson guesses to mean ' Graham.' It may, however, 
 at once be noted that his living advertisement of the 
 goddess of health and beauty, ' Hebe Vestina,' did not 
 figure in his museum of specifics until 1782, when he had 
 removed from the Adelphi to Pall Mall, and had there 
 opened his ' Temple of Hymen ' in the eastern part of 
 Schomberg House, the western side of which had been 
 leased to Gainsborough by the eccentric artist and 
 adventurer. Jack Astley.* The strong probability is that 
 Emma was first engaged by him as a singer in those 
 miniature mock-oratorios and cantatas, composed by him- 
 self, which played such a part in his miscellany, and were 
 supposed to attune the souls of the faithful ; while her 
 expressive beauty may have soon tempted him to exhibit 
 her as the draped statue of ' Hygeia,' or Goddess of Health, 
 though certainly not as his later tableau vivant of ' Hebe 
 Vestina.' 
 
 ' Chapter xii. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 539, March 6, ' at night,' 1801. 
 
 ' It however more probably applies to Greville. Cf. post, chap. xii. 
 
 * Cf. a curious satire, // Convito Amoroso, etc. London, 1782. 
 
48 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Dr. Graham was no common impostor. He belongs to 
 the class of charlatan that unites pseudo-mysticism and 
 pseudo-piety to real skill — in short, a High Priest of Pom- 
 peian Isis. He was no mere conjurer ; he effected genuine 
 cures besides dealing in quack remedies. At this time he 
 was about forty years of age. He may have qualified in 
 Edinburgh University; he had certainly travelled in France 
 and America, and received testimonials from personages at 
 home and abroad. He knew his classics, which he quoted 
 profusely in those curious ' lectures ' combining puff with 
 literary, satirical, scriptural, philanthropic, and scientific 
 allusion. His brother had married the 'historian,' Mrs. 
 Catharine Macaulay, who often figures in his florid 
 catalogues of cures. That authoress is depicted in mezzo- 
 tints as a sickly-looking lady, pen in hand, with a row 
 of her volumes before her, trying apparently to draw 
 inspiration from the ceiling. He was never tired of assuring 
 the public that she was own sister to ' Mr. John Saw- 
 bridge, M.P. for London,' He posed as a sort of prayerful 
 alchemist, eradicating and healing at once the causes of 
 vice, and its consequences. His advertisements are a queer 
 union of cant earnestness, travestied truth, sensible non- 
 sense, humour and the lack of it, effrontery and belief — 
 especially in himself After he had closed his costly and 
 ruinous London exhibitions, he turned 'Christian Philo- 
 sopher' at Bath and Newcastle, anticipated the modern 
 open-air cure, ' paraphrased ' the Lord's Prayer for the 
 public, the Book of Wisdom for the Prince of Wales, and 
 hastened to lay on the pillow of the suffering George ill. 
 one of his numerous 'prayers.' His speciality in 1780 (and 
 throughout his career) was the then derided but now 
 accepted electricity^ and mud-baths. By their means he 
 claimed to restore and preserve beauty, to prolong exist- 
 ence, to enable a decayed generation to repair its losses 
 by a vigorous, comely, and healthful progeny. He had 
 opened a pinchbeck palace enriched with symbolical paint- 
 ings, gilt statues, and coloured windows, where up to ten 
 
 1 This was also a hobby of Sir W. Hamilton's. Cf. Morrison MS. 60, ^yhe^e 
 in December 1775 he exhibits 'electric experiments' before their Sicilian 
 Majesties. 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES 49 
 
 o'clock nightly he advertised his wares to the sound of sweet 
 music, in his ' Temple of ^sculapius ' at the Royal Terrace, 
 Adelphi. His pamphlets, sermons, hymns, exhortations, 
 and satires, were rained on the town.^ In one of these 
 pieces of fulsome rMame he describes his museum of elixirs 
 as Emma may have viewed it in 1780 or 1781. Over the 
 porch stood the inscription 'Templum ^sculapio Sacrum.' 
 There were three gorgeously decorated rooms with galleries 
 above, and pictures of heroes and kings, including Alfred 
 the Great. Crystal glass pillars enshrined the costly 
 electrical apparatus for reviving youth and strength. The 
 third chamber was the tinsel ' Temple of Apollo ' with its 
 magnetic ' celestial bed,' with its gilt dragons, overarching 
 ' Pavilion,' and inscription, ' Dolorifica res est si quis homo 
 dives nullum habet domi suae successorem.' ' But on the 
 right of the Temple,' he says, ' is strikingly seen a beauti- 
 ful figure of Fecundity,' holding her cornucopia and sur- 
 rounded by reclining children ; and above all, an ' electric ' 
 ' celestial glory,' which, mellowed by the stained windows, 
 shed a dim and solemn light. Strains of majestic melody 
 filled the air ; and here also were sold his ' Nervous Balsam ' 
 and ' Electrical .(Ether ' ; while in the mornings this reverse 
 of 'seraphic' doctor punctually attended consultations in 
 the dwelling-rooms adjoining.^ 
 
 Whether such ambrosial tomfoolery yielded Emma a 
 livelihood regularly or intermittently, and whether before 
 she loved Willet-Payne or after, remains doubtful ; the 
 latter is more probable. The blatant novelty-monger 
 offered prizes for emblematic pictures, and it is possible 
 that Tresham, or even his friend Romney, might have been 
 pressed into his service. It may well be, too, that here the 
 young blood and baronet. Sir Henry Fetherstonehaugh, 
 became her admirer.* As we see him in his letters some 
 thirty years afterwards, this worthy appears as a silly old 
 
 ' Most of these I have read. For the whole subject cf. Appendix, Note B. 
 
 ' ' A Sketch or short description of Dr. Graham's Medical Apparatus, erected 
 about the beginning of the year 1780 in his house on the Royal Terrace, Adelphi, 
 in London, 1780.' 
 
 ^ He may also have been the riotous 'Sir Harry' on the grand tour, whom 
 Hamilton had to extricate from scrapes at Naples in the spring of 1777. Cf. 
 Morrison MS. 81. 
 
 D 
 
so EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 beau and sportsman, indulging in compliments pompous as 
 his political reflections, and interlarding his correspondence 
 with superfluous French. In his old age he educated and 
 married a most worthy peasant girl, and brought her sister 
 (also educated in France) to reside with them at Up Park, 
 while from Lady Fetherstonehaugh the estate passed into 
 that sister's possession.^ 
 
 Up Park (like Willet-Payne) was fraught with dreams of 
 the fleet, for from its lofty position on the steep Sussex 
 Downs it commands a prospect of Portsmouth and the 
 Isle of Wight. Here this erring and struggling girl for a 
 very brief space in 1781 became the mistress of the mansion 
 and its roystering owner, both Nimrod and Macaroni. 
 Here she ' witched the world with noble horsemanship,' for 
 she was always a fearless rider. Here, among rakes, she 
 could not rest, as she sighed for the artistic admiration 
 which her tableau vivant in the Adelphi had already aroused 
 among clever Bohemians. Here, perhaps in despair, she 
 became so reckless and capricious, so hopeless of that peace 
 of mind and happy innocence ^ which, ten years later, she 
 joyfully assured Romney had been restored to her by 
 marriage, that she was ejected and cast adrift at the very 
 rtioment when she found herself soon to become a mother. 
 That she was ' a girl in reall distres ' for the first time (and 
 not, as has often been presumed, for the second) will be 
 shown when we come to 'little Emma,' and it is here 
 evidenced by her entreaty that Greville would spare her 
 mother any knowledge of this fresh and crushing blow. 
 
 At Up Park, most probably, Greville had first met her 
 in the autumn of 1 781, on one of those shooting-parties in 
 great houses which he always frequented more from fashion 
 than amusement. She had doubtless contrasted him 
 with Sir Harry's stupid and commonplace acquaintances. 
 Greville always took real interest in people who interested 
 him at all, and at least he never acted below his profes- 
 sions. He was nobly bred, considerate, and composed ; he 
 was good-looking, prudent, and ever liberal — in advice. No 
 
 1 From information kindly given by the veteran Admiral Sir E. G. 
 Fanshawe. 
 ' Morrison MS. 199. The letter is quoted /«/, chap. vi. 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES 51 
 
 wonder that his condescension seemed ideal to this girl of 
 sixteen, who had lost yet coveted self-respect; who had al- 
 ready suffered from degrading experience, and yet had ever 
 ' felt something of virtue ' in her ' mind.' He had afterwards 
 (as his letter will show) befriended and scolded her head- 
 strong sallies, though his warnings must have passed un- 
 heeded. On her retirement in disgrace and despair to her 
 loving grandmother at Hawarden, he doubtless gave her the 
 franked and addressed papers enabling her to communicate 
 with him should need compel her. Just as evidently, she 
 had written and been touched with the kind tone of his 
 answer. It seems obvious also from Greville's coming 
 reply that, as was her way, she would neither cajole Sir 
 Harry into renewed favour nor be dependent on anything 
 but sincere kindness. But at last she was trembling on 
 a precipice from the brink of which she besought him to 
 rescue her. 
 
 To him and to Fetherstonehaugh she was known as 
 Emily Hart ; nor, in spite of Greville's advice, would she, 
 or did she, change that name till her wedding. Whence 
 it was assumed is unknown. In the Harvey family there 
 lingered a tradition that 'Emma Hart' was born at South- 
 well, near Biggleswade, and with her mother had served 
 at Ickwell Bury, where she was first seen and painted by 
 Romney. But this is wholly unfounded, though Romney 
 appears to have painted portraits in that house, and it is 
 curious that, about forty years ago, one Robert Hart — still 
 living — was a butler in their service and professed to be 
 in some way related to Lady Hamilton.^ A guess might 
 be hazarded that ' Hart ' was derived from the musician of 
 that name who visited Hamilton's house at Naples in 1786 
 as her old acquaintance. Not one of the parish registers 
 offers any solution through the names of her kindred. The 
 ' Emily ' became Emma through the artists and the poets, 
 through Romney and Hayley. 
 
 It is ' Emly Hart's ' pleading and pathetic note, then, that 
 
 ' Through Miss Harvey's kindness I communicated with him, but without 
 success. If the Lord Halifax legend had the least likelihood it might be fancied 
 that ' Harte,' Chesterfield's poet and philosopher, suggested the nom-de-mishre. 
 
52 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Charles Greville still holds in his fastidious hands on this 
 winter morning. With a glance at the recovered monkey 
 and the repaired Venus, and possibly with a pang at the 
 thought of the plight to which this ' piece of modern virtu ' ^ 
 was reduced, he sits down most deliberately to compose his 
 answer. How deliberately, is shown by the fact that of 
 this letter he kept a ' pressed copy ' done in the ink just 
 invented by James Watt ; it was a minute of semi-ofiGcial 
 importance. The letter is long, and extracts will suffice ; it 
 will be gathered that he was more prig than profligate, and 
 he had evidently formed the delightful design of being her 
 mentor : — 
 
 ' My dear Emily, — I do not make apologies for Sir H.'s 
 behaviour to you, and altho' I advised you to deserve his 
 esteem by your good conduct, I own I never expected 
 better from him. It was your duty to deserve good treat- 
 ment, and it gave me great concern to see you imprudent 
 the first time you came to G., from the country, as the same 
 conduct was repeated when you was last in town, I began 
 to despair of your happiness. To prove to you that I do 
 not accuse you falsely, I only mention five guineas and half 
 a guinea for coach. But, my dear Emily, as you seem 
 quite miserable now, I do not mean to give you uneasiness, 
 but comfort, and tell you that I will forget your faults and 
 bad conduct to Sir H. and myself, and will not repent my 
 good humor if I find that you have learned by experience 
 to value yourself, and endeavor to preserve your friends 
 by good conduct and affection. I will now answer your 
 last letter. You tell me you think your friends look cooly 
 on you, it is therefore time to leave them : but it is necessary 
 for you to decide some points before you come to town. 
 You are sensible that for the next three months your situa- 
 tion will not admit of a giddy life, if you wished it. . . . 
 After you have told me that Sir H. gave you barely money 
 to get to your friends, and has never answered one letter 
 since, and neither provides for you nor takes any notice of 
 you, it might appear laughing at you to advise you to make 
 Sir H. more kind and attentive. I do not think a great 
 
 I Morrison MS. 136, March 10, 17.85. On April 3rd of the ye^r 1781 he had 
 written to his uncle, ' I go on, more bit by virtu than ever.' 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES S3 
 
 deal of time should be lost, for I have never seen a woman 
 clever enough to keep a man who was tired of her. But it 
 is a great deal more for me to advise you never to see him 
 again, and to write only to inform him of your determina- 
 tion. You must, however, do either the one or the other. . . . 
 You may easily see, my dearest Emily, why it is absolutely 
 necessary for this point to be completely settled before I 
 can move one step. If you love Sir H. you should not give 
 him up. . . . But besides this, my Emily, I would not be 
 troubled with your connexions (excepting your mother) 
 and with Sir H.('s) friends for the universe. My advice 
 then is to take a steady resolution. ... I shall then be free 
 to dry up the tears of my lovely Emily and to give her 
 comfort. If you do not forfeit my esteem perhaps my 
 Emily may be happy. You know I have been so by avoid- 
 ing the vexation which frequently arises from ingratitude 
 and caprice. Nothing but your letter and your distress 
 could incline me to alter my system, but remember I 
 never will give up my peace, or continue my connexion 
 one moment after my confidence is betray'd. If you 
 should come to town and take my advice . . . You should 
 part with your maid and take another name. By degrees 
 I would get you a new set of acquaintances, and by keeping 
 your own secret, and no one about you having it in their 
 power to betray you, I may expect to see you respected 
 and admired. Thus far as relates to yourself. As to the 
 child ... its mother shall obtain it kindness from me, and 
 It shall never want. I inclose you some money ; do not 
 throw it away. You may send some presents when you 
 arrive in town, but do not be on the road without some 
 money to spare in case you should be fatigued and wish to 
 take your time. I will send Sophy ^ anything she wishes 
 for. . . . God bless you, my dearest lovely girl ; take your 
 determination and let me hear from you once more. Adieu, 
 my dear Emily.' ^ 
 
 ' A sister or a friend? There exists an engraving which is styled 'Lady 
 Hamilton and her sister.' They are dancing the Tarantella. But her com- 
 panion is probably Mrs. Grafer, or ' Giulia,' or one of the innumerable dependants 
 on Sir William, often mentioned by Nelson. 
 
 " Morrison MS. 114, January 10, 1782. 
 
54 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 And with this salutation Greville folds his paper with 
 precision and addresses it, in the complacent belief that 
 it is irresistible. Truly an impeccable shepherd of lost 
 sheep, a prodigious preacher to runagates continuing in 
 scarceness ; a Mr. Barlow- Rochester with a vengeance ! 
 And yet real goodwill underlies the guardedness of his 
 disrespectable sermon. As, however, he sinks back in his 
 chair, and plumes himself on the communique, it never 
 strikes him for an instant that this wild and unfortunate 
 girl is quite capable of distancing her tutor and of swaying 
 larger destinies than his. His main and constant object 
 was never to appear ridiculous. So absurd a forecast 
 would have irretrievably grotesqued him in his own eyes 
 and in those of his friends. His attitude towards women 
 appears best from his reflections nearly five years later, 
 which read like a page of La Rochefoucauld tied up 
 with red tape : — 
 
 '. . . With women, I observe they have only resource 
 in Art, and there is to them no interval between plain 
 ground and the precipice ; and the springs of action are 
 so much in the extreme of sublime and low, that no 
 absolute dependence can be given by men. It is for this 
 reason I always have anticipated cases to prepare their 
 mind to reasonable conduct, and it will always have its 
 impression, altho' they will fly at the mere mention of 
 truth if it either hurts their pride or their intrest, and 
 the latter has much more rarely weight with a young 
 woman than the former ; and therefore it is like playing a 
 trout to keep up pride to make them despise meaness, and 
 not to retain the bombast which would render the man who 
 gave way to it the air of a dupe and a fool. It requires 
 much conduct to steer properly, but it is to be done when 
 a person is handsome, and has a good heart ; but to do it 
 without hurting their feelings requires constant attention ^ it 
 is not in the moment of irritation or passion that advice has 
 effect; it is in the moment of reason and good nature. It 
 reduces itself to simple subjects ; and when a woman 
 can\notf\ see more than one alternative of comfort or despair y 
 of attention and desertion, they can take a line.' ^ 
 1 Morrison MS. 156, November (?) 1786. 
 
THE CURTAIN RISES 55 
 
 Thus Greville — the prudent psychologist of womankind 
 and the nice moralist of the immoral. His metaphor of 
 the ' trout' must have appealed to that keen fisherman, his 
 ' dear Hamilton.' Greville angled for ' disinterested ' hearts 
 with a supple rod. His ' system ' was to attach friend- 
 ship rather than to rivet affection ; to ' play ' a woman's 
 heart in the quick stream of credulous emotion past the 
 perilous eddies of headlong impulse with the bait of self- 
 esteem, till it could be safely landed in a basket, to be 
 afterwards transferred for the fish's own benefit to a friend. 
 If the trout refused thus to be landed, it must be dropped 
 into the depths of its own froward will ; but the sportsman 
 could at least console himself by the thought that, as 
 sportsman, he had done his duty and observed the rules of 
 his game. Greville was already contemplating a less expen- 
 sive shrine for his minerals and old masters. Air fresher 
 than that of Portman Square ^ might agree better with the 
 monkey, and a light purse proverbially makes a heavy heart. 
 
 He must be left calculating his chances, while his 
 Dulcinea books places in the Chester coach, weeps for 
 joy, and kisses her Don Quixote's billet with impetuous 
 gratitude. 
 
 1 In September 1784 he wrote to Hamilton, ' I have my house yet on my 
 hands.' — Morrison MS. 121. He was not quit of it till the close of 1784. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 'THE FAIR TEA- MAKER OF EDGWARE ROW' 
 
 March 1782 — August 1784 
 
 A GIRLISH voice, fresh as the spring morning on Padding- 
 ton Green outside, with its rim of tall elms, and clear as 
 the warbling of their birds, rings out through the open 
 window with its bright burden of 'Banish sorrow until 
 to-morrow.'^ The music-master has just passed through 
 the little garden-wicket, the benefactor will soon return 
 from town, and fond Emma will please him by her 
 progress. Nature smiles without and within ; ' Mrs. 
 Cadogan ' bustles over the spring-cleaning below, and to- 
 morrow the radiant housewife will take her shilling's- 
 worth of hackney coach as far as Romney's studio in 
 Cavendish Square. She is very happy ; it is almost as 
 if she were a young bride; perchance, who knows, one 
 day she may be Greville's wife. In her heart she is so 
 now ; and yet at times that hateful past will haunt her. 
 It shall be buried with the winter ; ' I will have it so,' 
 as she was to write but two years later.^ And is it not 
 
 ' Spring-time, the only pretty ring time. 
 When birds do sing hey ding a-ding a-ding ' ? 
 
 Edgware Row a hundred and twenty-three years ago 
 was the reverse of what it looks to-day. Its site, now a 
 network of slums, was then a country prospect. It 
 fronted the green sward of a common, abutting on the 
 
 ^ This was one of the songs that Emma brought with her to Naples. Cf. 
 Nelson Letters, ii. p. 139. 
 2 Morrison MS. 128, July 3, 1784. 
 56 
 
Paddington Green and Church. 
 
 From an old print. 
 
•THE FAIR TEA-MAKER' 57 
 
 inclosure of a quaint old church,^ in a vault of which, 
 when the crowning blow fell, Lady Hamilton was to lay 
 the remains of her devoted mother. That church had 
 for many years been associated with artists, singers, and 
 musicians, British and foreign. Here in March 1733 the 
 apprentice Hogarth had wedded Jane Thornhill, his 
 master's daughter. Here lay buried Matthew Dubourg, 
 the court violinist ; and Emma could still read his 
 epitaph : — 
 
 ' Tho' sweet as Orpheus thou couldst bring 
 Soft pleadings from the trembling string, 
 Unmoved the King of Terror stands 
 Nor owns the magic of thy hands.' 
 
 Here, too, lay buried George Barret, ' an eminent painter 
 and worthy man.' Here later were to lie Lolli, the 
 violinist; the artists Schiavonetti and Sandby; Nollekens 
 and Banks the sculptors ; Alexander Geddes the scholar ; 
 Merlin the mechanic ; Caleb Whiteford the wine-merchant 
 wit; and his great patron, John Henry Petty, Marquis 
 of Lansdowne, who ^descends to history as the Earl of 
 Shelburne. Here once resided the charitable Denis Chirac, 
 jeweller to Queen Anne. Here, too, were voluntary 
 schools and the lying-in hospital. The canal, meander- 
 ing as far as Bolingbroke's Hayes in one direction, and 
 Lady Sarah Child's Norwood in the other, was not finished 
 till 1801, when Lady Hamilton may have witnessed its 
 opening ceremony. 
 
 Greville, still saddled with his town abode, at once econo- 
 mised. The Edgware Row establishment was modest in 
 both senses of the word. He brought reputable friends to 
 the house, and a few neighbouring ladies seem to have 
 called. The household expenses did not exceed some ;^ioo 
 a year. Emma's own yearly allowance was only about £^0, 
 and she lived well within it. Her mother was a clever 
 manager, whose services the thrifty prodigal appreciated. 
 The existing household accounts in Emma's handwriting 
 only start in 1784, but from them some idea may be 
 
 ' Replaced in 1787 by the present structure. 
 
58 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 formed of what they were in the two years preceding. 
 They belong to the Hamilton papers inherited by Greville 
 in 1803, and they were evidently deemed worthy of preser- 
 vation both by nephew and uncle ; here is a specimen : — 
 
 Emma 
 
 Hart. The Day Account Book. 
 
 Oct, 25 
 
 , 1784. 
 
 
 
 Money paid, etc. 
 
 
 27th 
 
 Oct. 
 
 Baker's bill, one week, . £,0 
 
 4 II 
 
 }f 
 
 »> 
 
 Butter bill, one week, 
 
 
 
 
 S I 
 
 )i 
 
 )) 
 
 Butcher, .... 
 
 
 
 
 7 8i 
 
 >i 
 
 1) 
 
 Wood, 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 28th 
 
 9} 
 
 Pidgeons, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 29th 
 
 )l 
 
 Mold candles, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 3 
 
 )) 
 
 » 
 
 Gloves, 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 6 
 
 )) 
 
 1) 
 
 Letters, 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 )i 
 
 }) 
 
 Coach, 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 )» 
 
 )i 
 
 Apples, 
 
 
 
 
 
 2\ 
 
 i> 
 
 » 
 
 Poor man, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 o\ 
 
 )> 
 
 » 
 
 Mangle, 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 30th 
 
 It 
 
 Tea, . . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 ii 
 
 It 
 
 Sugar, 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 9 
 
 a 
 
 tt 
 
 Butcher, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 S 4 
 
 »» 
 
 » 
 
 Scotch gaize. 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 31st 
 
 )) 
 
 Porter, 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 )) 
 
 )) 
 
 Eggs, 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 I St Nov, 
 
 Magazines, 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 » 
 
 » 
 
 Cotton and needles, 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 }) 
 
 II 
 
 Coach, 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 » 
 
 II 
 
 Baker's bill. 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 II 
 
 M 
 
 1) 
 
 Butter bill, 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 n 
 
 11 
 
 Milk, 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 3 
 
 99 
 
 11 
 
 Gardener, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 2nd 
 
 II 
 
 Butcher, 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 6 
 
 7i 
 
 II 
 
 I Sack of coals, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 6 
 
 )> 
 
 II 
 
 Oysters, 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 )) 
 
 II 
 
 Porter, 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 J) 
 
 II 
 
 Eggs, 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 it 
 
 II 
 
 Handkerchiefs, . 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 10 
 
 ft 
 
 II 
 
 Stockings, , 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 10 
 
 3rd 
 
 II 
 
 Mrs. Hackwood, 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 12 61 
 
 Cf. Morrison MS., Appendix A. 
 
•THE FAIR T?;A-MAKER ' 59 
 
 The ^Poor Man \d! is a pretty touch, and Greville must 
 have scolded her for it, as it does not recur ; * Mrs. Hack- 
 wood ' was her milliner, and continued to be so throughout 
 the coming Neapolitan days. It is clear from these 
 accounts that all was now ' retrenchment and reform ' ; that 
 all was not plenty, is equally apparent. But Emma was 
 more than satisfied with her lot. Had not her knight- 
 errant (or erring) dropped from heaven? From the first 
 she regarded him as a superior being, and by 1784 she 
 came to love him with intense tenderness ; indeed she 
 idealised him as much as others were afterwards to idealise 
 her. All was not yet, however, wholly peace. Her char- 
 acter was far from being ideal, quite apart from the cir- 
 cumstances which, by comparison, she viewed as almost 
 conjugal. Her petulant temper remained unquelled long 
 after her tamer undertook to ' break it in,' and there were 
 already occasional ' scenes ' against her own interest. Yet 
 how soon and warm-heartedly she repented may be gathered 
 from her letters two years onwards, when she was sea- 
 bathing at Park Gate : ' So, my dearest Greville,' pleads 
 one of them, ' don't think on my past follies, think on my 
 good, little as it has been.' And, before, 'Oh ! Greville, when 
 I think on your goodness, your tender kindness, my heart 
 is so full of gratitude that I want words to express it. But 
 I have one happiness in vew, which I am determined to 
 practice, and that is eveness of temper and stead[i]ness of 
 mind. For endead I have thought so much of your amiable 
 goodness when you have been tried to the utmost, that I 
 will, endead I will manege myself, and try to be like 
 Greville [!]. Endead I can never be like him. But I will 
 do all I can towards it, and I am sure you will not desire 
 more. I think if the time would come over again, I would 
 be differant. But it does not matter. There is nothing 
 like bying expearance. I may be happyer for it hereafter, 
 and I will think of the time coming and not of the past, 
 except to make comparrasons, to shew you what alterations 
 there is for the best. . . . O Greville! think on me with 
 kindness! Think on how many happy days weeks and 
 years — I hope — we may yett pass. . . . And endead, did 
 you but know how much I love you, you wou'd freely for- 
 
6o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 give me any passed quarrels. For I now suffer from them, 
 and one line from you wou'd make me happy. . . ■ But 
 how am I to make you amends ? . . . I will try, I will do 
 my utmost; and I can only regrett that fortune will not 
 put it in my power to make a return for all the kindness 
 and goodness you have showed me.' ^ 
 
 Conscious of growing gifts, she had chafed by fits and 
 starts at the seclusion of her home — for home it was to 
 her, in her own words, ' though never so homely.' On one 
 occasion (noted by Pettigrew and John Romney too sub- 
 stantially to admit of its being fiction)^ Greville took her to 
 Ranelagh, and was annoyed by her bursting into song 
 before an applauding crowd. His displeasure so affected 
 her that on her return she doffed her finery, donned the 
 plainest attire, and, weeping, entreated him to retain her 
 thus or be quit of her. This episode was the source of 
 Romney's picture ' The Seamstress.' * 
 
 The accounts omit any mention of amusements, and it 
 must have been Greville alone who (rarely) treated her. 
 She may have seen ' Coxe's Museum,' and the ' balloonists ' 
 Lunardi and Sheldon, the Italian at the Pantheon, the 
 Briton in Foley Gardens.* She may have been present, too, 
 when in the new ' Marylebone Gardens ' Signor Torre gave 
 one of his firework displays of Mount Etna in eruption.^ 
 If so, how odd must she afterwards have thought it, that 
 her husband was to be the leading authority on Italian and 
 Sicilian volcanoes ! But what at once amazed Greville — 
 the paragon of nil admirari — was the transformation that 
 she seriously set herself to achieve, ' She does not,' observed 
 this economist of ease three years later, 'wish for much 
 society, but to retain two or three creditable acquaintances 
 in the neighbourhood she has avoided every appearance of 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 126, June 25, 1784. 
 
 2 They are confirmed by a passage in one of Greville's letters immediately to 
 be quoted, and which I have there italicised. 
 
 ' Pettigrew (p. 600) says, ' in a plain cottage dress.' John Romney in his 
 Life sa^s that she robed herself as 'a lady's maid,' and told Romney of the 
 Ranelagh incident. If the costume were really a lady's maid's, this would 
 account for Romney's portrait of her in that character, which may have given 
 rise to the Ickwell Bury tradition, 
 
 * Morrison MS. 131. " Lysons's Environs of London, 'Marylebone.' 
 
'THE FAIR TEA-MAKER' 6i 
 
 giddiness, and prides herself on the neatness of her person 
 and the good order of her house; these are habits,' he 
 comments, ' both comfortable and convenient to me. She 
 has vanity and likes admiration ; but she connects it 
 so much with her desire of appearing prudent, that she is 
 more plea£ d with accidental admiration than that of crowds 
 which now distress her. In short, this habit, of three or four 
 years' acquiring, is not a caprice, but is easily to be con- 
 tinued. . , .' ^ ' She never has wished for an improper 
 acquaintance,' he adds a month later. 'She has dropt 
 everyone she thought I could except against, and those of 
 her own choice have been in a line of prudence and plain- 
 ness which, tho' I might have wished for, I could not have 
 proposed to confine her [to].' * 
 
 Among the 'reputable' acquaintances were his brother 
 and future executor, Colonel the Honourable Robert Fulke- 
 Greville, some of his kinsmen the Cathcarts, a Colonel 
 Hartley who was to remain friendly in Naples, the 
 Honourable Heneage Legge, whom we shall find meeting 
 her just before her marriage, and oftener the artist Gavin 
 Hatlciilton, Sir William's namesake and kinsman, who at 
 once put Emma on his ' list of favourites,' reminding him, 
 as she did, of a Roman beauty that he had once known, but 
 superior to her, he said, in the lines of her beautiful and 
 uncommon mouth.^ Her main recreation, besides her study 
 to educate herself,* were those continual visits to Romney, 
 which indeed assisted it. His Diaries contain almost three 
 hundred records of ' Mrs. Hart's ' sittings during these four 
 years, most of them at an early hour, for Emma, except in 
 illness, was never a late riser. One portrait of her, unmen- 
 tioned in our previous list, represents her reading the 
 Gazette with a startled expression. It may well have been 
 painted from memory shortly after she left England in 
 March 1786, and refer to the attempt by Margaret Nicholson 
 in the August of that year on the life of the King. ' While,' 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 137, May S, 1785. ° ^i^- 138- 
 
 » Ibid. 139, Nov. II, 1785. 
 
 * ' Her only resources,' writes John Romney, ' were reading and music at 
 home, and sitting for pictures.' In the Accounts are regular entries of 
 'Magazines.' 
 
 \ 
 
62 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 remarks the sententious John Romney, ' she lived under 
 Greville's protection, her conduct was in every way correct, 
 except only in the unfortunate situation in which she hap- 
 pened to be placed by the concurrence of peculiar circum- 
 stances such as might perhaps in a certain degree be 
 admitted as an extenuation. . . . Here is a young female 
 of an artless and playful character, of extraordinary 
 Elegance and symmetry of form, of a most beautiful coun- 
 tenance glowing with health and animation, turned upon 
 the wide world. ... In all Mr. Romney's intercourse with 
 her she was treated with the utmost respect, and her 
 demeanour fully entitled her to it.' He adds that she ' sat ' 
 for the ' face ' merely and ' a slight sketch of the attitude,' 
 and that in the 'Bacchante' he painted her countenance 
 alone ; while Hayley, in his Life of the painter, speaks of 
 ' the high and constant admiration ' with which Romney 
 contemplated not only the ' personal ' but the ' mental 
 endowments of this lady, and the gratitude he felt for many 
 proofs' of her friendship,' as expressed in his letters. ' The 
 talents,' he continues, 'which nature bestowed on the fair 
 Emma, led her to delight in the two kindred arts of music 
 and painting ; in the first she acquired great practical 
 ability ; for the second she had exquisite taste, and such 
 expressive powers as could furnish to an historical painter 
 an inspiring model for the various characters either 
 delicate or sublime. . . . Her features, like the language of 
 Shakespeare, could exhibit all the gradations of every 
 passion with a most fascinating truth and felicity of ex- 
 pression. Romney delighted in observing the wonderful 
 command she possessed over her eloquent features.' He 
 called her his ' inspirer.' ^ To Romney, as we have already 
 seen, she ' first opened her heart.' At Romney's she met 
 those literary and artistic lights that urged her native 
 intelligence into imitation. A sketch by Romney of his 
 studio displays her seated as his model for the ' Spinstress ' 
 by her spinning-wheel. A figure entering and smiling is 
 Greville ; of two others seated at a table, the one appeal- 
 
 1 Cf. Hayley's letter to her from Felpham of May 17, 1804, cited later in this 
 work, and given by Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 596, which proves her to have been a 
 prompter and suggester as well as a renderer. 
 
K 
 
 Z 
 
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 O lA 
 
 2 i-^ 
 "I 
 ZtO 
 
 z 
 ft: w 
 
 f o o 
 
 
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 > 
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 IS 
 
'THE FAIR TEA-MAKER' 63 
 
 ing to her would seem to be Hayley, to whom she always 
 gratefully confessed her obligations. 
 
 William Hayley, the ' Hermit ' of Eartham, the close ally 
 both of Romney and Cowper, must have been far more 
 interesting in his conversation than his books, though his 
 Triumphs of Temper created a sensation now difficult to 
 understand. He was a clever, egotistical eccentric, who 
 successively parted from two wives with whom he yet con- 
 tinued to correspond in affectionate friendship. Curiously 
 enough, Hayley's rhymed satirical comedies ^ are much the 
 best of his otherwise stilted verses. He must have remem- 
 bered Hamilton and Greville when, in one of them, he 
 makes 'Mr. Beril' account for his ownership of a lovely 
 Greek statue : 
 
 ' I owe it to chance, to acknowledge the truth, 
 And a princely and brave Neapolitan youth. 
 Whom I luckily saved in a villainous strife 
 From the dagger of jealousy aimed at his life' : 
 
 and when his ' Bijou ' ironically observes to ' Varnish ': 
 
 ' I protest your remark is ingenious and new. 
 You have g^sto in morals as well as virtu' : 
 
 His unfamiliar sonnet on Romney's 'Cassandra' may be 
 here cited, since it may have suggested to Greville his 
 estimate of Emma — ' piece of modern virtu ' : 
 
 ' Ye fond idolaters of ancient art, 
 
 Who near Parthenope with curious toil, 
 Forcing the rude sulphureous rocks to part. 
 
 Draw from the greedy earth her buried spoil 
 Of antique entablature ; and from the toil 
 
 Of time restoring some fair form, acquire 
 A fancied jewel, know 'tis but a foil 
 
 To this superior gem of richer fire. 
 In Romney's tints behold the Trojan maid, 
 
 See beauty blazing in prophetic ire. 
 From palaces engulphed could earth retire. 
 
 And show thy works, Apelles, undeca/d. 
 E'en thy Campaspe would not dare to vie 
 With the wild splendour of Cassandra's eye.' 
 
 1 Tie Happy Prescription (1784) and The Two Connoisseurs are brilliant 
 vers de sociite. For Horace Walpole's poor account of his authorship, cf. Letters, 
 vol. viii. pp. 235, 236, 251. 
 
64 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 In a late letter to Lady Hamilton the poet assures her 
 that an unpublished ode was wholly inspired by her, and 
 there are traces of her influence even in his poor tragedies. 
 But since 'Serena' influenced her often, it may be of 
 interest to single out a few lines from the Triumphs of 
 Temper (composed some years before its author first met 
 her) as likelier to have arrested her attention than his triter 
 commonplaces about ' spleen ' and ' cheerfulness ' : 
 
 ' Free from ambitious pride and envious care, 
 To love and to be loved was all her prayer.' 
 
 'Th' imperishable wealth of sterling love.' 
 
 . . . She's everything by starts and nothing long. 
 
 But in the space of one revolving hour 
 
 Flies thro' all states of poverty and power. 
 
 All forms on whom her veering mind can pitch. 
 
 Sultana, Gipsy, Goddess, nymph, and witch. 
 
 At length, her soul with Shakespeare's magic fraught, 
 
 The wand of Ariel fixed her roving thought.' 
 
 And 
 
 ' But mild Serena scorn'd the prudish play 
 To wound warm love with frivolous delay ; 
 Nature's chaste child, not Affectation's slave. 
 The heart she meant to give, she frankly gave' 
 
 The August of 1782 brought about an event decisive for 
 Emma's future — the death of the first Lady Hamilton, the 
 Ambassador's marriage with whom in 1757 had been mainly 
 one of convenience, though it had proved one also of com- 
 fort and esteem.^ She was a sweet, tranquil soul of rapt 
 holiness, what the Germans call ^ Eine schone Seele,' and 
 she worshipped the very earth that her light-hearted husband, 
 far nearer to it than she was, trod on. He had set out as a 
 young captain of foot, who, in his own words, had ' known 
 
 ^ Cf. his own avowal, Morrison MS. 95, where he tells Greville : ' You have 
 been acquainted with beauty enough to know that that alone cannot afford 
 lasting happiness. A disagreeable rich Devil, the Devil himself could not have 
 tempted me to marry, but I have realy [sic\ found a lasting comfort in having 
 married {something against my inclination) a virtuous, good-tempered woman 
 with a little independent fortune, to which we cou'd fly shou'd all other depen- 
 dencies fail, and live decently without being obliged to any one.' 
 
'THE FAIR TEA-MAKER' 65 
 
 the pinch of poverty' ; but during the whole twenty-five years 
 of their union she had never once reproached him, and had 
 dedicated to him all ' that long disease ' she called ' her 
 life.' So far, though intimate with the young Sicilian 
 King and friendly with the Queen, Hamilton had weighed 
 little in diplomacy. In a sprightly letter to the Earl of 
 Dartmouth some six years earlier,^ he observes : ' It is 
 singular but certainly true that I am become more a 
 ministre defamille at this court than ever were the ministers 
 of France, Spain, and Vienna. Whenever there is a good 
 shooting-party H.S. Majesty is pleased to send for me, and 
 for some months past I have had the honour of dining with 
 him twice or three times a week, nay sometimes I have 
 breakfasted, dined, and supped ... in their private party 
 without any other minister.' ^ He next descants on his 
 exceptional opportunities of helping the English in Naples. 
 He hits off a certain Lady Boyd among them as 'Like 
 Mr. Wilkes, but she has [such] a way of pushing forward 
 that face of hers and filling every muscle of it with good 
 humour, that her homeliness is forgot in a moment ' ; and 
 he concludes with the usual complaint that — unlike his pre- 
 decessor. Sir William Lynch — he has not yet been made 
 'Privy Councillor.'* So dissatisfied was he that in 1774 
 he had tried hard on one of his periodical home visits to 
 exchange his ambassadorship at Naples for one at Madrid ; 
 and at the present time science, pictures, archaeology, sport 
 and gallantry occupied his constant leisure — indeed he was 
 more of a Consul than of an Ambassador. General Acton's 
 advent, however, as Minister of War and Marine in 1779 
 proved a passing stimulus to his dormant energy. If a 
 dawdler, he was never a trifler; and he was uniformly 
 courteous and kind-hearted. His frank geniality recom- 
 mended him as bear-leader to the many English visitors 
 
 ^ Hist. MS. Commission, Dartmouth Papers, vol. iii. p. 224. Caserta, Jan. 16, 
 1776, and cf. p. 238. The early letters to Greville in the Morrison MS. concern 
 art, politics, business, and sport. 
 
 ' Cf. Morrison MS. 82, where he recounts on February 9, 1772, how he 
 played ' Bisilis ' with their Majesties. This letter contains his first mention 
 of Acton the Premier, who succeeded to his English baronetcy in 1791 ; and cf. 
 also ibid. 92, 1780, and 100, March 13, 1781. 
 
 » He had to wait till 1791, the year of his marriage. 
 
 E 
 
66 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 who flocked annually to Naples,^ often stumbled lightly 
 into scrapes that caused him infinite trouble,^ and prompted 
 his humorous regret that Magna Charta contained no clause 
 forbidding Britons to emigrate. It was not till Emma 
 dawned on his horizon that he woke up in earnest to the 
 duties of his office. His wife made every effort, so far as 
 her feeble health admitted, to grace his hospitalities. She 
 shared his own taste for music, and sang to the harpsichord 
 before the Court of Vienna. The sole regret of her unselfish 
 piety was that he remained a worldling. She studied to 
 spare him every vexation and intrusion ; and while he 
 pursued his long rambles, sporting, artistic, or sentimental, 
 she sat at home praying for her elderly Pierrot's eternal 
 welfare. Her example dispensed with precepts, and hoped 
 to win her wanderer back imperceptibly. How little she 
 deserved Greville's description of her as merely 'a raw- 
 boned Scotchwoman ' ^ may be gleaned from some of the 
 last jottings in her diary and her last letters to her 
 husband :— 
 
 ' How tedious are the hours I pass in the absence of the 
 beloved of my heart, and how tiresome is every scene to 
 me. There is the chair in which he used to sit, I find him 
 not there, and my heart feels a pang, and my foolish eyes 
 overflow with tears. The number of years we have been 
 married, instead of diminishing my love have increased it 
 to that degree and wound it up with my existence in such 
 a manner that it cannot alter. How strong are the efforts 
 I have made to conquer my feelings, but in vain. . . . No 
 one but those who have felt it can know the miserable 
 anxiety of an undivided love. When he is present, every 
 object has a different appearance ; when he is absent, how 
 lonely, how isolated I feel. ... I return home, and there 
 the very dog stares me in the face and seems to ask 
 for its beloved master. . . . Oh! blessed Lord God and 
 Saviour, be Thou mercifully pleas'd to guard and pro- 
 tect him in all dangers and in all situations. Have 
 
 ' Cf. Lord Bruce's tribute as early as 1769, Morrison MS. 16. 
 * The Duke of Hamilton, for insta^ice, and ' Sir Harry ' in the spring of 1777. 
 Morrison MS. 6$. 
 ' Morrison MS. 126, Emma's quotation. 
 
The Right Honourable Sir William Hamilton, K.C.B. 
 
 After a rare ettgrmnng, probably by Gravelot. 
 
•THE FAIR TEA-MAKER' 67 
 
 mercy upon us both, oh Lord, and turn our hearts to 
 Thee.* 
 
 'A few days, nay a few hours . . . may render me in- 
 capable of writing to you. . . . But how shall I express my 
 love and tenderness to you, dearest of earthly blessings. 
 My only attachment to this world has been my love to you, 
 and you are my only regret in leaving it. My heart has 
 followed your footsteps where ever you went, and you have 
 been the source of all my joys. I would have preferred 
 beggary with you to kingdoms without you,^ but all this 
 must have an end — forget and forgive my faults and 
 remember me with kindness. I entreat you not to suffer 
 me to be shut up after I am dead till it is absolutely neces- 
 sary. Remember the promise you have made me that your 
 bones should lie by mine when God shall please to call you, 
 and leave directions in your will about it' ^ 
 
 That promise was kept, and the man of the world sleeps 
 by the daughter of heaven, re-united in the Pembrokeshire 
 vault. A probably adopted daughter — Cecilia — who is 
 mentioned in the greetings of early correspondents, had 
 died some seven years before. 
 
 Could any Calypso replace such pure devotion? Yet 
 Calypsos there had been already — among their number the 
 divorced lady who became Margravine of Anspach, the 'sweet 
 little creature qui a Vhonneur de me plaire' 't^ a 'Madame 
 Tschudy'* so early as 1769; a 'Lady A.,' contrasted by 
 Greville in 1785 with Emma; and, perhaps platonically, 
 those gifted artists Diana Beauclerk, once Lady Boling- 
 broke, and Mrs. Damer, who was to sculpture one of the two 
 busts of Nelson done from the life.^ In England as well 
 
 1 It is strange that the second Lady Hamilton, long before she became so, 
 makes use of a similar expression with regard to Greville. Lady Strafford 
 of Queen Anne's time also employs this phrase. 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. Ii6, Ii8. The last, in July 1782, ibid. 120, I have no space 
 to quote, but it is fully as affecting. 
 
 * Lady Craven. Cf. Morrison MS. 30, June 17, 1773. 
 
 « Cf. Morrison MS. 20, 1769. 
 
 ^ So late as 1809 the Hon. Anne Seymour Damer (1748-1828) wrote most 
 warmly to Lady Hamilton, begging her influence to have an engraving of this 
 bust included in a Life of Nelson. In the course of a long letter she says : 
 'To you, my dear Lady Hamilton, and to my kind friend Sir William, 
 you know I owe this favour [of '* the immortal Hero's having sat to me "], and 
 
68 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 as Naples flirtation was the disorder of the day. Yfet about 
 Sir William there must have been a charm of demeanour, 
 a calm of ease and good nature, and a certain worldly 
 unselfishness which could fasten such spiritual love 
 more surely than the love profane. He was a sincere 
 worshipper of beauty, both in art and nature ; while 
 Goethe himself respected his discriminating taste.^ He 
 was a Stoic-Epicurean, a 'philosopher.'^ His confession 
 of faith and outlook upon existence are well outlined 
 in a letter to Emma of 1792 which deserves attention. 
 ' My study of antiquities has kept me in constant thought 
 of the perpetual fluctuation of everything. The whole art 
 is, really, to live all the days of our life ; and not, with 
 anxious care, disturb the sweetest hour that life affords — 
 which is, the present. Admire the Creator, and all His works 
 to us incomprehensible ; and do all the good you can upon 
 earth ; and take the chance of eternity without dismay.' ^ 
 
 Absent since 1778, he came over at the close of 1782 to 
 bury his wife.* It is just possible that even then he may 
 have caught a flying glimpse of the girl whom he was to 
 style two years later ' the fair tea-maker of Edgware Row.' 
 Greville, of course, was punctual in condolence : ' You have 
 no idea how shocked I was. . . . Yet when I consider 
 the long period of her indisposition and the weakness of 
 her frame, I ought to have been prepared to hear it. I am 
 glad that her last illness was not attended with extra- 
 ordinary suffering, and I know you so well that I am sure 
 you will think with affection and regret, as often as the 
 blank which must be felt after 25 years society shall 
 call her to your memory, and it will not be a small con- 
 solation that to the last you shew'd that kindness and 
 
 you will not wonder at my ambition and anxiety that such a circumstance, which 
 I know so well how to value, shou'd be recorded, . . . and that my name should 
 thus be [if I may so term it) joined to the most brilliant name England ever gave 
 birth to.' Cf. Messrs. Sotheby's catalogue for July 8, 1905. As Conway's 
 daughter she was Horace Walpole's favourite. Cf. Letters, vol. viii. p. 76. 
 The sole other bust of him from life is Flaxman's. 
 
 ' Cf. the Italienische Reise. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 370, January 7, 1799. 
 
 = Nelson Letters (1814), vol. ii. p. 173. 
 
 • The accounts of the funeral expenses exist and were sold at Sotheby's in 
 May 1905. He was an affectionate brother both to Frederick and Anne. 
 
'THE FAIR TEA-MAKER' 69 
 
 attention to her which she deserved, 1 have often quoted 
 you ^ for that conduct which few have goodness of heart or 
 principle to imitate! He had hoped to hasten to his dearest 
 Hamilton's side in the crisis of affliction, but his brother's 
 afTairs, the troubles of trusteeships, and the bequest by 
 Lord Seaforth of a rare cameo, alas ! intervened, and there- 
 fore he could not come.^ So Mount Vesuvius- Hamilton 
 hurried to Mahomet-Greville, and doubtless, after a little 
 virtii and more business, returned for the autumn season at 
 Naples and his winter sport at Caserta. 
 
 But meanwhile Greville grew ruffled and out-at-elbows. 
 He was once more member for his family borough. He 
 needed larger emolument, yet the coalition was on the wane. 
 For a brief interval it returned, and Greville breathed again, 
 pocketing a small promotion in the general scramble for 
 office,^ In 1783, however, the great Pitt entered on his long 
 reign, and Greville's heart sank once more. His post, how- 
 ever, was confirmed, despite his conscientious disapproval * 
 of reforms for England and for Ireland, and new India bills 
 in the interval.* Still, his tastes were so various that even 
 now he pondered if, after all, an heiress of ton (none of 
 your parvenues) were not the only way out ; and, pending 
 decision, he went on collecting crystals, exchanging pic- 
 tures of saints, and lecturing Emma on the convenances — 
 perhaps the least extravagant and most edifying pastime 
 of all. Every August he toured in Warwickshire after his 
 own, and to Milford and Pembrokeshire after his uncle's 
 affairs (for Milford was being ' developed ') ; nor was he 
 the man to begrudge his ileve a few weeks' change in the 
 dull season during his absence. In 1784 she was to require 
 it more than usual, for sea-baths had been ordered, while 
 
 ' To Emma? 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 121, Sept. 24, 1782. 
 
 ' Cf. Sir W. H.'s allusion in Morrison MS. 122, April 29, 1783. 
 
 * In March 1785 he writes to Sir William : ' I believe P. means to act for 
 the best and to remain as long as he can, but it does not seem that he rests 
 entirely on the court, by his declaring for a reform without the general support 
 of the administration and contrary to the interests of the crown. . . . The 
 India bill is not to be compared to the effect of this measure, and I am curious 
 to see the event. I of course never courted favor by the sacrifice of my decided 
 opinion ; I shall therefore uniformly oppose it.' — Morrison MS. 135. 
 
 * Cf. Greville's moderate letter to Fox. — Morrison MS. 123. 
 
70 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 her first thought was then to be for her ' little Emma,'^ now 
 being tended at Hawarden. 
 
 In the early summer of this very year Sir William 
 Hamilton had reappeared as widower, and crossed the 
 threshold of Edgware Row to the flurry, doubtless, of 
 the little handmaidens, whose successors, 'Molly Dring 
 and ' Nelly Gray,' were so regularly paid their scanty 
 wages, as registered in the surviving accounts. 
 
 The courtly connoisseur was enraptured. Never had he 
 beheld anything more Greek, any one more naturally 
 accomplished, more uncommon. What an old slyboots 
 had this young nephew been these last two years, to have 
 concealed this hidden treasure while he detailed every- 
 thing else m his letters ! The demure rogue, then, was 
 a suburban amateur with a vengeance ! The antiquarian- 
 Apollo, carrying with him a new work on Etruscan vases, 
 and a new tract on volcanic phenomena, flattered himself 
 that here were volcanoes and vases indeed. Here were 
 Melpomene and Thalia, and Terpsichore and Euterpe and 
 Venus, all combined and breathing. Did he not boast the 
 secret of perpetual youth? After all, he was only fifty- 
 four, and he looked ten years younger than his age. He 
 would at least make the solemn youngster jealous. Not 
 that he was covetous ; his interest was that of a father, 
 a collector, an uncle. The mere lack of a ring debarred 
 him from being her uncle in reality. ' My uncle,' she 
 should call him. 
 
 Greville's amusement was not quite unclouded ; he 
 laughed, but laughed uneasily. To begin with, he believed 
 himself his uncle's heir, but as yet 'twas ' not so nominated 
 in the bond.' Sir William might well re-marry. There 
 was Lord Middleton's second daughter in Portman .Square, 
 a twenty thousand pounder, weighing on the scales, a fish 
 worthy of Greville's own rod. But the Court of Naples, 
 an alliance with a widower kinsman of the Hamiltons, the 
 Athols, the Abercorns, and the Grahams, enriched too by 
 recent death, were solidities that might well outweigh his 
 
 ' Born about February 1782, after her mother's invitation by Greville. My 
 reasons for disagreeing with Mr. JeafFreson's view as to the identity of this 
 child are given in Note C. of the Appendix. 
 
'THE FAIR TEA-MAKER' 71 
 
 paltry pittance of six hundred a year.^ And i/the widower 
 re-married ? — As for Emma, it was of course absurd to con- 
 sider her. She adored her Greville, and should uncle 
 William choose to play light father in this little farce, he 
 could raise no objection. 
 
 Emma herself felt flattered that one so celebrated and 
 learned should deign to be just a nice new friend. He 
 was so amiable and attentive ; so discerning of her gifts ; 
 so witty too, and full of anecdote. This was no musty 
 scholar, but a good-natured man of the very wide world, 
 far wider than her pent-in corner of it Indeed, he was 
 a 'dear.' And then he laughed so heartily when she 
 mimicked Greville's buckram brother, or that rich young 
 coxcomb Willoughby, who had wooed her in vain already ; 
 no giddy youths for her. Was not her own matchless 
 Greville a man of accomplishments, a bachelor of arts and 
 sciences, a master of sentences ? The uncle was worthy of 
 the nephew, and so she was ' his oblidged humble servant, 
 or affectionate' niece 'Emma,' whichever he ' liked the best.'^ 
 
 And in her heart of hearts already lurked a little scheme. 
 Her child, the child to whom Greville had been so suddenly, 
 so gently kind, and after which she yearned, was with her 
 grandmother. After she had taken the tiny companion to 
 Parkgate, and bathed it there, why should not her divinity 
 permit the mother to bring it home for good to Edgware 
 Row? It would form a new and touching tie between 
 them. The plan must not be broached till she could report 
 on 'little Emma's' progress, but surely then he would not 
 have the heart to deny her. 
 
 Some evidence allows the guess that she had confided 
 her desire to Sir William, and that he had favoured and 
 forwarded her suit with Greville. 
 
 And so she left the smoke and turmoil, hopeful and trustful. 
 Mother and child would at length be reunited under purer 
 skies and by the wide expanse of sea. All the mother 
 
 ' His income does not seem to have exceeded this sum (till 1794), and his 
 certain annuity was only ;^Soo. — Morrison MS. 138. 
 
 ' Cf. Morrison MS. 143. Most of the foregoing may be gathered from the 
 shortly subsequent correspondence. On September 5 Hamilton met Horace 
 Walpole at dinner at ' Mrs. Garrick's.' He was 'returning to the kingdom of 
 cinders.' — Letters, vol. viii. p. 502. 
 
72 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 within her stirred and called aloud ; her heart was ready 
 to 'break' at the summons. Fatherly Sir William saw 
 her off as proxy for her absent Greville, whom he was to 
 join, the happy man. 'Tell Sir William everything you 
 can,' she wrote immediately, ' and tell him I am sorry our 
 situation prevented me from giving him a kiss, , . . but 
 I will give him one, and entreat it if he will accept it. Ask 
 him how I looked, and let him say something kind to me 
 when you write.' — 'Pray, my dear Greville, do lett me 
 come home as soon as you can ; . . . indeed I have no 
 pleasure or happiness. I wish I could not think on you ; 
 but if I was the greatest lady in the world, I should not be 
 happy from you ; so don't lett me stay long.' ^ 
 
 Her first Parkgate letters, in the form of diaries,^ speak 
 for themselves. After she had fetched away little Emma 
 'Hart'* from her grandmother's at Hawarden, she stopped at 
 Chester. She had fixed on Abergele, but it proved too 
 distant, fashionable, and dear.* ' High Lake ' (Hoylake) 
 was too uncomfortable ; it had ' only 3 houses,' and not 
 one of them ' fit for a Christian.' With her ' poor Emma ' 
 she had bidden farewell to all her friends ; she had taken 
 her from ' a good home ' ; she hoped she would prove 
 worthy of his ' goodness to her, and to her mother.' Her 
 recipe-book had been forgotten ; — ' parting with you made 
 me so unhappy.' — ' My dear Greville, don't be angry, but 
 I gave my gran mother 5 guineas, for she had laid some 
 [money] out on her, and I would not take her awhay 
 shabbily. But Emma shall pay you. . . . My dear Greville, 
 I wish I was with you. God bless you ! ' 
 
 By mid-June she was installed ' in the house of a 
 Laidy, whose husband is at sea. She and her granmother 
 live together, and we board with her at present. . . . The 
 price is high, but they don't lodge anybody without board- 
 ing ; and as it is comfortable, decent, and quiet, I thought 
 it wou'd not ruin us, till I could have your oppionon, which 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 125, June 15, 1784. 
 
 " Morrison MS. 124-128, June and July 1784. 
 
 ' She is so called in the school-bills which Greville forwarded in December 
 1791 to Naples. Morrison MS. 201. The name of ' Carew ' was assumed after- 
 wards. Cf. Appendix, Part i. Note C. 
 
 * ' 2 guineas and a half a week. 
 
'THE FAIR TEA-MAKER' 73 
 
 I hope to have freely and without restraint, as, believe me, 
 you will give it to one who will allways be happy to follow 
 it, lett it be what it will ; as I am sure you wou'd not lead 
 me wrong. And though my little temper may have been 
 sometimes high, believe me, I have allways thought you 
 right in the end when I have come to reason. I bathe, and 
 find the water very soult. Here is a good many laidys 
 batheing, but I have no society with them, as it is best not. 
 So pray, my dearest Greville, write soon, and tell me what 
 to do, as I will do just what you think proper; and tell me 
 what to do with the child. For she is a great romp, and I 
 can hardly master her. . . . She is tall, [has] good eys and 
 brows, and as to lashes, she will be passible ; but she has 
 overgrown all her cloaths. I am makeing and mending all 
 as I can for her. . . . Pray, my dear Greville, do lett me 
 come home, as soon as you can ; for I am all most broken- 
 hearted being from you. . . . You don't know how much I 
 love you, and your behaiver to me, when we parted, was so 
 kind, Greville, I don't know what to do. . . .' And her next 
 epistle seems to echo under circumstances far removed the 
 voice of the first Lady Hamilton : — ' How teadous does the 
 time pass awhay till I hear from you. Endead I should be 
 miserable if I did not recollect on what happy terms we 
 parted — parted, yess, but to meet again with tenfould 
 happiness. . . . Would you think it, Greville ? Emma — the 
 wild, unthinking Emma, is a grave, thoughtful phylosopher. 
 'Tis true, Greville, and I will convince you I am, when I see 
 you. But how I am runing on. I say nothing abbout this 
 guidy, wild girl of mine. What shall we do with her, 
 Greville ? . . . Wou'd you believe, on Sattarday we had a 
 little quarel, . . . and I did slap her on her hands, and 
 when she came to kiss me and make it up, I took her on 
 my lap and cried. Pray, do you blame me or not ? Pray 
 tell me. Oh, Greville, you don't know how I love her. 
 Endead I do. When she comes and looks in my face and 
 calls m.e " mother," endead I then truly am a mother, for all 
 the mother's feelings rise at once, and tels me I am or ought 
 to be a mother,/^?/' she has a wright to my protection; and 
 she shall have it as long as I can, and I will do all in my 
 power to prevent her falling into the error her poor miser- 
 
74 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 able mother fell into. But why do I say miserable ? Am 
 not I happy abbove any of my sex, at least in my situation ? 
 Does not Greville love me, or at least like me ? Does not 
 he protect me ? Does not he provide for me ? Is not he a 
 father to my child? Why do I call myself miserable? 
 No, it was a mistake, and I will be happy, chearful and 
 kind, and do all my poor abbility will lett me, to return the 
 fatherly goodness and protection he has shewn. Again, 
 my dear Greville, the recollection of past scenes brings tears 
 in my eyes. But the[y] are tears of happiness. To think 
 of your goodness is too much. But once for all, Greville, I 
 will be grateful. Adue. It is near bathing time, and I 
 must lay down my pen, and I won't finish till I see when the 
 post comes, whether there is a letter. He comes in abbout 
 one o'clock. I hope to have a letter to-day. ... I am in 
 hopes I shall be very well. . . . But, Greville, I am oblidged to 
 give a shilling a day for the bathing horse and whoman, and 
 twopence a day for the dress. It is a great expense, and 
 it fretts me when I think of it. . . . At any ralfe it is better 
 than paying the docter. But wright your oppinion truly, 
 and tell me what to do. Emma is crying because I won't 
 come and bathe. So Greville, adue till after I have dipt. 
 May God bless you, my dearest Greville, and believe me, 
 faithfully, affectionately, and truly yours only'- — ' And no 
 letter from my dear Greville. Why, my dearest G., what is 
 the reason you don't wright? You promised to wright 
 before I left Hawarden. . . . Give my dear kind love and 
 compliments to Pliney,^ and tell him I put you under his 
 care, and he must be answereble for you to me, wen I see 
 him. . . . Say everything you can to him for me, and tell 
 him I shall always think on him with gratitude, and remem- 
 ber him with pleasure, and shall allways regret loesing 
 [h]is good comppany. Tell him I wish him every happi- 
 ness this world can afford him, and that I will pray for him 
 and bless him as long as I live. . . . Pray, my dear Greville, 
 lett me come home soon. I have been 3 weeks, and if I 
 stay a fortnight longer, that will be S weeks, you know ; 
 and then the expense is above 2 guineas a week with 
 washing . . . and everything. . .' ' With what impatience 
 
 1 Sit W. Hamilton. 
 
'THE FAIR TEA-MAKER' 75 
 
 do I sett down to wright till I see the postman. But sure I 
 shall have a letter to-day. Can you, Greville — no, you can't 
 — have forgot your poor Emma allready? Tho' I am but a 
 few weeks absent from you, my heart will not one moment 
 leave you. I am allways thinking of you, and cou'd allmost 
 fancy I hear you, see you ; . . . don't you remember how 
 you promised? Don't you recollect what you said at 
 parting ? how you shou'd be happy to see me again ? ' 
 
 A belated answer arrived at last ; Emma was very grate- 
 ful. But this was not the letter for which she looked. What 
 she wanted was omniscience's permission for 'little Emma' 
 to share their home, to let her be a mother indeed. After a 
 week two ' scolding ' notes were his reply. ' Little Emma ' 
 in Edgware Row was not on Greville's books at all. He 
 would charge himself with her nurture elsewhere, but 
 the child must be surrendered ; he certainly knew how to 
 ' play' his 'trout.' Emma meekly kissed her master's rod. 
 Greville being Providence, resignation was wisdom as well 
 as duty. She was not allowed to remain a mother : — 
 
 ' I was very happy, my dearest Greville, to hear from you 
 as your other letter vex'd me ; you scolded me so. But it 
 is over, and I forgive you. . . . You don't know, my dearest 
 Greville, what a pleasure I have to think that ray poor 
 Emma will be comfortable and happy . . . and if she does 
 but turn out well, what a happyness it will be. And I hope 
 she will for your sake. I will teach her to pray for you as 
 long as she lives ; and if she is not grateful and good it 
 won't be my fault. But what you say is very true : a bad 
 disposition may be made good by good example, and 
 Greville wou'd not put her anywheer to have a bad one. I 
 come into your whay athinking ; hollidays spoils children. 
 It takes there attention of[f] from there scool, it gives them 
 a bad habbit. When they have been a month and goes 
 back this does not pleas them, and that is not wright, and 
 the[y] do nothing but think when the[y] shall go back 
 again. Now Emma will never expect what she never had. 
 But I won't think. All my happiness now is Greville, and 
 to think that he loves me. ... I have said all I have to say 
 about Emma, yet only she gives her duty. ... I have no 
 society with anybody but the mistress of the house, and her 
 
76 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 mother and sister. The latter is a very genteel yong lady, 
 good-nattured, and does everything to pleas me. But 
 still I wou'd rather be at home, if you was there. I follow 
 the old saying, home is home though 'tis ever so homely. . . . 
 P.S. — . . . I bathe Emma, and she is very well and grows. 
 Her hair will grow very well on her forehead, and I don't 
 think her nose will be very snub. Her eys is blue and 
 pretty. But she don't speak through her nose, but she 
 speaks countryfied, but she will forget it. We squable 
 sometimes ; still she is fond of me, and endead I love her. 
 For she is sensible. So much for Beauty. Adue, I long to 
 see you.' ^ 
 
 Empowered by the Sultan of Edgware Row, the two 
 Emmas, to their great but fleeting joy, were suffered to 
 return in the middle of July. Sir William and his nephew 
 were still on their provincial tour, when Emma, who fell ill 
 again in town, thus addressed him for the last time before 
 his own return. It shall be our closing excerpt : — 
 
 ' I received your kind letter last night, and, my dearest 
 Greville, I want words to express to you how happy it made 
 me. For I thought I was like a lost sheep, and everybody 
 had forsook me. I was eight days confined to my room 
 and very ill, but am, thank God, very well now, and a great 
 deal better for your kind instructing letter, and I own the 
 justice of your remarks. You shall have your appartment 
 to yourself, you shall read, wright, or sett still, just as you 
 pleas ; for I shall think myself happy to be under the seam 
 roof with Greville, and do all I can to make it agreable, 
 without disturbing him in any pursuits that he can follow, 
 to employ himself in at home or else whare. For your 
 absence has taught me that I ought to think myself happy 
 if I was within a mile of you ; so as I cou'd see the place as 
 contained you I shou'd think myself happy abbove my 
 sphear. So, my dear G., come home. . . . You shall find 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 128. My contention is that this child was the only 'little Emma ' 
 born about March 1782. For the whole subject, cf. Note C. of the Appendix. 
 It should be remembered with regard to such expressions about her as might 
 warrant her being older than two and a half, that, like her mother, and the 
 little Horatia twenty-one years later, she may well have looked and spoken 
 above her years. 
 
'THE FAIR TEA-MAKER' >j7 
 
 me good, kind, gentle, and affectionate, and everything you 
 wish me to do I will do. For I will give myself a fair trial, 
 and follow your advice, for I allways think it wright. . . . 
 Don't think, Greville, this is the wild fancy of a moment's 
 consideration. It is not. I have thoughroly considered 
 everything in my confinement, and say nothing now but what 
 I shall practice. ... I have a deal to say to you when I see 
 you. Oh, Greville, to think it is 9 weeks since I saw you. 
 I think I shall die with the pleasure of seeing you. ... I 
 am all ways thinking of your goodness. . . . Emma is very 
 well, and is allways wondering why you don't come home. 
 She sends her duty to you. . . . Pray, pray come as soon as 
 you come to town. Good by, God bless you ! Oh, how I 
 long to see you.' ^ 
 
 It should be at once remarked that Greville conscien- 
 tiously performed his promise. He put 'little Emma' to 
 a good school, and several traces of her future survive.^ 
 Meanwhile, having won his point, and having also 'pre- 
 pared' her mind for another separation, of which she little 
 dreamed, he came back to his bower of thankful worship 
 and submissive meekness. He can scarcely have played 
 often with the child, whose benefactor he was — a dancing- 
 master, so to speak, of beneficence, ever standing in the first 
 position of correct deportment. In August he bade fare- 
 well to his indulgent uncle, whom, indeed, he had 'reason' to 
 remember with as much ' gratitude and affection ' as Emma 
 did.* Romney was commissioned to paint her as the ' Bac- 
 chante ' for the returning Ambassador, who had reassured his 
 nephew about the distant future. He had appointed him 
 his heir, and offered to stand security if he needed to 
 borrow. He had also joined Greville's other friends in 
 advising him to bow to the inevitable and console his purse 
 with an heiress.* Whether he also had already contem- 
 plated an exchange seems more than doubtful. But the 
 secretive Greville had already begun to harbour an idea, 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 129, August 10, 1784. 
 " Cf. Appendix, Note C. 
 s Morrison MS. 131. 
 
 * The 'reasonable plan.' Cf. Greville's letter cited at the opening of the 
 next chapter. 
 
78 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 soon turned into a plan, and perpetually justified as a piece 
 of benevolent unselfishness. While the ship bears the un- 
 wedded uncle to softer climes and laxer standards, while 
 Greville, with a sigh of relief, pores over his accounts, we 
 may well exclaim of these two knowing and obliging 
 materialists, par nobile fratrum — a noble brace of brothers 
 indeed ! 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 'WHAT GOD, AND GREVILLE, PLEASES' 
 
 To March 1786 
 
 ' . . . I REALY do not feel myself in a situation to accept 
 favours.' ' I depend on you for some cristals in lavas, etc., 
 from Sicily.' These sentences from two long epistles to 
 his uncle at the close of 1784 are keynotes to Greville's 
 tune of mind. With the new year he became rather more 
 explicit : — ' Emma is very grateful for your remembrance. 
 Her picture shall be sent by the first ship — I wish Romney 
 yet to mend the dog.^ She certainly is much improved 
 since she has been with me. She has none of the bad 
 habits which giddiness and inexperience encouraged, and 
 which bad choice of company introduced. ... I am sure 
 she is attached to me, or she would not have refused the 
 offers which I know have been great ; and such is her spirit 
 that on the least slight or expression of my being tired or 
 burthened by her, I am sure she would not only give up 
 the connexion, but would not even accept a farthing for 
 future assistance.' 
 
 Here let us pause a moment. In the ' honest bargain ' 
 shortly to be struck after much obliquity, Greville's shabbi- 
 ness consists, if we reflect on the prevailing tone of his age 
 and set, not so much in the disguised transfer — a mean 
 trick in itself — as in the fact that, while he had no reproach 
 to make and was avowedly more attached to her than ever, 
 he practised upon the very disinterestedness and fondness 
 that he praised. Had he been unable to rely on them with 
 
 ' In the first picture of the ' Bacchante.' The second was with a goat. 
 
 79 
 
82 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 her. ... I am not a dog in the manger. If I could go on 
 I would never make this arrangement [the true term at 
 last !], but to be reduced to a standstill and involve myself 
 in distress ['real distress'] further than I could extricate 
 myself, and then to be unable to provide for her at all, 
 would make me miserable from thinking myself unjust to 
 her. And as she is too young and handsome to retire into 
 a convent or the country [the alternative is curious], and is 
 honorable and honest and can be trusted [for ' Brutus is an 
 honourable man '], after reconciling myself to the necessity 
 I consider where she could be happy. I know you thought 
 me jealous of your attention to her ; I can assure you Hter 
 conduct entitles her more than ever to my confidence 
 [surely a handsome testimonial from the last situation !]. 
 Judge, then, as you know my satisfaction in looking on a 
 modern piece of virtu, if I do not think you a second self, 
 in thinking that by placing her within your reach, I render 
 a necessity which would otherwise be heartbreaking [if 
 heart there were to break] tolerable and even comforting.' 
 
 Having prepared the ground, he wrote again in the 
 following May, ' without affectation or disguise.' He 
 protested that his ' delicacy ' prevented him writing on 
 the subject while ' Lady Craven ' was by to be Sir 
 WilHam's flame, or ' Mrs. D '[ickenson] ^ to play the 
 dragon. The ' odds ' in their own two lives were not ' pro- 
 portioned to the difference ' of their years ; he was very 
 ' sensible ' of his uncle's intentions towards him. At what 
 followed Sir William must have smiled. 
 
 The real reason for all his fencing emerges. Sir William's 
 joint security on the pledge of half his minerals, the assur- 
 ance that he was made his heir, were mere credentials to be 
 shown by Greville to a prospective father-in-law. ' Suppose 
 a lady of 30,000 was to marry me,' and so forth — a vista of 
 married fortune. Even now the name of the lady thus 
 honoured was withheld ; but Hamilton must have known 
 it perfectly : ' . . . If you dislike my frankness, I shall be 
 sorry, for it cost me a little to throw myself so open, and 
 to no one's friendship could I have trusted myself but to 
 
 ' Sir William's niece who was now at Naples, and afterwards, unavailingly, 
 resented Emma's presence. 
 
' WHAT GOD, AND GREVILLE, PLEASES ' 83 
 
 yours, from which I have ever been treated with indulgence 
 and preference.' 
 
 A month more and he disclosed a positive, if 'distant 
 and imperfect,' prospect. Lord Middleton's youngest 
 daughter was the favoured lady — in the ' requisites of 
 beauty and disposition,' ' beyond the mark for a younger 
 brother.' The die was cast ; he penned a formal proposal 
 to her father. It may at once be told that the lady rejected 
 him, and that Greville never married. Often and often he 
 must have wished his poor and unfashionable Emma back 
 again, when she was poor and unfashionable no longer : 
 his amour propre had been hurt, and, till he became vice- 
 chamberlain in 1794, to Lady Hamilton's genuine pleasure,^ 
 his fortunes drooped. 
 
 Greville's tentatives were now at an end. At length he 
 laid a plain outline before Sir William : — ' If you could 
 form a plan by which you could have a trial, and could 
 invite her and tell her that I ought not to leave England 
 and that I cannot afford to go on ; and state it as a kind- 
 ness to me if she would accept your invitation, she would 
 go with pleasure. She is to be six weeks at some bathing 
 place; and when you could write an answer to this, and 
 inclose a letter to her, I could manage it ; and either 
 by land, by the coach to Geneva, and from thence by 
 Vetturino forward her, or else by sea. I must add that I 
 could not manage it so well later ; after a month, and 
 absent from me, she would consider the whole more calmly. 
 If there was in the world a person she loved so well as 
 yourself after me, I could not arrange with so much sang- 
 
 ' Cf. her letter of congratulation (Sept. i6, 1794), Morrison MS. 246, in 
 answer to his letter of August 18 announcing his good fortune and claiming 
 the approbation of such friends as herself, as the best reward for one who 
 plumes himself on friendship (Nelson Letters (1814), vol. i. p. 265) : ' I should 
 not flatter myself so far,' he writes, ' if I was not very sincerely interested 
 in your happiness and ever affectionately yours.' 'I congratulate you,' she 
 answers, ' with all my heart on your appointment. . . . You have well merited 
 it ; and all your friends must be happy at a change so favourable not only for your 
 pecuniary circumstances, as for the honner of the situation. May you long 
 enjoy it with every happiness that you deserve ! I speak from my heart. I don't 
 know a better, honester, or more amiable and worthy man than yourself; and 
 it is a great deal for me to say this,, for, whatever I think, I am not apt to pay 
 compliments.' 
 
84 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 froid; and I am sure I would not let her go to you, if any 
 risque of the usual coquetry of the sex [were] likely to give 
 uneasiness or appearance. . . .' 
 
 Sir William's ' invitation ' was to be perfectly innocent. 
 She was to understand that her dear Greville's interest de- 
 manded a temporary separation ; that she and her mother 
 would be honoured guests at the Naples Embassy ; that 
 she could improve the delightful change of scene and 
 climate by training her musical gifts under the best 
 masters, by studying the arts in their motherland, by 
 learning languages amid a cosmopolitan crowd ; that by 
 October her fairy-prince would reappear, and, like another 
 Orpheus, bring back his Eurydice. And all this she was 
 to be told, after absence, that makes the heart grow fonder, 
 had inured her to separation, softened her heart to self- 
 sacrifice, and reconciled her to his lightest bidding — when, 
 in short, it would be easiest to practise on devotion. About 
 these machinations Emma was left wholly in the dark ; 
 their windings took place behind her back. Her all-wise, 
 all-powerful and tender Greville could never consult but for 
 her good, while his real unselfishness towards the child 
 forbade any suspicion of his purpose. 
 
 To Emma his prim platitudes were the loving eloquence 
 of Romeo. And for the last few months he had been 
 always preaching up to her the spotless example of a 
 certain ' Mrs. Wells,' refined and accomplished, who, in 
 Emma's own situation, had earned and kept both her own 
 self-respect and that of more than one successive admirer ; 
 who had learned the art of retaining the lover as friend, 
 while she accepted his friend as lover. These innuendoes 
 may well have puzzled her. Had she not realised a dream 
 of constancy, and could that pass? Had she not parted 
 with the child she loved to please the man of her heart, 
 and fasten his faith to hers? Yet all the time her 
 dearest Greville could speak of ' forwarding ' her, just as if 
 she were one of those crystals on which he doted. 
 
 The fact was that, added to his embarrassments, his need 
 for fortune with a wife, his wish at once to oblige Sir 
 William and to preclude him from wedlock, his genuine 
 desire — which must be granted— to provide for Emma's 
 
'WHAT GOD, AND GREVILLE, PLEASES' 85 
 
 future, arose the feeling that Emma herself was now too 
 fond. It was hard to resign her ; but, unless the choice was 
 quickly made, it might become impossible ever to make it ; 
 and he might be entangled into a marriage which would 
 hold him up to ridicule. 
 
 But for once GreviUe was in haste. Sir William, always 
 leisurely, took time before he began to broach a scheme of 
 life which filled his nephew with alarm. Greville had never 
 doubted that, should his will prevail with Emma as well as 
 with his uncle, the latter would sequester her in one of his 
 villas near Naples — some Italian Edgware Row. His mind 
 recoiled from the awful thought that she might ever dispense 
 the honours of the Embassy. The Ambassador, however, 
 could not agree. He had discerned powers in this singular 
 woman passing Greville's vision, and the connoisseur longed 
 to call them forth and create a work of art. He lived, too, 
 in a land where the convenances were not so rigid as in his 
 own. Did not the bonne amie of a distinguished diplomat 
 and Knight of Malta grace his Roman house and circle ? ^ 
 
 Illness also made for postponement. When Greville 
 returned to town after his summer outing, he found Emma, 
 fresh from her sea-baths, ' alarmed and distress'd ' over her 
 mother's ' paralysis.' ' It was not so severe an attack,' he 
 told his uncle in November, ' as I understood it to be when 
 I informed you of it from Cornwall. . . . You may suppose 
 that I did not increase Emma's uneasiness by any hint of 
 the subject of our correspondence ' ; ' at any rate,' he sighs, 
 ' it cannot take place, and she goes on so well, . . . and also 
 improv'd in looks, that I own it is less agreable to part ; 
 yet I have no other alternative but to marry, or remain a 
 pauper ; I shall persist in my resolution not to lose an 
 opportunity if I can find it, and do not think that my idea 
 of sending her to Naples on such an event arises from my 
 consulting my convenience only. I can assure you she 
 would not have a scarcity of offers ; she has refused great 
 
 ' Cf. the instance of Pierre Camille de Rohan, Maltese Ambassador in Rome 
 (1791), adduced by Lady Malmesbury in Lady Minto's Life and Letters of the 
 first Earlof Minto, vol. i. His ' friend ' was a ' Chanoinesse.' This impeccable 
 lady, however, refused to see Lady Hamilton at Caserta before her marriage, 
 although she was universally received, and by many believed to have been 
 already married. 
 
86 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ones ; but I am sure she would prefer a foreign country. 
 ... I know that confidence and good usage will never be 
 abused by her, and that nothing can make her giddy. I 
 was only ten days with her when I was call'd away to be 
 Mayor of Warwick ; it was not kindly meant, but it will turn 
 out well. I have been at the castle ; I have put myself on 
 good terms with my brother, and I think I shall keep him 
 passive, if not interested for me in the borough. . . .' 
 
 It was not, therefore, Emma only who had grown ' much 
 more considerate and amiable.' Lord Warwick must be 
 enlisted if Greville was to ' stand high with both parties,' and 
 urge them into competition for his services, as he gravely 
 proceeded to inform his uncle. 
 
 December brought Sir William's offer, and with it 
 matured Greville's plans for the March ensuing. He would 
 visit Scotland to retrench and profit by the lectures of 
 Edinburgh dominies, while his ' minerals ' would remaiti his, 
 thanks to Hamilton's generosity ; Emma, she was assured, 
 for a while only, would repair to Naples chaperoned by her 
 mother, and the pleasant Gavin Hamilton Romeward bound. 
 All of them were to be couriered so far as Geneva by the 
 Swiss Dejean ; at Geneva Sir William's man Vincenzo — 
 long afterwards to be Nelson's faithful servant — would 
 meet the party. For six months only Emma could cease 
 her own course of incomparable lectures at Edgware Row ; 
 and a brief absence alone reconciled her to severance. A 
 charming visit was to hasten a welcome re-union. 
 
 '. . . The absolute necessity,' explains the casuist once 
 more, 'of reducing every expence to enable me to have 
 enough to exist on, and to pay the interest of my debt 
 without parting with my collection of minerals, which is not 
 yet in a state of arrangement which would set it off to its 
 greatest advantage, occasion'd my telling Emma,' with 
 sudden artlessness, ' that I should be obliged on business 
 to absent myself for a few months in Scotland. She 
 naturally said that such a separation would be very like a 
 total separation, for that she should be very miserable 
 during my absence, and that she should neither profit by 
 my conversation nor improve in any degree, that my 
 absence would be more tolerable if she had you to comfort 
 
' WHAT GOD. AND GREVILLE, PLEASES ' 87 
 
 her, . . . as there was not a person in the world whom she 
 could be happy with, if I was dead, but yourself, and that she 
 certainly would profit of your kind offer, if I should die or 
 slight her ' — two equally improbable alternatives in Emma's 
 purview. '. . . I told her that / should have no objection to 
 her going to Naples for 6 or S months, and that if she 
 realy wish'd it I would forward any letter she wrote. . . . 
 That she would not fear being troublesome, as she would be 
 perfectly satisfied with the degree of attention you should from 
 choice give her, and that she should be very hap0 in learning 
 music, Italian, etc., while your avocations imploy'd you. . . . 
 I told her that she would be so happy that I should be cut 
 out, and she said that if I did not come for her, or neglected 
 her, she would certainly be grateful to you ; but that neither 
 interest nor affection should ever induce her to change, unless 
 my interest or wish required it.' 
 
 It should be noted that the previous sentences about 
 Emma's alternatives are contradicted by those which set 
 her down as only to be weaned from Greville by becoming 
 a willing sacrifice to his ' interest.' 
 
 Enclosed was Emma's own missive. ' Emboldened ' by 
 Sir William's kindness when he was in England, she re- 
 capitulated the circumstances. Greville, ' whom you know 
 I love tenderly,' is obliged to go for four or five months in 
 the ' sumer ' ' to places that I cannot with propriety attend 
 him to' — here surely it is Greville who dictates? She has 
 too great a ' regard for him to hinder him from pursuing 
 those plans which,' she thinks, ' it is right for him to follow.' 
 As Hamilton was so good as to encourage her, she 'will 
 speak her mind.' Firstly, she would be glad ' to be a little 
 more improv'd,' and Greville 'out of kindness' had offered 
 to dispense with her for the few months at the close of 
 which he would come to ' fetch ' her home, and stay a while 
 there when he comes, ' which I know you will be glad to see 
 him.' He therefore proposed the ist of March for his own 
 departure northward and hers to the south. She would be 
 ' flattered ' if Hamilton will ' allot ' her an apartment in ' his 
 house,' ' and lett Greville occupye those appartments when 
 he comes ; you know that must be ; but as your house is 
 very large, and you must, from the nature of your office. 
 
88 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 have business to transact and visiters to see,' — here Greville 
 dictates again — ' I shall always keep my own room when 
 you are better engaged, and at other times I hope to have 
 the pleasure of your company and conversation, which will 
 be more agreable to me than anything in Italy. As I 
 have given you an example of sincerity, I hope you will be 
 equaly candid and sincere in a speedy answer. ... I shall 
 be perfectly happy in any arrangements you will make, as 
 I have full confidence in your kindness and attention to 
 me. ..." 
 
 The must in this letter leaves no doubt that the per- 
 manence of separation never crossed her mind. Greville's 
 crystals, however, required a sacrifice, which for him she 
 prided herself on making. 
 
 On April 26 — her birthday — she duly arrived at the 
 Palazzo Sessa.^ But she at once felt wretched away from 
 the man she loved, and her sole comfort lay in forwarding 
 his interest. ' It was my birthday, and I was very low 
 spirited. Oh God ! that day that you used to smile on 
 me and stay at home, and be kind to me — that that day I 
 shou'd be at such a distance from you ! But my comfort is 
 that I rely upon your promise, and September or October 
 I shall see you ! But I am quite unhappy at not hearing 
 from you — no letter for me yet, . . . but I must wait with 
 patience.' 'I dreaded,' she continued later, 'setting down 
 to write, for I try to appear as chearful before Sir William 
 as I could, and I am sure to cry the moment I think of 
 you.^ For I feel more and more unhappy at being separated 
 from you, and if my fatal ruin depends on seeing you, I 
 will and must at the end of the sumer. For to live without 
 you is imposible. I love you to that degree that at this 
 time there is not a hardship upon hearth either of poverty, 
 cold, death, or even to walk barefooted to Scotland to see 
 
 ^ Then the Embassy. For this information I am obliged to Mr. Neville- 
 Rolfe, Consul- General at Naples. It was with difficulty that he identified the 
 site in the Vico Capella Vecchia. The Sessa family still owns the house. 
 
 ' Sir William had divined this probability the day before she arrived : — 
 ' However, I will do as well as I can and hobble in and out of this pleasant 
 scrape as decently as I can. You may be assured I will comfort her for the loss 
 of you as well as I am able, but I know, from the small specimens during your 
 absence from London, that I shall have at times many tears to wipe from those 
 charming eyes.' — Morrison MS. 149, April 25, 1786. 
 
'WHAT GOD, AND GREVILLE, PLEASES' 89 
 
 you, but what I wou'd undergo. Therefore my dear, dear 
 Greville, if you do love me, for my sake, try all you can to 
 come hear as soon as possible. You have a true friend in 
 Sir William, and he will be happy to see you, and do all he 
 can to make you happy ; and for me I will be everything 
 you can wish for. I find it is not either a fine horse, or a 
 fine coach, or a pack of servants, or plays or operas, can 
 make [me] happy. It is you that [h]as it in your power 
 either to make me very happy or very miserable. I respect 
 Sir William, I have a great regard for him, as the uncle 
 and friend of you, and he loves me, Greville. But he can 
 never be anything nearer to me than your uncle and my 
 sincere friend. He never can be my lover. You do not 
 know how good Sir William is to me. He is doing every- 
 thing he can to make me happy. . . .' ^ 
 
 Her inmost soul speaks in these sentences. They ring 
 true, and are without question outpourings of the heart on 
 paper bedewed with tears. Sir William was indeed kind. 
 He wanted to wean her from one who could thus have treated 
 her. He was never out of her sight. He gazed on her ; 
 he sighed ; he praised her every movement. He gave her 
 presents and showed her all that romantic antiquity which 
 he loved, understood, and explained so well. She had 
 gazed on Posilippo, and was to revel in the villino at Caserta 
 and the Posilippo villa, which soon bore her name. But 
 carriage and liveries, ' like those of Mrs. Damer,' who had 
 just left, a private boat, and baths under summer skies in 
 summer seas — all these availed nothing with Greville 
 absent. Her apartment was of four rooms fronting that en- 
 chanted bay. The Ambassador's friends dined with her, and 
 she sang for them : — ' Yes, last night we had a little concert. 
 But then I was so low, for I wanted you to partake of our 
 amusement. Sir Thomas Rumbold "^ is here with [h]is son 
 who is dying of a decline, . . . and poor young man ! he 
 cannot walk from the bed to the chair ; and Lady Rumbold, 
 like a tender-hearted wretch, is gone to Rome, to pass her 
 time there with the English, and [h]as took the coach and 
 
 ^ All the foregoing passages are to be found in the Morrison MS. of 1784- 
 1786. 
 
 2 The enriched Nabob from Ceylon whose wealth caused a parliamentary 
 scandal in 1782. Cf. Horace Walpole's Letters, vol. viii. pp. 216, 221. 
 
90 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 all the English servants with her, and left poor Sir Thomas, 
 with [h]is heart broken, waiting on [h]is sick son. You 
 can't think what a worthy man he is. He dined with ous, 
 and likes me very much, and every day [h]as brought [h]is 
 carriage or phaeton . . . and carries me and mother and 
 Sir William out.' None the less her heart stays with 
 Greville. She is always helping him with Sir William, 
 whose good will (in both senses of that word) makes her 
 'very happy for his sake. . . . But Greville, my dear 
 Greville, wright some comfort to me.' ' Only remember 
 your promise of October.'^ This delusive October must 
 have hung over Greville's head like a sword of Damocles, 
 or Caesar's inevitable Ides of March. 
 
 The sensation of Emma's first appearance in the kal- 
 eidoscope of Naples, with its King of the Lazzaroni and 
 Queen of the Illuminati, together with the conjunctures 
 of affairs and men first witnessed by her, will find place in 
 the next chapter. It was not many months before she 
 was to exclaim to Greville, ' You do not know what power 
 I have hear ' ; before Acton, the Premier, was to rally Sir 
 William on 'a worthy and charming young lady.'^ But 
 now and here the climax of her emotions, when she first 
 fully realised Greville's breach of faith and his real pur- 
 pose in exiling her, must be reached without interruption. 
 Even on the first of May, when his uncle told her in reply 
 to her solicitude for Greville's welfare, that she might 
 command anything from one who loved them both so 
 dearly, ' I have had a conversation this morning,' she wrote, 
 ' with Sir William that has made me mad. He speaks — no, 
 I do not know what to make of it.' 
 
 Three months went by, and still no letter came, except 
 one to tell her how grateful was the nephew for the uncle's 
 care ;* and still Sir William looked and languished. The 
 truth began to dawn upon her, but even now she dared not 
 face, and would not believe it. At the close of July, when 
 Naples drowses and melts in dreamy haze, she made her 
 
 • Morrison MS. 150, April 30, 1785. 
 2 Egerton MS. 2639, f. 12, March 10, 1787. 
 
 ' Alluded to in Greville's business note to Hamilton. Morrison MS. 151, 
 May 1786. 
 
' WHAT GOD, AND GREVILLE, PLEASES ' 91 
 
 last and piteous, though spirited, appeal. ' I am now onely 
 writing to beg of you for God's sake to send me one letter, 
 if it is onely a farewell. Sure I have deserved this for the 
 sake of the love you once had for me. . . . Don't despise 
 me. I have not used you ill in any one thing. I have 
 been from you going of six months, and you have wrote 
 one letter to me, enstead of which I have sent fourteen to 
 you. So pray let me beg of you, my much loved Greville, 
 only one line from your dear, dear hands. You don't know 
 how thankful I shall be for it. For if you knew the misery 
 I feel, oh ! your heart wou'd not be intirely shut up against 
 me ; for I love you with the truest affection. Don't let any 
 body sett you against me. Some of your friends — your 
 foes perhaps, I don't know what to stile them — have long 
 wisht me ill. But, Greville, you never will meet with any- 
 body that has a truer affection for you than I have, and I 
 onely wish it was in my power to shew you what I cou'd do 
 for you. As soon as I know your determination, I shall 
 take my own measures. If I don't hear from you, and that 
 you are coming according to promise, I shall be in England 
 at Cristmass at farthest. Don't be unhappy at that, I will 
 see you once more for the last time. I find life is insup- 
 portable without you. Oh ! my heart is intirely broke. 
 Then for God's sake, my ever dear Greville, do write to me 
 some comfort. I don't know what to do. I am now in 
 that state, I am incapable of anything. I have a language- 
 master, a singing-master, musick, etc., but what is it for ? 
 If it was to amuse you, I shou'd be happy. But, Greville, 
 what will it avail me? I am poor, helpless, and forlorn. 
 I have lived with you 5 years, and you have sent me to a 
 strange place, and no one prospect but thinking you was 
 coming to me. Instead of which I was told. . . . No, I 
 respect him, but no, never. . . . What is to become of me ? 
 But excuse me, my heart is ful. I tel you give me one 
 guiney a week for everything, and live with me, and I will 
 be contented. But no more. I will trust to Providence, and 
 wherever you go, God bless you, and preserve you, and 
 may you allways be happy ! But write to Sir William. 
 What [h]as he done to affront you ? ' ^ 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 152, July 22, 1786. 
 
92 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 She awaited Greville's orders. Sir William had com- 
 missioned still another portrait of her from Romney;^ 
 ' Angelaca ' was about to paint her ; she was ' so remarkably 
 fair ' that ' everybody ' said she ' put on red and white ' ; 
 Lord Hervey was her slave ; a foreign prince was in her 
 train each evening ; the king was 'sighing ' for her. It was 
 Greville's orders for which she waited. She had just 
 visited Pompeii and viewed the wrecks of love and bloom 
 and life unearthed by alien hands. Was here no moral for 
 this distraught and heaving bosom ? And there that awful 
 mountain lowered and threatened ruin every day. The 
 Maltese Minister's house hard by had been struck by 
 lightning. Like lurid Nature, Emma too was roused to 
 fury, though, a microcosm of it also, she smiled between 
 the outbursts. What could she do but wait ? 
 
 Twelve days more; the order comes — ^Oblige Sir William.' 
 Her passion blazes up, indignant : ' . . . Nothing can express 
 my rage. Greville, to advise me ! — you that used to envy 
 my smiles ! How with qool indifference to advise me ! . . . 
 Oh! that is the worst of all. But I will not, no, I will 
 not rage. If I was with you I wou'd murder you and myself 
 boath. I will leave of[f] and try to get more strength, for 
 I am now very ill with a cold. ... I won't look back to 
 what I wrote . . . Nothing shall ever do for me but going 
 home to you. If that is not to be, I will except of nothing 
 I will go to London, their go into every excess of vice till I 
 dye, a miserable, broken-hearted wretch, and leave my fate 
 as a warning to young whomen never to be two good ; for 
 now you have made me love you, you made me good, you 
 have abbandoned me ; and some violent end shall finish our 
 connexion, if it is to finish. But oh ! Greville, you cannot, 
 you must not give me up. You have not the heart to do 
 it. You love me I am sure ; and I am willing to do every- 
 thing in my power, and what will you have more ? And I 
 only say this is the last time I will either beg or pray, do as 
 you like.' — ' I always knew, I had a foreboding since first I 
 began to love you, that I was not destined to be happy ; 
 for their is not a King or Prince on hearth that cou'd 
 make me happy without you.' — ' Little Lord Brooke is dead. 
 Poor little boy, how I envy him his happiness.' 
 
 ' The second ' Bacchante,' lost in the Colossus in 1799. 
 
' WHAT GOD, AND GREVILLE, PLEASES ' 93 
 
 She had been degraded in her own eyes, and by the lover 
 whom she had heroised. Was this, then, the reward of 
 modesty regained ; of love returned, of strenuous effort, of 
 hopes for her child, and a home purified ? Her idol lay 
 prone, dashed from its pedestal, with feet of clay. And yet 
 this did not harden her. Though she could not trust, she 
 still believed in him as in some higher power who chastens 
 those he loves. Her paroxysms passed to return again : — 
 ' ... It is enough, I have paper that Greville wrote on. 
 He [h]as folded it up. He wet the wafer. How I envy 
 thee the place of Emma's lips, that would give worlds, 
 had she them, to kiss those lips ! . . . I onely wish that a 
 wafer was my onely rival. But I submit to what God and 
 Greville pleases' Even now she held him to his word. 'I 
 have such a headache with my cold, I don't know what to 
 do. ... I can't lett a week go without telling you how 
 happy I am at hearing from you. Pray, write as often as 
 you can. If you come, we shall all go home together. , . . 
 Pray write to me, and don't write in the stile of a freind, 
 but a lover. For I won't hear a word of freind. Sir 
 William is ever freind. But we are lovers. I am glad you 
 have sent me a blue hat and gloves. . .' 
 
 For many years she cherished Greville's friendship. She 
 wrote to him perpetually after the autumn of this year saw 
 Sir William win her heart as well as will by his tenderness, 
 and by her thought of advancing the ingrate nephew 
 himself. Never did she lose sight of Greville's interests 
 during those fourteen future years at Naples. She lived 
 to thank Greville for having made Sir William known 
 to her, to be proud of her achievements as his ileve. 
 
 But at the same time in these few months a larger 
 horizon was already opening. She had looked on a bigger 
 world, and ambition was awakening within her. She had 
 seen royalty and statesmen, and she began to feel that she 
 might play a larger part. Under, Greville's yoke she had 
 been ready to pinch and slave ; with Sir William she would 
 rule. 'Pray write,' she concludes one of her Greville 
 letters, ' for nothing will make me so angry, and it is not to 
 your intrest to disoblidge me, for you don't know,' she adds 
 with point, 'the power I have hear. . . . If you affront me,' 
 
94 ^ EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 she prophesies (not threatens, as has been represented), ' / 
 will make him marry me. God bless you for ever.' ^ 
 
 And amid all her tumult of disillusionment, of un- 
 certainty, of bewilderment in the new influence she was 
 visibly wielding over new surroundings, she remained the 
 more mindful of those oldest friends who had believed her 
 good, and enabled her to feel good herself. Sir William, 
 wishful to retain for her the outside comforts of virtue, 
 hastened to gratify her by inviting Romney and Hayley to 
 Naples. The disappointment caused by Romney's inability 
 to comply with a request dear to him ''■ threw her back on 
 herself, and made her feel lonelier than ever ; her mother 
 was her great consolation. 
 
 And what was Greville's attitude ? These Emma-letters 
 would have been tumbled into his waste-paper basket with 
 the fourteen others that remain, had he not returned them 
 to Hamilton with the subjoined and private comment: — 
 ' L'oubli de Hindus est volant, fixez-le : si on admet le ton de la 
 vertu sans la virit^, on est la dupe, et je place naturellement 
 tout sur le pied vrai, comme j'ai toujours fait, et je constate 
 I'itat actuel sans m.e reporter d vous.' ^ One must not be 
 duped by the tone without the truth of virtue ! The ' self- 
 respect,' then, instilled by him, was never designed to raise 
 her straying soul ; it was a makeshift contrived to steady 
 her erring steps — a mere bridge between goodness and its 
 opposite, which he would not let her cross ; though neither 
 would he let her throw herself over it into the troubled 
 and muddy depths below : it was a bridge built for his own 
 retreat. Greville recked of no ' truth ' but hard ' facts,' 
 which he looked unblushingly in the face, nor did his 
 essence harbour one flash or spark of idealism. And still 
 he purposed her welfare, as he understood it ; he had sought 
 to kill three birds with one stone. Hamilton, for all his 
 faults, was never a sophist of such compromise. For Emma 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 153, August i, 1786. Some of the sentences are quoted in 
 the order oi feeling and not of sequence. Emma seldom wrote long letters in a 
 single day. 
 
 2 Romney had been very ill. In his answer (August 1786) he hopes ' in a 
 weke or to, to be upon my pins (I cannot well call them legs), as you know at 
 best they are very poor ones.' — Cf. Ward and Roberts's Romney, vol. i. p. 67. 
 
 3 Morrison MS. 154, October 24, 1786. The '/a' is Greville's. 
 
'WHAT GOD, AND GREVILLE, PLEASES' 95 
 
 he purposed a state of life above its semblance, and a 
 strength beyond its frail supports; already he desired 
 that she would consent to be, in all but name, his wife. 
 Greville, certain of her good nature, had dreaded per- 
 manence ; Hamilton, if all went smoothly, meant it. Yet 
 Greville exacted friendship without affection. His French 
 postscript was designed to escape Emma's comprehension, 
 though a month or so later it could not have succeeded in 
 doing so. But the letter itself contained some paragraphs 
 which he intended her to study : — 
 
 ' . . . I shall hope to manage to all our satisfaction, for 
 I so long foresaw that a moment of separation must arrive, 
 that I never kept the connexion, but on the footing of 
 perfect liberty to her. Its commencement was not of my 
 seeking, and hitherto it has contributed to her happiness. 
 She knows and reflects often on the circumstances which 
 she cannot forget, and in her heart she cannot reproach me 
 of having acted otherwise than a kind and attentive friend. 
 But you have now rendered it possible for her to be respected 
 and comfortable, and if she has not talked herself out of the true 
 vieiv of her situation she will retain the protection and affection 
 of us both. For after all, consider what a charming creature 
 she would have been if she had been blessed with the 
 advantages of an early education, and had not been spoilt by 
 the indulgence of every caprice. I never was irritated by 
 her momentary passions, for it is a good heart which will 
 not part with a friend in anger ; and yet it is true that when 
 her pride is hurt by neglect or anxiety for the future, the 
 frequent repition \sic\ of her passion ballances the beauty of 
 the smiles. If a person knew her and could live for life with 
 her, by an economy of attention, that is by constantly renew- 
 ing very little attentions, she would be happy and good 
 tem'per'd, for she has not a grain of avarice or self-interest. . . . 
 Knowing all this, infinite have been my pains to make her 
 respect herself, and act fmrly,- and I had always proposed to 
 continue her friend, altho' the connexion ceased. I had pro- 
 posed to make her accept and manage your kind provision,^ 
 and she would easily have adopted that plan j it was acting 
 
 ' Sir Williani offered to settle ;^I00 annually, and Greville a like sum, on her. 
 Romney was to have been a trustee. 
 
96 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the part of good woman, and to offer to put her regard to 
 any test, and to show that she contributed to MY happiness, by 
 accepting the provision ... it would not have hurt her pride, 
 and would have been a line of heroicks more natural, because 
 it arose out of the real situation, than any which by con- 
 versation she might persuade herself suited her to act. Do 
 not understand the word " act " other than I mean it. We 
 all [act] well when we suit our actions to the real situation, 
 and conduct them by truth and good intention. We act 
 capriciously and inconveniently to others when our actions 
 are founded on an imaginary plan which does not place the 
 persons involved in the scene in their real situations. . . . 
 If Mrs. Wells had quarrell'd with Admiral Keppell, she 
 would never have been respected as she now is. . . . If she 
 will put me on the footing of a friend . . . she will write to 
 me fairly on her plans, she will tell me her thoughts, and her 
 future shall be my serious concern. . . , She has conduct 
 and discernment, and I have always said that such a woman, 
 if she controul her passions, might rule the roost, and chuse 
 her station.' 
 
 Thus ^neas-Greville, of Dido-Emma, to his trusty 
 Achates. Surely a self-revealing document of sense and 
 blindness, of truth and falsehood, one, moreover, did space 
 allow, well worth longer excerpts. He excused his action 
 in his own eyes even more elaborately, over and over again. 
 He would conscientiously fulfil his duty to her and hers, if 
 only she would accept his view of her own 'duty ' towards him ; 
 his tone admitted of few obligations beyond mutual interest. 
 He never reproached either her or himself : he thought him- 
 self firm, not cruel ; he remained her good friend and well- 
 wisher, her former rescuer, a father to her child. ' Heroicks ' 
 were out of place and out of taste. He again held up to 
 her proud imitation the prime pattern of ' Mrs. Wells.' He 
 was even willing that she should return home, if so she 
 chose ; but his terms were irrevocably fixed, and it was use- 
 less for her to hystericise against adamant. 
 
 But he did not reckon with the latent possibilities of her 
 being. The sequel was to prove not 'what Greville,' but 
 what ' God pleases.' 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 
 
 1787-1791 
 
 What was the new prospect on which Emma's eyes first 
 rested in March 1786? Goethe has described it. A fruitful 
 land, a free, blue sea, the scented islands, and the smoking 
 mountain. A population of vegetarian craftsmen busy to 
 enjoy with hand-to-mouth labour. A people holding their 
 teeming soil under a lease on sufferance from earthquake 
 and volcano. An inflammable mob, whose king lost six 
 thousand subjects annually by assassination, and whose 
 brawls and battles of vendetta would last three hours at a 
 time.^ An upper class of feudal barons proud and ignorant. 
 A lower class of half-beggars, at once lazy, brave, and 
 insolent, who, if they misliked the face of a foreign inquirer, 
 would stare in silence and turn away. A middle class of 
 literati despising those above and below them. A race of 
 tillers and of fishermen alternating between pious supersti- 
 tion and reckless revel, midway, as it were, between God and 
 Satan.^ The bakers celebrating their patron. Saint Joseph ; 
 the priests their childlike ' saint-humorous,' San Filippo Neri ; 
 high and low alike, their civic patrons, Saints Anthony and 
 Januarius, whose liquefying blood each January propitiated 
 Vesuvius.* Preaching Friars, dreaming Friars ; singing, 
 
 ' Cf. Life and Letters of the first Earl of Minto, vol. ii. p. 364. In their 
 fight with the 'Sberri,' Sir William's courtyard gave them refuge, and there 
 Emma's humanity had full play. 
 
 ^ Goethe's own expression in the Italian fourney. 
 
 ' On the outbreak of the French Revolution, the latter saint being accused of 
 Jacobinism, his statue was solemnly tried in open court wd condemned, 
 
 G 
 
98 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 sceptical, enjoying Abbds. A country luxuriant not only 
 with southern growths, but garlanded even in February by 
 banks of wild violets and tangles of wild heliotrope and 
 sweet-peas.^ A spirit of Nature, turning dread to beauty, 
 and beauty into dread. 
 
 She sits, her head leaned against her hand, and gazes 
 through the open casement on a scene bathed in southern 
 sun and crystal air — the pure air, the large glow, the 
 light soil that made Neapolis the pride of Magna Graecia. 
 Her room — it is Goethe himself who describes it ^ — 
 ' furnished in the English taste,' is ' most delightful ' ; ^ 
 the 'outlook from its corner window, unique.' Below, 
 the bay ; in full view, Capri ; on the right, Posilippo ; 
 nearer the highroad. Villa Reale the royal palace ; on the 
 left an ancient Jesuit cloister, which the queen had dedi- 
 cated to learning ; hard by on either side, the twin strong- 
 holds of Ovo and Nuovo, and the busy, noisy Molo, 
 overhung by the fortress of San Elmo on the frowning 
 crag ; further on, the curving coast from Sorrento to Cape 
 Minerva. And all this varied vista, from the centre of a 
 densely thronged and clattering city. 
 
 The whirlwind of passion sank, and gradually yielded to 
 calm, as Greville had predicted. ' Every woman,' com- 
 mented this astute observer, resenting the mention of his 
 name at Naples, ' either feels or acts a part ' ; and change 
 of dramatis personcB was necessary, he added, ' to make 
 Emma happy' and himself 'free.'* But his careful pre- 
 scription of the immaculate ' Mrs. Wells ' only partially 
 succeeded. True, the elderly friend was soon to become 
 the attached lover, and the prudential lover a forgiven 
 friend ; but he ceased henceforward to be ' guide ' or 
 ' philosopher,' and gradually faded into a minor actor in the 
 drama, though never into a supernumerary. She felt, as she 
 told Sir William, forlorn ; her trust had been betrayed and 
 rudely shaken. What she longed for was a friend, and 
 
 1 Cf. Life and Letters of the First Earl of Minto. 
 
 " Italienische Reise. Works, vol. xix. p. 220. No one has written a better 
 account of the Neapolitans in the spring and summer of 1787. 
 
 * 'AUerliebst.' 
 
 * Morrison MS. 154. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 99 
 
 she could never simulate what she did not feel.^ His 
 gentle respect, his chivalry, contrasting with Greville's 
 cynical taskmastership, his persuasive endearments, eventu- 
 ally won the day ; and by the close of the year Emma's 
 heart assented to his suit. Her eyes had been opened.^ 
 To him she ' owed everything.' He was to her ' every 
 kind name in one.' ' I believe,' she assured him this year, 
 ' it is right I shou'd be seperated from you sometimes, to 
 make me know myself, for I don't know till you are absent, 
 how dear you are to me'; she implores one little line just 
 that she 'may kiss' his 'name.'^ Sir William at fifty- 
 six retained that art of pleasing which he never lost ; and 
 she was always pleased to be petted and shielded. Even 
 before the opening of 1787 she had already mastered the 
 language and the society of Naples. Disobedient to his 
 nephew, and his niece Mrs. Dickenson, who remonstrated 
 naturally but in vain. Sir William insisted on her ' doing 
 the honours,' which she astonished him by managing, as he 
 thought, to perfection. Every moment spared from receiv- 
 ing or giving hospitalities in the Palazzo Sessa * was filled 
 by strenuous study at home, or in the adjoining Convent of 
 Santa Romita. Her captivating charm, her quick tact, her 
 impulsive friendliness, her entertaining humour, her natural 
 taste for art, which, together with her ' kindness and intelli- 
 gence,' had already been acknowledged by Romney as a 
 source of inspiration ; * her unique ' Attitudes,' her voice 
 which, under Galluci's tuition, she was now beginning ' to 
 
 1 Cf. her very striking letter to Hamilton, Morrison MS. 163 : ' ... Do you 
 call me your dear friend ? . . . Oh, if I cou'd express myself ! If I had words 
 to thank you, that I may not thus be choaked with meanings, for which I can 
 find no utterance ! ' etc. 
 
 ^ ' But now I have my wisdom teeth.' — Morrison MS. 157. 
 
 s Ibid. 164. 
 
 * So far from this house being, as has been put forward, the present Embassy, 
 it did not even remain the habitation of Hamilton's successors, Paget, Elliot, 
 and Bentinck. Writing to Emma from Naples in 1804, Nelson says: 'Your 
 house has become a hotel.' 
 
 ° Cf. Hayley's letter to her of May 17, 1804 (cited by Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 
 596) : ' You were not only his model but his inspirer, and he truly and grate- 
 fully said, that he owed a great part of his felicity as a painter to the angelic 
 kindness and intelligence with which you used to animate his diffident and 
 tremulous spirits to the grandest efforts of art.' 
 
loo EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 command,' even her free and easy manners when con- 
 trasted with those of the Neapolitan noblesse, all seemed 
 miracles, broke down the easy barriers of susceptible 
 southerners, and gained her hosts of 'sensible admirers.' 
 So early as February 1787 Sir William reported to his 
 nephew : ' . . . Our dear Em. goes on now quite as I cou'd 
 wish, and is universally beloved ' — a phrase which Emma 
 herself repeated ten months later to her first mentor, with 
 the proud consciousness of shining at a distance before 
 him. 'She is wonderful!,' added Hamilton, 'considering 
 her youth and beauty, and I flatter myself that E. and her 
 Mother are happy to be with me, so that I see my every 
 wish fulfilled.' By the August of this year, when she first 
 wrote Italian, she saw ' good company,' she delighted the 
 whole diplomatic circle ; Sir William was indissociable ; 
 she used the familiar ' we ' — ' our house at Caserta is fitted 
 up,' while Sir William followed suit.^ The very servants 
 styled her ' Eccellenza.' Her attached Ambassador ' is 
 distractedly in love ' ; 'he deserves it, and indeed I love 
 him dearly.' There was not a grain in her of inconstancy. 
 ' He is so kind, so good and tender to me,' she wrote as 
 Emma Hart, in an unpublished letter,^ 'that I love him 
 so much that I have not a warm look left for the 
 Neapolitans.' His evenings, he wrote, were sweet with 
 song and admiring guests, while her own society rendered 
 them a 'comfort.' Inclination went on steadily ripening, 
 until it settled within three years into deep mutual fond- 
 ness. He fitted up for her a new boudoir in the Naples 
 house with its round mirrors, as Miss Knight has recorded,* 
 covering the entire side of the wall opposite the semi- 
 circular window, and reflecting the moonlit bay with its 
 glimmering boats, the glass tanks with their marine 
 treasures of ' sea-oranges ' and the like. Within a year 
 Hamilton tells Greville that she asks him 'Do you love 
 me, aye, but as much as your new apartment ? ' — both here 
 and at Caserta. He did his best to ' form ' her, and in the 
 course of time she was able to share his botanical studies, 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 174. 
 
 " May 17, 1804. From an excerpt in one of Messrs. Sotheby's catalogues, 
 June 1905. ' Miss Knight's Diary, vol. i. p. 251. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE loi 
 
 which they pursued not as ' pedantical prigs ' to air learning, 
 but with zeal and pleasure in the early mornings and fresh 
 air of the ' English ' gardens. Her aptitude and adaptive- 
 ness worked wonders. Within a year she was able to take 
 an intelligent interest in the preparation of the virtuoso's new 
 volume on Etruscan Urns — a progress promptly reported 
 by him to his old crony Sir Joseph Banks, who greeted it 
 cordially.^ She aided his volcanic observations; Sir William 
 laughed, and said she would rival him with the mountain 
 now.^ Both had already stayed with, and she had en- 
 chanted, the Duke and Duchess of St. Maitre at Sorrento, 
 the musical Countess of Mahoney at Ischia ; cries of ' Una 
 donna rara,' ^bellissima creatural were on every mouth. 
 The Duke of Gloucester begged Hamilton to favour him 
 with her acquaintance.* The Olympian Goethe himself 
 beheld and marvelled. Her unpretending naivetd * won her 
 adherents at every step. ' All the female nobility, with 
 the queen at their head,' were ' distantly civil ' to her 
 already ; none rude to Emma were allowed within the 
 precincts. Meddlers or censors were sent roundly to the 
 right-about, and informed that she was the sweetest, the 
 best, the cleverest creature in the world. When he returned 
 from his periodical royal wild-boar chases, it was Emma 
 again who brewed his punch and petted him. Now and 
 again there peeps out also that half voluptuous tinge in her 
 wifeliness which never wholly deserted her. She had been 
 Greville's devoted slave; Sir William was already hers. 
 Her monitor had repulsed her free sacrifice and urged 
 it for his own advantage towards his uncle; but her 
 
 ^ Cf. Eg. MS. 2641, f. 139, and cf. ff. 137, 141, 146. ' I rejoice to hear that 
 she proceeds with diligence and success in her improvement. Her beauty will, I 
 hope, last as long as she can wish ; but her mind, when once stored with instruc- 
 tion and amusement, will certainly last as long as she stays this side Heaven.' — 
 November 1787. 
 
 "^ Morrison MS. 164. 
 
 3 Morrison MS. 166. Just before Emma's arrival the Duke of Cumberland 
 had also been there with Lord Ferrers and the ill-starred gamestress, Lady 
 Elizabeth Luttrell. Cf. Ibid. 148. On the Duke of Gloucester's return home 
 King George's family dissensions were renewed. Says Henry Swinburne, 
 Greville's friend and Hamilton's at Naples : ' The poor king will act the part 
 of the enraged musician, but the nation will pay the piper.' — Ibid. 179. 
 
 * This point is specially emphasised afterwards by Sir William. 
 
I02 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 worshipper had now fanned not so much the flame, 
 perhaps, as the incense of her unfeigned^ attachment. 
 The English dined with her while Sir William was away 
 shooting with the king. She trilled Handel and Paisiello, 
 learned French, Italian, music, dancing, design,^ and 
 history.* Hamilton was himself musical, and used to accom- 
 pany her voice — of which he was a good judge — on the 
 viola. She laughed at the foibles and follies of the court ; 
 she retailed to him the gossip of the hour. She entered 
 into his routine and protected his interests ; she prevented 
 him from being pestered or plundered.* Only a few years, 
 and she was dictating etiquette even to an English nobleman.^ 
 
 It was a triumphal progress which took the town by 
 storm ; her beauty swept men off their feet. The trans- 
 formations of these eighteen months, which lifted her 
 out of her cramped nook at Paddington into a wide arena, 
 read like a dream, or one of those Arabian fairy-tales 
 where peasants turn princes in an hour. Nor is the least 
 surprise, among many, the thought that these dissolving 
 views present themselves as adventures of admired virtue, 
 and not as unsanctioned escapades. At Naples the worst 
 of her past seemed buried, and she could be born again. 
 Her accent, her vulgarisms mattered little ; she spoke to 
 new friends in a new language. The ' lovely woman ' 
 who had 'stooped to folly, and learned too late that men 
 betray,' seems rather to have ' stooped to conquer ' by the 
 approved methods of the same Goldsmith's heroine. 
 
 The scene of her dibut is that of Opera, all moonlight, 
 
 ^ Cf. Morrison MS. 164, 1787 (Emma to Sir William): '. . . My com- 
 forter in distress. Then why shall I not love you. Endead I must and ought 
 whilst life is left in me or reason to think on you. . . . My heart and eyes fill. 
 . . . I owe everything to you, and shall ever with grattitude remember it. ..." 
 Andcf.ihW. 172, 1788: '. . , I love Sir William, for he renounces all for me.' 
 
 ^ ' Drawing,' she says in one of her letters, comes ' easy as A, B, C 
 
 " Cf. TAe Life and Letters of the first Earl of Minto, vol. ii. p. 364. He calls 
 her (in 1796) ' the most extraordinary compound I ever beheld.' ' All Nature, 
 and yet all Art'; 'manners perfectly unpolished.' But 'one wonders at the 
 application and pains she has taken to make herself what she is.' He allows 
 her ' considerable natural understanding' and ' excessive good humOur.' 
 
 * Cf. inter alia for the foregoing Morrison MS. 160, 168, 171, 172. 
 
 5 Macartney. For Horace Walpole's mean opinion of him, cf. Letters, vol. 
 viii. p. 131, 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 103 
 
 flutter, music, and masquerade. Escaping in the cool of 
 the evening from her chambers, thronged by artists, wax- 
 modellers, and intaglio-cutters, she attends Sir William's 
 evening saunter in the royal gardens at the fashionable 
 hour. Hv^r complexion so much resembles apple-blossom, 
 that beholders question it, although she neither paints nor 
 powders. Dapper Prince Dietrichstein from Vienna (' Dray- 
 drixton' in her parlance as in Acton's) attends her as 
 'cavaliere servente' whispering to her in broken English 
 that she is a 'diamond of the first water.' Two more 
 princes and 'two or three nobles' follow at her heels. 
 She wears a loose muslin gown, the sleeves tied in folds 
 with blue ribbon arid trimmed with lace, a blue sash and 
 the big blue hat which Greville has sent her as peace- 
 offering. Beyond them stand the king, the queen, the 
 minister Acton, and a brilliant retinue. That queen, care- 
 worn but beautiful, who already 'likes her much,' has 
 begged the Austrian beau to walk near her that she may 
 get a glimpse of his fair companion, the English girl, who 
 is a ' modern antique.' ' But Greville,' writes Emma, ' the 
 king [h]as eyes, he [h]as a heart, and I have made an 
 impression on it. But I told the prince, Hamilton is my 
 friend, and she belongs to his nephew, for all our friends 
 know it.'i Only last Sunday that 'Roi d'Yvetot' had 
 dined at Posilippo, mooring his boat by the casements of 
 Hamilton's country casino for a nearer view. This garden- 
 house is already named the 'Villa Emma,' and there for 
 Emma a new 'music-room' is building. Emma and the 
 Ambassador had been entertaining a 'diplomatick party.' 
 They issue forth beneath the moon to their private boat. 
 At once the monarch places his ' boat of musick ' next to 
 theirs. His band of 'French Horns' strikes up a serenade 
 for the queen of hearts. The king removes his hat, sits 
 with it on his kneeg, and 'when going to land,' bows and 
 says, ' it was a sin he could not speak English.' She has 
 him in her train every evening at San Carlo, villa, or 
 promenade ; she is the cynosure of each day, and the toast 
 of every night. 
 
 Or, again, she entertains informally at Sorrento, orange- 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 152, July 22, 1786. 
 
I04 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 blossoming in February, after an afternoon of rambling 
 donkey-rides near flaming Vesuvius, and visits to grandees 
 in villeggiatura. In one room sits Sir William's orchestra ; 
 in the other she receives their guests. At last her turn 
 comes round to sing ; she chooses ' Luce Bella,' ^ in which 
 the Banti makes such a furore at San Carlo, that famous 
 Banti^ who had already marvelled at the tone and com- 
 pass of her voice,^ when in fear and trembling she had 
 been induced to follow her. As she ceases, there is a 
 ten minutes' round of applause, a hubbub of ' Bravas ' and 
 'Ancoras.' And then she performs in 'buffo' — 'that one' 
 (and Greville knew it) 'with a Tambourin,* in the char- 
 acter of a young girl with a raire-shew [raree-show], the 
 pretiest thing you ever heard.' He must concede her 
 triumph, the hard, unruffled man ! She turns the heads of 
 the Sorrentines ; she leaves ' some dying, some crying, and 
 some in despair. Mind you, this was all nobility, as proud 
 as the devil ' ; but — and here brags the people's daughter — 
 ' zve humbled them ' ; ' but what astonished them was that 
 I shou'd speak such good Italian. For I paid them, I 
 spared non[e] of them, tho' I was civil and oblidging. One 
 asked me if I left a love at Naples, that I left them so 
 soon. I pulled my lip at him, to say, " I pray, do you take 
 me for an Italian ? . . . Look, sir, I am English. I have 
 one Cavaliere servente, and I have brought him with me," 
 pointing to Sir William.' Hart, the English musician, wept 
 to hear her sing an air by Handel, pronouncing that in her 
 the tragic and comic Muses were so happily blended that 
 Garrick would have been enraptured.^ These were the 
 very qualities that even thus early distinguished her self- 
 
 1 Another of her songs at this time was ' Per pieti da questa instante non 
 parlarmi, O Dio d'Amor.' 
 
 " The Banti's will directed that her larynx should be preserved in spirits ; and 
 it is still in the Medical Museum of Bologna. 
 
 ' Long afterwards, Lord Moira told Mr. R. Payne Knight that he ' reckoned 
 the having heard her sing an epoch in his life,' and that she gave him ' ideas 
 of the power of expression in music which he should never otherwise have con- 
 ceived.' Cf. the letter quoted by Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 692. Sir Bjrooke 
 Boothby was equally enthusiastic. 
 
 * There is a drawing of her in this character by William Lock the amateur, 
 and afterwards Consul at Palermo. 
 
 * Morrison MS. 163. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 105 
 
 taught ' Attitudes,' by common consent of all beholders a 
 marvel of artistic expression and refinement. Goethe, at 
 this moment in Naples, and certainly no biassfed critic, was 
 an eye-witness. He had been introduced by his friends, 
 the German artists,^ to the Maecenas Ambassador and ' his 
 Emma.'^ He thus records his impressions : — 
 
 ' . . . The Chevalier Hamilton, so long resident here as 
 English Ambassador, so long, too, connoisseur and student 
 of Art and Nature, has found their counterpart and acme 
 with exquisite delight in a lovely girl — English, and some 
 twenty years of age. She is exceedingly beautiful and finely 
 built. She wears a Greek garb* becoming her to perfection. 
 She then merely loosens her locks, takes a pair of shawls,* 
 and effects changes of postures, moods, gestures, mien, and 
 appearance that make one really feel as if one were in some 
 dream. Here is visible complete, and bodied forth in move- 
 ments of surprising variety, all that so many artists have 
 sought in vain to fix and render. Successively standing, 
 kneeling, seated, reclining, grave, sad, sportive, teasing, 
 abandoned, penitent, alluring, threatening, agonised. One 
 follows the other, and grows out of it. She knows how to 
 choose and shift the simple folds of her single kerchief for 
 every expression, and to adjust it into a hundred kinds of 
 headgear. Her elderly knight holds the torches for her 
 performance, and is absorbed in his soul's desire. In her he 
 finds the charm of all antiques, the fair profiles on Sicilian 
 coins, the Apollo Belvedere himself. . . . We have already 
 rejoiced in the spectacle two evenings. Early to-morrow 
 Tischbein paints her.' ^ 
 
 ^ Tischbein, Hackert, and Andreas, who were all busy painting Emma. 
 — Morrison MS. 157, 159, 162. 
 
 ^ ' Do you call me your dear friend ? Ah ! what a happy creature is your 
 Emma — me that had no friend, no protector, nobody that I cou'd trust, and 
 now to be the freind, the Emma of Sir William Hamilton.' — Morrison MS. 
 165. 
 
 ' Perhaps the ' Turkish dress ' mentioned by her in a letter of this period. 
 
 * The ' camel ' ones that she had in London, and often requested Greville to 
 forward to her at Naples. Sir William presented her with one immediately on 
 her arrival. 
 
 ° Goethe, Italienische Reise, March 16, 1787, Works, vol. xix. p. 212. 
 With this appreciation of Emma's ' Attitudes ' should be joined both Romney's, 
 cited towards the close of this chapter, Lady Malmesbury's and Lady Elliot's 
 
io6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 There are less familiar references also in the Italian 
 Journey. On Goethe's return from Sicily in May, the 
 author of Wertker, occupied with the art, the peasant life, 
 and the geology of the neighbourhood, renewed his 
 acquaintance with the pair and acknowledges their kind- 
 nesses. He dined with them again. Sir William favoured 
 him with a view of his excavated treasures in the odd 
 ' vault,' where statues and sarcophagi, bronze candelabra and 
 busts, lay disarranged and jumbled. Among them Goethe 
 noticed an upright, open chest ' rimmed exquisitely with 
 gold, and large enough to contain a life-size figure in its 
 dark, inner background.' Sir William explained how 
 Emma, attired in bright Pompeiian costume, had stood 
 motionless inside it with an effect in the half-light even 
 more striking than her grace as ' moving statue.' Goethe, 
 ever curious, was now keenly interested in studying the 
 superstitions of the Neapolitan peasantry, and among 
 them those dumb shows of manger and Magi with which 
 they celebrated Christmas-tide. In these, living images 
 were intermixed with coloured casts of clay; And he 
 hazards the remark — while deprecating it from the lips of 
 a contented guest — that perhaps ' Miss Harte ' was at root 
 not more than such a living image — a tableau vivant. Per- 
 chance, he muses, the main lack of his 'fair hostess' is 
 'geist' or soulfulness of mind. Her dumb shows, he adds, 
 were naturally unvoiced, and voice alone expresses spirit. 
 Even her admired singing he then thought deficient in 
 'fulness.'^ Had Goethe, however, known her whole nature, 
 he would have owned that if she were 'geistlos' in the 
 highest sense, she was never dull, and was to prove the 
 reverse of soulless ; while he, of all men, would have 
 
 (1792 and 1796. Cf. The Life and Letters of the first Earl of Minto, vol. i. 
 p. 406 ; vol. ii. p. 364). The former says : ' The most graceful statues or pic- 
 tures do not give you an idea of them. Her dancing the Tarantella is beautiful 
 to a degree'; and the latter '. . . singles out her " refined taste" and " extra- 
 ordinary talent. " ' And also Madame Le Brun's Memoirs, p. 69. She invited 
 the Dues de Berri and de Bourbon to see them in 1803. She had prepared ' a 
 very large frame with a screen on either side of it,' and 'a strong limelight disposed 
 so that it could not be seen.' ' She changed firom grief to joy, and from joy to 
 terror so rapidly and effectively that we were all enchanted.' So too even Mrs. St. 
 George in Yitt Journal. ' Works, vol. xx. pp. 12, 13. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 107 
 
 admired not only her enthusiasm but her more practical 
 qualities. Did he, perhaps, in after years recall this mute 
 and lovely vision when her name, for good or ill, had 
 entered history? At any rate, though neither Hamilton 
 nor Emma has noticed him in existing letters, they both 
 endure on Goethe's pages ; and to have impressed Goethe 
 was even then no easy task. That the creator of Iphigenia 
 and Tasso was deeply impressed is proved by another and 
 better known passage, where after praising Hamilton as ' a 
 man of universal taste, who has roamed through all the 
 realms of creation,' and has 'made a beautiful existence 
 Which he enjoys in the evening of life,' he adds that Emma 
 is ' a masterpiece of the Arch-Artist.' ^ 
 
 To resume our dissolving views : a priest begs her 
 picture on a box, which he clasps to his bosom. A 
 countess weeps when she departs. The Russian empress 
 hears her fame, and orders her portrait. Commodore Mel- 
 ville gives a dinner to thirty on board his Dutch frigate 
 in her honour, and seats her at the head as 'mistress of 
 the feast' She is robed ' all in virgin white,' her hair ' in 
 ringlets reaching almost to her heels,' so long, that Sir 
 William says she ' look't and moved amongst it.' She has 
 soon learned by rote the little ways of the big world, and 
 whispers to him that it is gala night at San Carlo, and 
 de rigueur to reach their box before the royal party entered 
 theirs, which neighboured it. The guns salute ; the pinnace 
 starts amid laughter, song, and roses, while ofif she speeds 
 to semi-royal triumphs — 'as tho' I was a queen.' Serena's 
 wholesome lesson is being half forgotten. 
 
 Once more, Vesuvius 'looks beautiful,' with its lava- 
 streams .descending far as Portici. She climbs the peak of 
 fire at midnight — five miles of flame ; the peasants deem 
 the mountain ' burst.' The climbers seek the shelter of the 
 Hermit's cabin — that strange Hermit who had thus retired 
 to solitude and exile for love of a princess.^ Has she not 
 spirit ? Let Greville mark : ' For me, I was enraptured. I 
 could have staid all night there, and I have never been in 
 
 ^ Works, vol. xix. p. 220. 
 
 " Alexandre Sauveur, who dared to love the Princess of Prussia. Cf. 
 Memoirs of Countess Lichtenau (Colburn, 1809), vol. i. p. 69. 
 
io8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 charity with the moon since, for it looked so pale and sickly. 
 And the red-hot lava served to light up the moon, for the 
 light of the moon was nothing to the lava.' Ascending, 
 she meets the Prince-Royal. His ' foolish tuters,' fearful of 
 their charge's safety and their own, escort him only half 
 way, and allow him but three minutes for the sight. She 
 asks him how he likes it. ' Bella, mapoca roba,' replies the 
 lad. Five hundred yards higher he could have watched 
 'the noblest, sublimest sight in the world.' But the 'poor 
 frightened creatures ' beat ' a scared ' retreat : ' O, I shall 
 kill myself with laughing ! ' And is not the plebeian girl 
 schooling herself to be a match for crass blue blood? 
 'Their as been a prince paying us a visit. He is sixty 
 years of age, one of the first families, and as allways lived 
 at Naples; and when I told him I had been at Caprea, 
 he asked me if I went there by land. Only think what 
 ignorance ! I staired at him, and asked him who was his 
 tutor,' coolly remarks the femme savante who writes of ' as ' 
 and ' stair.' ^ 
 
 She cannot tear her eyes away from the volcano's awful 
 pageant. She takes one of her maids — ' a great biggot ' — 
 up to her house-top and shows her the conflagration. The 
 contadina drops on her knees, calling on the city's patron 
 saints: ' O Janaro [sic] mio, O Antonio mid' Emma falls 
 down on hers, exclaiming, ' O Santa Loola mia, Loola mia I ' 
 Teresa rises, and with open eyes inquires whether 'her 
 Excellency' doubts the saints. 'No,' replies her mistress 
 in Italian, 'it is quite the same if you pray to my own 
 " Loola." ' ' . . . She look't at me, and said, to be sure, I 
 read a great many books and must know more than her. 
 But she says, "Does not God favour you more than ous?" 
 Says I, no. " O God," says she, " your eccellenza is very 
 ungratefull ! He as been so good as to make your face 
 the same as he made the face of the Blessed Virgin's, and 
 you don't esteem it a favour!" "Why," says I, "did you 
 
 ^ Emma, however, was not alone in her censure of the less instructed majority 
 of the countless Neapolitan nobility. The cultivated Marchesa di Solari says 
 the same of them, always excepting their musical instinct: 'There is little or no 
 difference between the manners of the lazzaroni and of the ancient nobility, 
 except such of them as have travelled.' — Venice under the Yoke of France and 
 Austria, vol. ii. p. 85. 
 
Lady Hamilton dancing the Tarantella at Naples. 
 
 From a rare engraving after a dra%ving bv Lock\ 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 109 
 
 ever see the Virgin ? " " O yes," says she, " you are like 
 every picture that there is of her, and you know the people 
 at Iscea fel down on their knees to you, and beg'd you to 
 grant them favours in her name." And, Greville, it is true 
 that they have all got it in their heads that I am like the 
 Virgin, and — do come to beg favours of me. Last night 
 there was two preists came to my house, and Sir William 
 made me put a shawl over my head, and look up, and the 
 preist burst into tears and kist my feet, and said God had 
 sent me a purpose.' ^ 
 
 Emma is in vein indeed. How buoyantly she swims and 
 splashes on the rising tide ! How exuberantly the whole 
 breathes of I always knew I could, if opportunity but walked 
 towards me ! ' and of ' I will show Greville what a pearl he has 
 cast away ! ' ^ Although she could be diffident when matched 
 with genuine excellence or before those she loved, how the 
 blare of her trumpet drowns all the still small voices ! One 
 is reminded of Woollett, the celebrated eighteenth century 
 engraver, who was in the habit of firing off a small cannon 
 from the roof of his house every time he had finished a suc- 
 cessful plate. What a profuse medley of candour and con- 
 trivance, of simplicity and vanity, of commonness and 
 elegance, of courtesy and challenge, of audacity and courage, 
 of quick-wittedness and ignorance, of honest kindness and 
 honest irreverence! She is already a born actress of 
 realities, and on no mimic stage. Yet many of her faults 
 she fully felt, and held them curable. ' Patienza,' she sighs, 
 and time may mend them ; in her own words of this very 
 period, ' I am a pretty woman, and one cannot be everything 
 at once.' 
 
 But a more delicate strain is audible when her heart is 
 really touched. 
 
 At the convent whither she resorted for daily lessons 
 during Sir William's absence, now transpired an idyl which 
 must be repeated just as she describes it : — 
 
 ' I had hardly time to thank you for your kind letter of this 
 morning as I was buisy prepairing for to go on my visit 
 
 1 Morrison MS. i68, August 1787; 158, November 1786. 
 i* Years afterwards (1801) Nelson used this expression of Greville to Emma. 
 Cf. post, chap. xii. 
 
no EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to the Convent of Santa Romita ; and endead I am glad I 
 went, tho' it was a short visit. But to-morrow I dine with 
 them in full assembly. I am quite charmed with Beatrice 
 Acquaviva. Such is the name of the charming whoman I 
 saw to-day. Oh Sir William, she is a pretty whoman. 
 She is 29 years old. She took the veil at twenty; and 
 does not repent to this day, though if I am a judge in 
 physiognomy, her eyes does not look like the eyes of a nun. 
 They are allways laughing, and something in them vastly 
 alluring, and I wonder the men of Naples wou'd suffer the 
 oneley pretty whoman who is realy pretty to be shut in a 
 convent. But it is like the mean-spirited ill taste of the 
 Neapolitans. I told her I wondered how she wou'd be lett 
 to hide herself from the world, and I daresay thousands of 
 tears was shed the day she deprived Naples of one of its 
 greatest ornaments. She answered with a sigh, that endead 
 numbers of tears was shed, and once or twice her resolution 
 was allmost shook, but a pleasing comfort she felt at regain- 
 ing her friends that she had been brought up with, and 
 religious considerations strengthened her mind, and she 
 parted with the world with pleasure. And since that time 
 one of her sisters had followed her example, and another — 
 which I saw — was preparing to enter soon. But neither of 
 her sisters is so beautiful as her, tho' the[y] are booth very 
 agreable. But I think Beatrice is charming, and I realy 
 feil for her an affection. Her eyes. Sir William, is I don't 
 know how to describe them. I stopt one hour with them ; 
 and I had all the good things to eat, and I promise you 
 they don't starve themselves. But there dress is very be- 
 coming, and she told me that she was allow'd to wear rings 
 and mufs and any little thing she liked, and endead she 
 display'd to-day a good deal of finery, for she had 4 or 5 
 dimond rings on her fingers, and seemed fond of her muff. 
 She has excellent teeth, and shows them, for she is allways 
 laughing. She kissed my lips, cheeks, and forehead, and 
 every moment exclaimed "Charming, fine creature," admired 
 my dress, said I looked like an angel, for I was in clear 
 white dimity and a blue sash.' (This, surely, is scarcely the 
 seraphic garb as the great masters imaged it.) '. . . She 
 said she had heard I was good to the poor, generous, and 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE in 
 
 noble-minded. " Now," she says, " it wou'd be worth wile to 
 live for such a one as you. Your good heart wou'd melt at 
 any trouble that befel me, and partake of one's greef or 
 be equaly happy at one's good fortune. But I never met 
 with a freind yet, or I ever saw a person I cou'd love till 
 now, and you shall have proofs of my love." In short I sat 
 and listened to her, and the tears stood in my eyes, I don't 
 know why ; but I loved her at that moment. I thought 
 what a charming wife she wou'd have made, what a mother 
 of a family, what a freind, and the first good and amiable 
 whoman I have seen since I came to Naples for to be lost 
 to the world — how cruel ! She give me a sattin pocketbook 
 of her own work, and bid me think of her, when I saw it, 
 and was many miles far of[f] ; and years hence when she 
 peraps shou'd be no more, to look at it, and think the 
 person that give it had not a bad heart. Did not she speak 
 very pretty? But not one word of religion. But I 
 shall be happy to-day, for I shall dine with them all, and 
 come home at night. There is sixty whomen and all 
 well-looking, but not like the fair Beatrice. " Oh Emma," 
 she says to me, " the[y] brought here the Viene minister's 
 wife, but I did not like the looks of her at first. She was 
 little, short, pinch'd face, and I received her cooly. How 
 different from you, and how surprised was I in seeing you 
 tall in statu[r]e. We may read your heart in your counte- 
 nance, your complexion ; in short, your figure and features is 
 rare, for you are like the marble statues I saw when I was in 
 the world." I think she flattered me up, but I was pleased.'* 
 The convent cloisters bordered on those ' royal ' or 
 ' English ' 2 gardens which Sir William and she were after- 
 wards so much to improve ; and here, if the Marchesa di 
 Solari's memory can be trusted — and it constantly trips 
 in her Italian record — happened, it would seem, about this 
 time,^ another incident typical of another side, more comic 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 160, January 10, 1787. It should here be commemorated that 
 one of her first actions at Naples was to procure a post for Robert White, a 
 proteg^ of Greville. Ibid, i"]/^ 
 
 " Morrison MS. 221. 
 
 = From indications in her letter. Cf. Morrison MS. 157, December 26, 1786 
 (Emma to Sir William) : ' If I had the offer of crowns, 1 would refuse them and 
 accept you, and I don't care if all the world knows it. . . . Certain it is I 
 
112 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 than pathetic. It sounds like some interlude by Beau- 
 marchais, and recalls Rosina or Figaro. Intrigue belongs to 
 Naples. The young Goethe observed of the Neapolitan 
 atmosphere : ' Naples is a paradise. Every one lives, 
 after his manner, intoxicated with self-forgetfulness. It is 
 the same with me. I scarcely recognise myself, I seem an 
 altered being. Yesterday I thought " either you were or 
 are mad." ' ^ 
 
 The madcap belle's stratagem was this. Walking there 
 one afternoon under the escort of her duenna, she was 
 accosted by a personage whom she knew to be King 
 Ferdinand. He solicited a private interview, and was 
 peremptorily refused. He succeeded, however, in bribing 
 her attendant, and followed her to a remote nook, where 
 they would be unobserved. He pressed his promises with 
 fervour, but Emma refused to listen to a word, unless every- 
 thing was committed to paper. The monarch complied, 
 and thereupon Emma hastened to the palace and urgently 
 entreated an audience with the Queen. Sobbing on her 
 knees, she implored her to save her from persecutions so 
 great that unless they were removed she had resolved to 
 quit the world and find shelter with the nuns. The Queen, 
 touched by such beauty in such distress, urged her to dis- 
 close the name of her unknown importuner. Thereupon 
 Emma handed her the paper, was bidden by the Queen to 
 rise, and comforted. So far there seems ground for the 
 tale. The Marchesa says that Sir William ' partially ' con- 
 firmed it ; and this must allude to the sequel which 
 represents Maria Carolina as urging the Ambassador to 
 marry his Lucretia without delay. Whether it is true that 
 the tears of affliction were caused (as in The Taming of the 
 Shrew) by an onion, and that Emma was ' on her marrow- 
 bones ' in the garden while the Queen was perusing the 
 tell-tale document, depends upon the number of embellish- 
 
 love you and sincerely.' There is another letter where she says that she keeps 
 the King at a distance. In this very year the prima donna Georgina Brigida 
 Banti was whisked off suddenly in a coach across the frontier by the Queen's 
 orders for presuming to favour the amorous King's attentions. Cf. Jeaffreson's 
 Queen of Naples and Lord Nelson, p. 164, and cf. the Marchesa di Solari's 
 Venice under the Yoke of France and Austria, vol. ii. p. 43. 
 1 Goethe, Italienishe Reise, March 16, 1787. Works, vol. xix. p. 211. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 113 
 
 ments such a farce would probably receive. If true, it 
 hardly redounds to Emma's credit.^ 
 
 But from Emma we must now part awhile to consider the 
 social and political conditions of the court of Naples, very 
 different now from what they were to become a few years 
 later under the new forces of the French Revolution, and, 
 afterwards, of the meteoric Napoleon. It is a panorama 
 which here can only be sketched in outline. It was to 
 prove the theatre of Emma's best activities. 
 
 During the entire eighteenth century, from the War of 
 Succession to the Treaty of Utrecht, from the Treaty of 
 Utrecht to that of the Quadruple Alliance, from that again 
 to those of Vienna and of Paris, the Bourbons and the 
 Hapsburgs had been perpetually wrestling for the rich 
 provinces of central and southern Italy — a prize which 
 united the secular appeal to Catholic Europe with supremacy 
 over the Mediterranean. The Bourbons, by a strange chain 
 of coincidence, had prevailed in Spain, and in 173 1 'Baby 
 Carlos ' solemnly entered on his Italian and Sicilian heritage, 
 long so craftily and powerfully compassed by his ambitious 
 mother, Elizabeth Farnese. The Hapsburgs, however, never 
 relinquished their aim, though the weak and pompous 
 Emperor, Charles VI., was reduced to spending his energies 
 on the mere phantom of the ' Pragmatic Sanction ' by which 
 he hoped to cement his incoherent Empire in the person of 
 his masterful daughter ; he died hugging, so to speak, that 
 ' Pragmatic Sanction ' to his heart. Maria Theresa proved 
 herself the heroine of Europe in her proud struggle with 
 the Prussian aggressor who for a time forced her into an 
 unnatural and lukewarm league with the French Bourbons, 
 themselves covetous of the Italian Mediterranean. Even 
 after the French Bourbons were quelled, France, in the 
 person of Napoleon, succeeded to their ambitions. Second 
 only to his hankering after Eastern Empire, was from the 
 
 1 Cf. Venice under the Yoke of France and Austria, vol i. p. 66 et seq. Mr. 
 Jeaffteson regards the whole as Emma's impudent fabrication. This can scarcely 
 be so in view of the other evidence. The King, some twelve years later, called 
 Emma 'Une maltresse femme.' She was certainly also always ready for a 
 practical joke. It may be added that the same author gives the date of the 
 Marchesa's visit to Naples as at the close of r79«. whereas it was in 1792. 
 
 H 
 
114 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 first the persistent hankering after Naples and Sicily of the 
 would-be dominator of the sea, whose coast had been his 
 cradle. 
 
 Maria Theresa was therefore delighted when in April 
 1768 1 her eldest daughter, Maria Charlotte, better known 
 as ' Maria Carolina,' espoused,^ when barely sixteen years of 
 age, Ferdinand, son of the Bourbon Charles III. of Spain, 
 then only one year her senior, and already from his eighth 
 year King of the two Sicilies. Still more did she rejoice 
 when two years later her other daughter, Marie Antoinette, 
 married at the same age the Due de Berri, then heir-pre- 
 sumptive to the French throne, which he ascended four 
 years afterwards. Both daughters were to fight man- 
 fully with a fate which worsted the one and extin- 
 guished the other, while the husbands of both were true 
 Bourbons in their indecision and their love of the table ; 
 for of the Bourbons it was well said * that their chapel was 
 their kitchen. 
 
 ' King ' Maria Theresa educated all her children to believe 
 in three things : their religion, their race, and their destiny. 
 They were never to forget that they were Catholics, im- 
 perialists, and politicians. But she also taught them to be 
 enlightened and benevolent, provided that their faithful 
 subjects accepted the grace of these virtues unmurmuring 
 from their hands. They were to be monopolists of reform. 
 They were also to be monopolists of power ; nor was 
 husband or wife to dispute their sway. Indeed, the two 
 daughters were schooled to believe that control over their 
 consorts was an absolute duty, doubly important from the 
 rival ascendency wielded by the Queens of the Spanish 
 Bourbons, who for three generations had been mated 
 with imbecile or half-imbecile sovereigns ; they had a 
 knack of calling their husbands cowards. And they were 
 to be monopolists of religion even against the Pope if he 
 
 ^ Not 1767, as most English books give the date. 
 
 * Another daug;hter had been first betrothed to him, but she died of a chill, 
 contracted, it was said, from a midnight visit to the vaults of her ancestors, whose 
 effigies Maria Theresa insisted on showing her daughter on the eve of her 
 nuptials. When Maria Carolina reached Caserta for her wedding, she embarassed 
 her young bridegroom by kneeling before him and bowing her face to the ground 
 in supplication. ' Cf. a most interesting memoir, probably fiirnished by Lady 
 Hamilton, in La Belle Assemblie for May 1807. * By the Bishop of Derry. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 115 
 
 unduly interfered. These lessons were graven on the 
 hearts of all but Marie Antoinette, who shared the obstinacy 
 but lacked the penetration of her sister and brothers. 
 
 Maria Theresa's son and successor, Joseph 11. of Austria, 
 showed to the full this union of bigotry and benevolence, 
 both arbitrary yet both popular. He and his premier, 
 Kaunitz, were strenuous in education and reform, but also 
 strenuous in suppressing the Jesuits. His brothers were 
 the same. Archduke Ferdinand played the benevolent 
 despot in Bohemia, while Leopold, afterwards Grand Duke 
 of the Tuscan dominions, was even more ostentatious in 
 his high-handed well-doing. Never was a dynasty politer, 
 more cultivated, more affable. But never also was one 
 haughtier, more obstinate, or more formal. All were 
 martyrs to etiquette, but all were also enthusiastic free- 
 masons, and Queen Maria Carolina's family enthusiasm for 
 the secret societies of ' Illuminati ' sowed those misfortunes 
 which were afterwards watered with blood, reaped in tears, 
 and harvested by iron. In 1790 Leopold, for a space, 
 succeeded to Joseph ; and Maria Carolina was afterwards 
 to see one of her sixteen children wedded to Francis,^ 
 Leopold's successor on the Austrian throne, another to the 
 King of Sardinia, a third, in the midst of her final calamities, 
 united at Palermo to the future Louis Philippe. She thus 
 became mother-in-law to an emperor of whom she was 
 aunt, as well as to two monarchs ; while already she had 
 been sister to two successive emperors. 
 
 Her husband, Ferdinand IV., was a boor and bon vivant, 
 good-natured on the surface, but with a strong spice of 
 cruelty beneath it ; suspicious of talent, but up to the fatal 
 sequels of the French Revolution the darling of his people. 
 As the little Prince of Asturias, he had been handed to the 
 tutorship of the old Duke of San Nicandro, who was re- 
 stricted by the royal commands to instruction in sport, and in 
 his own learning to a bowing acquaintance with his breviary. 
 Inheriting a throne, while a child, by the accident of his 
 
 ' Francis ii., in August 1806, resigned his emperorship of Germany, and 
 became merely Emperor of Austria. Another of Maria Carolina's daughters 
 was wedded to the young Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, while her eldest son 
 eventually espoused the Archduchess Clementine, so that she achieved her 
 purpose of overwhelming the Bourhon with the Hapsburg strain. 
 
ii6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 father's accession to the Spanish crown, he had been reared 
 in Sicily — always jealous of Naples — under the tutelage 
 of Prince Caramanico, a minister of opera boufife, and of 
 Tenucci.i a corrupt vizier of the old-world pattern, who 
 preferred place to statesmanship, and pocket to power. 
 The young King, however, was by no means so illiterate 
 or unjust as has often been assumed, and, if he was ' eight 
 years old when he began to reign,' the rest of the Scripture 
 cannot then, at any rate, be justly applied to him. He 
 remained throughout his life a kind of Italianised Tony 
 Lumpkin, addicted to cards and beauty, devoted to arms 
 and sport. Indeed, in many ways he resembled a typical 
 English squire of the period, as Lord William Bentinck 
 shrewdly observed of him some twenty-five years after- 
 wards. Music was also his hobby. He sang often, but 
 scarcely well ; and Emma, when he first began to practise 
 duets with her, humorously remarked, ' He sings like a King' 
 The people that he loved, and who adored him, were the 
 Neapolitan Lazzaroni — not beggars, as the name implies, 
 but loafing artisans, peasants, and fishermen, noisy, loyal, 
 superstitious, rollicking, unthrifty, vigorous, in alternate 
 spasms of short-lived work and easy pleasure — the natural 
 and ineradicable outcome of their sultry climate, their 
 mongrel blood, their red-hot soil, and their pagan past.^ 
 Motley was their wear. As happens to all peculiar peoples, 
 they could not suffer or even fancy alien conditions. When 
 the Grand Duke and Duchess of Russia visited Naples in 
 1782 during an abnormal spell of February cold, they swore 
 that the northerners had brought the accursed weather 
 with them.^ They had their recognised leaders, their 
 acknowledged improvisatores, their informal functions and 
 functionaries, like a sort of unmigratory gypsy tribe. They 
 had their own patois, their own customs, their own songs, 
 their favourite monks. Such was the famous Padre 
 Giordano, the six-foot portent of a handsome priest, the 
 best preacher, the best singer, the best eater of macaroni 
 in the King's dominions. They had, too, their own feuds, 
 
 ' Often misnamed Tanucci. 
 
 " This is accurate in the main. With the Lazzaroni proper, however, were 
 mixed brigands from the provinces of the Fra Diavolo type. 
 ' Morrison MS, 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 117 
 
 in a country where even composers like Cimarosa and 
 Paisiello were always at loggerheads and made separate 
 factions of their own. All that they knew of England 
 before 1793 was that their own Calabria furnished the 
 wood for its vaunted ships. With the Lazzaroni, Ferdi- 
 nand early became a prime favourite. He was not only 
 their king, but their jolly comrade. He was a Falstaff 
 king, even in his gross proportions ; a king of misrule in 
 his boisterous humour. He was a Policinello king whose 
 Bourbon nose won him the sobriquet of ' Nasone ' from his 
 mountebank liegemen. He was a Robin Hood king, who 
 early formed his own freebooting bodyguard ; he was also 
 King Reynard the Fox, with intervals of trick and avarice, 
 although, unlike that jungle - Mephistopheles, Ferdinand 
 could never cajole. He was, in truth, both cramped and 
 spirited — ' a lobster crushed by his shell,' as Beckford once 
 termed him ^ — despite his defects both real and imputed, 
 his want of dignity, his phlegmatic exterior and his rude 
 antics. Every Christmas saw him in his box at San 
 Carlo, sucking up macaroni sticks for their edification 
 from a steaming basin of burnished 'silver, while the Queen 
 discreetly retired to a back seat. Every Carnival witnessed 
 him in fisher's garb playing at fish-auctioneer on the 
 quay which served as market, bandying personal jests, 
 indulging in rough horse-play, and driving preposterous 
 bargains to their boisterous delight. This picturesque if 
 greasy court would strike up the chorus in full sight of 
 their macaroni-monarch : — 
 
 ' S'e levata la gabella alia farina ! 
 Evviva Ferdinando e Carolina.' 
 
 He loved to play Haroun Alraschid — to do justice in the 
 gate — and, when hunting, to pay surprise visits to the cabins 
 of the peasantry and redress their wrongs ; though when 
 the fit was on him he could scourge them with scorpions. 
 In his rambles on the beach the despot would toss the 
 dirtiest of his rough adherents violently into the sea, and 
 if he could not swim, would then himself plunge into the 
 water and bring him laughing from his first bath to the 
 shore. It was one of these sallies that suggested to 
 
 ' Cyrus Redding's Fifty Years' Recollections, vol. ii. p. 117. 
 
Ii8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Canova his marble Hercules throwing Lichas into the 
 sea, acquired by the bankers Torlonia before they were 
 styled princes ; and, indeed, the coarser side of Hercules 
 as Euripides portrays him in the Alcestis bears some 
 resemblance to this uncouth and burly Nimrod. 
 
 While he was at first proud of his /emme savante and left 
 affairs of state until 1779 almost entirely in her hands and 
 Acton's, his jealousy tended more and more to treat her 
 as a prideuse ridicule, and he grew fond of asserting his 
 mastery by playing the Petruchio, sometimes to brutality. 
 
 For a long time he was pro-Spanish, while his wife 
 remained pro-Austrian, and came to abominate Spanish 
 policy more than ever when in 1778 Charles IV. of Spain 
 ascended the throne with a caballing consort whom Maria 
 Carolina detested. Ferdinand boasted that his people were 
 happy because each could find subsistence at home, and the 
 time was still distant when to the proverb on his name 
 of 'Farina' and 'Feste,' 'Forca' was superadded. If 
 he pauperised his people with farinaceous morsels and 
 festivities, he had never yet 'forced' them. Nor was he 
 destitute of bluff wit and exceedingly common sense. 
 
 In 1785 great efforts had been made under Acton's fresh 
 influence to construct an imposing navy, which was paraded 
 to the world by a royal progress — from its pomp and 
 splendour called 'the golden journey' — to Leghorn and 
 Tuscany, en route for Vienna. During their visit at the 
 Tuscan Court, the pedantic Leopold asked Ferdinand 
 what he was ' doing ' for the people. ' Nothing at all, 
 which is the best,' guffawed the King in answer ; ' and the 
 proof is that while plenty of your folk go wheedling and 
 begging in my territory, I will wager anything you like 
 that none of mine are soliciting anything in yours.' ^ 
 
 The Queen, however, was an 'illuminata' by bent and 
 
 ^ This anecdote is given by the Marchesa di Solari as happening during 
 Leopold's earlier visit to Naples. The story as related elsewhere may be a blend 
 of two passages .at arms between Ferdinand and his precise brother-in-law. 
 Another and a new instance of his wit is given in a conversation of Sir W. 
 Hamilton recorded (probably by Lady Hamilton) in La Belle AssembUe for May 
 1807. While his marriage was as yet childless, he observed that three miracles 
 were distinguishing his reign : ' I am young, and have no children ' ; ' The 
 Jesuits are dissolved, but their money is indiscoverable ' ; and — marvel of marvels 
 — 'Tenucci, my minister, is old, and will never die.' 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 119 
 
 upbringing. She was always devising theories and execut- 
 ing schemes, and besides literature, botany, too, engrossed 
 her attention. '^ It is a great mistake to judge either her or 
 him in the light of after occurrences, and it is an error as 
 misleading to judge even those events by the evidence of 
 Jacobin pamphleteers, some of whom, and the most violent, 
 did not hesitate to recant.^ It was only long afterwards that 
 she became lampooned, and that the ' head of a Richelieu 
 on a pretty woman ' was held up to execration in the 
 words of the ancient diatribe on Catherine of M^dicis : — 
 
 ' Si nous faisons Papologie 
 
 De Caroline et J&abel, 
 L'une fut reine en Italie, 
 
 Et I'autre reine en Israel. 
 Celle-ci de malice extreme, 
 L'autre ^tait la malice m6me.' ' 
 
 Neither King nor Queen, though both have much to 
 answer for at the bar of history, were ever the pantomime- 
 masks of villainy and corruption that resentment and 
 rumour, public and private, have afiRxed to their names. 
 
 The Queen's full influence was not apparent until the 
 birth of an heir in 1777, when by a clause of her marriage- 
 settlement she became entitled to sit in council. But long 
 before, she had begun to inspire reforms very distasteful to 
 the feudal barons who at first composed her court. She 
 endeavoured to turn a set of antiquated prescriptions into 
 a freer constitution, and to cleanse the Neapolitan homes. 
 She limited the feudal system of rights — odious to the 
 people at large — to narrow areas, and this popular limita- 
 tion proved long afterwards the main cause of the nobility's 
 share in the middle-class revolution of 1799.* The marriage 
 laws were re-cast much on the basis of Lord Hardwicke's 
 
 ^ Cf. Sir J. Banks's testimony so early as 1787. Eg. MS. 2641, f. 141. 
 
 * Vincenzo Coco especially. 
 
 ' Would casuists fine excuses try 
 For Caroline and Jezebel, 
 The one was queen in Italy, 
 The other, queen in Israel. 
 Extremes of malice marked the second, 
 Malice itself the first was reckoned.' 
 Cf. Crimes et Amours des Bourbons de Naples, Paris, Anon., 1861. A tissue 
 of inaccuracies and falsehoods. 
 
 * In Sicily the feudal system remained and there was no revolution there. 
 
I20 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Act in England. The administration of justice was puri- 
 fied.'^ Besides locating the University in the fine rooms of 
 the suppressed Jesuit monastery, to some of which she 
 transferred the magnificent antiques of the Farnese and 
 Palatine collections, she founded schools and new institu- 
 tions for the encouragement of agriculture and architecture. 
 Even the hostile historian Colletta admits that she drew 
 all the intellect of the age to Naples. Waste lands were 
 reclaimed, colonies planted on uninhabited islands, exist- 
 ing industries developed, and the coral fisheries on the 
 African coasts converted into a chartered company. The 
 evils of tax-gathering were obviated ; the ports of Brindisi 
 and Baia restored ; highways were made free of expense 
 for the poor ; tolerance was universally proclaimed ; the 
 Pope's right to nominate bishops was defied ; nor was she 
 reconciled to Pius VI. till policy compelled her to kneel 
 before him in her Roman visit of 179 1. At the period now 
 before us, most of the pulpits favoured her. Padre Rocco, 
 the blunt reformer of abuses, Padre Minasi, the musical 
 archaeologist, were loud in her praises. And this despite 
 the fact that, though regular in her devotions and the 
 reverse of a free-thinker, she resolutely opposed the 
 'crimping' system which from time to time reinforced 
 the Neapolitan convents.^ She also bitterly offended the 
 vested rights of the lawyers and the army. An enthusi- 
 astic freemason (and long after her death the Neapolitan 
 lodges toasted her memory),' she assembled around her 
 through these societies a brilliant throng of savants and 
 poets, while it was her special aim to elevate the intellects 
 of women. Among the circle of all the talents around her 
 were the great economist and jurist Filangieri,* revered by 
 Goethe, but dead within two years after Emma's arrival ; 
 the learned and ill-starred Cirillo and Pagano,^ who both 
 perished afterwards in the Revolution ; Palmieri, Galanti, 
 
 ^ For many of these facts, cf. Jeaffreson's Queen of Naples. 
 
 ^ Cf. the remarkable correspondence between Acton and Hamilton about the 
 case of Ann Saffory, an English girl, in 1788. Eg. MS. 2639, f. 18. 
 
 ' Pepi Memoirs (1847). 
 
 * Author of The Science of Legislation, 1 777 ; made Gentleman of the King's 
 Bedchamber. In 1783 the Queen presented him with an estate at La Cava. 
 
 ^ Author of / Saggi Politici. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 121 
 
 Galiani, Delfico, the scientists ; Caravelli, Caretto, Fala- 
 guerra, Ardinghelli, Pignatelli, all lights of literature ; and 
 Conforti, the historian. But perhaps the most interesting of 
 all, and the most typical, was Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel, 
 subsequently muse and victim of the outburst in 1799. 
 
 This remarkable poetess, Portuguese by origin, merits 
 and has received a monograph.^ Up to 1793, indeed, this 
 friend and disciple of Metastasio was the professed eulogist 
 of the Queen. She styled her 
 
 ' La verace virtute, e di lei figlio 
 II verace valor.' * 
 
 She joined her in denouncing ' Papal vassalage ' in Italy. 
 When the royal bambino died in 1778 she indited her 
 'Orfeo' as elegy. When the 'golden journey' was accom- 
 plished, the Miseno port re-opened, and the fleet re-organ- 
 ised, her ' Proteus and Parthenope ' celebrated the com- 
 mencement of a golden age. But what most aroused her 
 enthusiasm was the foundation of that singular experiment 
 in monarchical socialism — the ideal colony of San Leucio at 
 Caserta between the years 1777 and 1779. This settlement 
 was the first-fruits of the Queen's socialism, though its 
 occasion was the King's liking for his hunting-box — built in 
 1773 at the neighbouring Belvedere, and on the site of the 
 ancient vineyard and palace of the old Princes of Caserta. 
 A church was erected in 1776 for a parish governed by an 
 enlightened code of duties ' negative and positive,' and even 
 then numbering no less than seventeen families. Some of 
 the royal buildings were converted into schools ; even the 
 prayers and religious ordinances were regulated, as were all 
 observances of the hearth, and every distribution of pro- 
 perty. Allegiance was to be paid first to God, then to the 
 sovereign, and lastly to the ministers. Under Ferdinand's 
 nominal authorship a book of the aims, orders, and laws of 
 the colony was published, of which a copy exists in the 
 British Museum.* On its flyleaf Lady Hamilton has herself 
 
 ' Studii Storici, Benedetto Croce. Roma, 1897. 
 2 'True virtue, and the birth of virtue true. 
 
 True courage. ' 
 2 1051 C. 17. 
 
122 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 recorded : — ' Given to me by the King of Naples at Belvedere 
 or S. Leucio the i6th of May 1793, when Sir William and I 
 dined with his Majesty and the Duchess of Devonshire, 
 Lady Webster, Lady Plymouth, Lady Bessborough, Lady 
 E. Foster, Sir G. Webster, and Mr. Pelham. Emma 
 Hamilton.' These names are in no accidental association. 
 The then and the future Duchesses of Devonshire headed a 
 galaxy of which Charles James Fox was chief, and to which 
 Sir William's devotees, Lady 'Di' Beauclerk and the 
 Honourable Mrs. Damer, also belonged. 
 
 Eleonora's ode in its honour hymns the ' royal city ' 
 where ' nature's noble diadem ' crowns ' the spirit of ancient 
 Hellas.' 
 
 But for all these undertakings, even before stress of 
 invasion and vengeance for wrongs prompted large arma- 
 ments and an English alliance, financial talent of a high 
 order was needful ; taxation had to be broadened, and 
 it could not be enlarged without pressing heavily on the 
 professional classes, for the Lazzaroni were always privi- 
 leged as exempt. The necessities which led to the shameful 
 tampering with the banks in 1792-93 had not yet arisen ; 
 but organising talent was needed, and organising talent was 
 wanting. Tenucci proved as poor a financier as once our 
 own Godolphin or Dashwood. Jealous of Carolina's manifest 
 direction, he caballed, and was replaced as first minister in 
 1776 by the phantom Sambuca. Even then the pro-Spanish 
 party among the grandees menaced the succession well-nigh 
 as much as the pro-Jacobins did some five years later. Even 
 then it was on very few of the numberless Neapolitan nobles 
 (a ' golden book ' of whom would outdo Venice and equal 
 Spain) that the perplexed Queen could rely. Caramanico 
 was a mere monument of the past, and as such con- 
 signed to England as ambassador ; while his young and 
 romantic son Joseph was reputed the Queen's lover, and 
 forbidden the court. The coxcomb and procrastinator, 
 Gallo, who afterwards ratted to Napoleon, was already 
 mismanaging foreign affairs. The old and respectable 
 Caracciolo, father of that rebel admiral whom Nelson 
 was to execute, was for the moment Minister of Finance, 
 but approaching his end. That Admirable Crichton, 
 
Sir John ActOn. 
 
 From the orighial portrait recently acquired by the National Portrait Gallery 
 of Naples. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 123 
 
 Prince Belmonte, afterwards as 'Galatone' ambassador 
 at the crucial post of the Madrid Embassy, now pre- 
 ferred the office of Chamberlain to any active direction 
 of affairs. Prince Castelcicala, twice ambassador to the 
 court of St. James's, and nearly as acceptable to the Queen 
 as Belmonte, had not yet been pressed into home concerns, 
 nor had he disastrously earned his inquisitorial spurs of 
 1793. Sicigniano, who was to commit suicide when am- 
 bassador in London in the same year, belonged to the same 
 category ; the young and accomplished Luigi di Medici had 
 not yet emerged into a prominence that proved his doom. 
 Prince Torella was a nonentity ; the Rovere family, which 
 was to supply the Sidney or Bayard ^ of the Revolution, 
 was not now of political significance. The professional 
 classes were as yet excluded from government, and 
 creatures like the notorious Vanni were denied power. 
 Amid the general dearth the excitable Queen was at her 
 wit's end for a capable minister. During her Vienna and 
 Tuscan visits of 1778 she consulted, as always, her august 
 relations ; and the result was their recommendation of 
 John Francis Edward Acton, whose younger brother had 
 for some time been serving in the Austrian army. In 
 consenting to the trial of an unknown man, middle-aged 
 and a foreigner, the Queen hardly realised to what grave 
 issues her random choice was leading. 
 
 Acton, third cousin of Sir Richard Acton of Aldenham 
 Hall, Shropshire, to whose baronetcy and estates he most 
 unexpectedly succeeded in 1 791, was the son of a physician. 
 Catholic and Jacobite, settled at Besangoni He was born 
 in 1736, and may have first entered the French Navy, 
 which he quitted probably as a cadet in search of advance- 
 ment, and not because of the vague discredits afterwards 
 imputed by the Jacobins. The British Navy he could 
 scarcely have contemplated, because in the days of the 
 Georges^ Catholicism and Jacobitism were grave impedi- 
 
 ' Prince Ettore Carafa. 
 
 2 It was so even in 1778. Tlje Bishop of Derry, writing to Sir William 
 from Albano in the June of that year about the prospects of the Count of 
 Albany, observes very much after his manner : — ' England has left them [the 
 Catholic Jacobites] no other method but force to recover their just rights. What 
 a Madness in our Government not to legalise the daily exercise they make 
 
124 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ments to success. At the age of thirty-nine he entered 
 the naval service of Carolina's brother, the Grand Duke 
 Leopold of Tuscany, and attracted Caramanico's notice 
 by his bravery as Captain on a Spanish expedition against 
 the Moors. Summoned by a stroke of luck to control 
 a realm at once ambitious and sluggish, he infused 
 English energy at every step. A martinet by training and 
 disposition, shrewd, worldly, calculating, yet sturdy, and 
 for Naples, where gold always reigned, inflexibly honest, 
 he was well capable of defying and brow-beating the supple 
 Neapolitan nobility who detested his introduction. A 
 smooth-tongued adventurer, though good looks were not 
 on his side, he speedily won the favour of a Queen in- 
 clined to make tools of favourites, and favourites of tools ; 
 but he soon convinced her also that a mere tool he could 
 never remain. He was naturally pro-British, and Britain 
 was already a Mediterranean power : Acton recommended 
 the country of his origin to the Queen's notice in the veriest 
 trifles. It was not many years before Maria Carolina was 
 driving in the English curricle which Hamilton had pro- 
 vided for her.^ Little else than a stroke of destiny, under 
 the conjunctures of the near future, brought the new 
 foreigner into close alliance with Sir William Hamilton, 
 whose patriotism in the very year when he was lolling with 
 Sir Horace Mann at Portici had expressed itself in a 
 fervent wish to see France ' well drubbed,' and a fury at the 
 non-support of Rodney by Government.^ The different 
 natures of the two perhaps cemented their friendship. 
 Hamilton for all his natural indolence could rise to emer- 
 gency; Acton, on the contrary, was all compromise and 
 caution — a sort of Robert Walpole in little, with ' steady ' 
 for his motto. Hamilton was good-tempered to a fault : 
 Emma wrote of him after her marriage that he preferred 
 'good temper to beauty.' In Acton lay a strong spice of 
 
 of their Religion ; as if a man were a less faithfull subject or a less brave soldier 
 for being fool enough to believe that to be Flesh which all the world sees to be 
 only Bread ; or as if doing that legally which he now does illegally would render 
 him a more tumultuous or a more dangerous cityzen.' — Morrison MS. 83. 
 
 1 Cf. Eg. MS. 2639, f. 16. 
 
 " Morrison MS. 92, 1780. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 125 
 
 the bully, and he could be very unjust if his authority was 
 impugned.^ He was a born bureaucrat, and it was his 
 love of bureaucracy, as will appear, that ruined the Queen. 
 
 Acton was twice married ; the second time, by special 
 dispensation, to his niece in 1805. By his first wife 
 he had a family ; ^ but neither they nor the Lady 
 Acton of this period play any part in the drama before 
 us. Starting as an Admiral of the Neapolitan Fleet, he 
 soon became Minister both of Marine and War. Carac- 
 ciolo the elder's opportune transference to diplomacy in 
 Paris and London, which Acton's future libellers accused 
 him of contriving, as afterwards even of causing his death, 
 installed him as Minister of Finance. He at once advised 
 the institution of thirteen Commissioners who could all be 
 censured in event of failure; ^divide et impera' was his 
 principle ; and at first his resource proved successful. He 
 was soon made also a Lieutenant-General ; while some 
 ten years later, in his heyday, he was appointed Captain- 
 General, and at last a full-blown Field-Marshal. But long 
 before, he blossomed into power with the Queen, whose 
 anti-Spanish policy chimed with his own, and whose ab- 
 horrence of the pro-Spanish functionaries around her 
 required a champion in council. This created two camps 
 in the court, for up to 1796 the King was pro-Spanish to 
 the core. But the Queen was already predominant, and 
 it was soon bruited that the Latin ^ hie, hcec, hoc' meant 
 Acton, the Queen, and the King thus derided as neuter ; 
 indeed some added that Acton was ' hie, hcze, hoe ' in one. 
 In a brief space Acton had consolidated a powerful fleet 
 — which in 1793 he was able to despatch in aid of the 
 English at Toulon ^ — and a formidable army. The French 
 events of 1789 rendered him all the more indispensable 
 to Maria Carolina, whose ears were terrified by the first 
 rumblings of an earthquake so soon to engulf her sister's 
 family. The Bastille was taken, the Assembly held, 
 and fawning false-loyalty loomed fully as dangerous as 
 
 ' Cf. the incident related by the Marchioness Solari of the peasant who suffered 
 from Acton's temper because the King had left Acton unconsulted in an act of 
 grace, Venice under the Yoke of France,' etc., vol. ii. p. 49. 
 
 "^ Some of its descendants are still at Naples. ' Pep4 p. 12. 
 
126 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 uproarious Jacobinism. In the same year America estab- 
 lished her 'Constitution.' The American rebellion was 
 the parent of the French Revolution ; already, and even 
 on ground so lately British, persecutions prevailed that 
 made shrewd officials, like Greville, dread the orgies 
 probable should this new leaven ferment in Latin and 
 Celtic blood. Already the sisters of Louis XVI., the 
 three old 'demoiselles de France,' were on the verge of 
 abandoning Paris for Rome; already the charged air 
 tingled with Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; already 
 Carolina, masking hysterical restiveness by imperious com- 
 posure, was debating if armed help were possible from 
 Austria as well as from Naples. But the irritated barons 
 were unwarlike, the King cared little, the lawyers still 
 depended on his favour, the intelligent middle-class was 
 beginning to welcome the Gallic doctrines. Austria, toO, 
 was by no means ready. And yet in Carolina's ears the 
 hour of doom was already striking. She longed for an 
 untemporising deliverer, a self-sacrificing friend, a leader of 
 men and movements ; and as she longed and champed in 
 vain, she could only wait and hope and prepare.^ Her 
 anxiety was not that of a normal woman. Calm in mind, 
 in love and hate her ardour ran to extremes. Though she 
 owned a far better head than her unhappy sister, her heart, 
 outside her home and in spite of her passions, was far 
 colder. She was truly devoted to her children, she was 
 fond of romping even with the children of strangers ^ ; and 
 yet when her sons-in-law grew lukewarm in aiding her, she 
 could rage against her daughters. Jealousy of her ogling 
 and dangling consort was often a prime motive for her 
 actions ; and yet she had often been femme galante, and was 
 ever bent on mystery and intrigue. She harped on duty, but 
 her notions of duty rested on maintaining the royal birth- 
 right of her house. Masterful as her mother, light-living 
 
 1 Cf. for the foregoing bird's-eye survey, besides the books and MS. quoted, 
 A. Dnmas' / Borioni, Palumibo's Maria Carolina, Sacchinelli's and Helfert's 
 Ruffo, Cuoco's Saggi Storici, and Jeaffreson's Queen of Naples and Lord Nelson. 
 Life and Letters of the First Earl of Minto, vol. ii. p. 364, and cf. Madame 
 Le Brun's Memoirs, p. 72. She praises her as a misunderstood and magnani- 
 mous woman. ' She had a fine character and a good deal of wit.' 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 127 
 
 as her eldest brother, she was neither hard nor frivolous. 
 She could be both ice and fire. Her strange temperament 
 combined the poles with the equator. 
 
 The year 1789 proved critical for Emma also. It 
 brought to Naples, among other illustrious visitors, the 
 good and gracious Duchess of Argyll, formerly Duchess of 
 Hamilton, who, as the beautiful Miss Gunning, had years 
 before taken England, and indeed Europe, by storm. She 
 had come southward for her health. Her first marriage had 
 related her to Sir William, and no sooner had she set eyes 
 on Emma than she not only countenanced her in pubhc 
 but conceived for her the most admiring and intimate 
 friendship. Hitherto the English ladies had been coldly 
 civil, but under the lead of the Duchess they now began 
 to follow the Italian vogue of sounding her praises. Emma 
 became the fashion. It was already whispered that she 
 was secretly married to the Ambassador,^ and had she 
 been his wife she could scarcely have been more heartily, 
 though she would have been more openly, accepted. Her 
 request that she might accompany Sir William, the King, 
 and Acton on one of their long and rough sporting journeys 
 had been gladly granted. She had attended her deputy- 
 husband on his equally rough antiquarian ramble through 
 Puglia, made in the spring of 1789. 'She is so good/ he 
 informed Greville, 'there is no refusing her.'^ By the 
 spring of 1790 not only the Duchess but the whole 
 Argyll family lavished kindness on the extraordinary girl 
 whom they sincerely respected.* The new Spanish ambas- 
 sador's wife also had become her intimate friend. Madame 
 Le Brun, too, repaired in the wake of the French troubles to 
 Naples, and was besieged for portraits. Madame Skavonska, 
 the Russian ambassador's handsome wife, so empty-headed 
 that she squandered her time in vacancy on a sofa, was 
 her first sitter.* Emma, brought by the eager Hamilton, 
 was the second, and during her sittings she was accom- 
 
 1 Lord Elcho, who had been with the Argylls in Naples, bruited this abroad 
 in Switzerland in 1790. Cf. Morrison MS. 191. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 177. " ^Ud. 180. 
 
 * The notorious Prince Potemkin was her lover, and Lord Bristol in one of 
 his letters wondered what would become of her on his death a few years later. 
 
128 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 panied by the Prince of Monaco and the Duchess of Fleury. 
 Madame Le Brun, herself by no means devoid both of 
 jealousy and snobbishness, raved of her beauty, but formed 
 no opinion of her brain, while she found her ' supercilious.' ^ 
 This is curious, for by common consent Emma gave herself 
 no airs ; she conciliated all. But though never a parvenue 
 in her affections, she could often behave as such in her 
 dislikes ; and she could always prove aggressive when faced 
 by jealous or freezing condescension. Her improvement 
 both in knowledge and behaviour had from other accounts 
 enhanced her accomplishments. No breath of scandal had 
 touched her ; she was Hamilton's unwedded wife, and 
 her looks had kept even pace with her forward path in 
 many directions : she was fairer than ever and far less 
 vain. The Queen herself already pointed to her as an 
 example for the court, to which, however, Emma could not 
 gain formal admittance until the marriage which she had 
 predicted in 1786 had been duly solemnised. For that 
 desired climax everything now paved the way. Each 
 night in the season she received fifty of the dlite at the 
 Embassy, till in January 1791 her success was crowned by a 
 concert and reception of unusual splendour.^ The stars 
 of San Carlo performed. The court ladies vied with each 
 other in jewels and attire. The first English, as well as the 
 first Neapolitan, ladies thronged every room ; there were 
 some four hundred guests. Emma herself was conspicuously 
 simple. Amid the blaze of gems and colours she shone in 
 white satin, set off by the natural hues only of her hair and 
 complexion. 
 
 And yet she was not elated. Her one study, her single 
 aim, she wrote to Greville, were to render Sir William, on 
 whom she ' doated,' happy. They had already passed nearly 
 five years together, ' with all the domestick happiness that 's 
 possible.'* 
 
 Was there any rift within the lute? If so, it lay in 
 Greville's attitude. He opened his eyes and sighed as he 
 read of Emma's virtuous glory ; and he opened them still 
 wider when she assured him of her ' esteem ' for ' having been 
 
 ' Madame Le Brun's Memoirs, p. 68. 
 
 ■ Morrison MS. 189. « Ibid., 189. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 129 
 
 the means of bringing ' them ' together.' That Sir William 
 should marry her quite passed the bounds of his philosophy ; 
 there would be an Mat, and Eclats he detested ; his uncle 
 would make himself ridiculous. It seems likely, from an 
 allusion in a letter from Hamilton of a full year earlier, 
 that the nephew had already thrown out hints of suitable pro- 
 vision should chance or necessity ever separate the couple. 
 Sir William, however, had been deaf to such suggestions, 
 although, 'thinking aloud,' he did mention £\'t,o a year to 
 Emma, and £^,0 to her mother, ' who is a very worthy 
 woman.' ^ Such contingencies, however, could not apply 
 to their present ' footing,' for ' her conduct was such as to 
 gain her universal esteem.' The only chance for such a 
 scheme hinged on her pertinacity in pressing him to marry 
 her. ' I fear,' he continued, ' that her views are beyond 
 what I can bring myself to execute, and that when her 
 hopes on this point are over, she will make herself and me 
 unhappy.' But he recoiled from the thought ; despite the 
 difference in their ages and antecedents, ' hitherto her con- 
 duct is irreproachable, but her temper, as you must know, 
 unequal.' ^ 
 
 And now all these obstacles had melted in eighteen 
 months under the enchanter's wand of the charming 
 Duchess, who had urged Sir William to defy convention 
 and make Emma his wife. Sir William's fears were not 
 for Naples, nor wholly for Greville, who might laugh if he 
 chose. They were rather for the way in which his foster- 
 brother. King George, and his Draco-Queen, might receive 
 such news, and in what fashion they might manifest their 
 displeasure ; the Ambassador, however much and often he 
 was wont to bewail his fate, had no notion of retiring to 
 absurd obscurity. But these objections also seem to have 
 been equally dispersed by the fairy godmother of a 
 Duchess who was bent on raising Cinderella to the throne ; 
 and although Queen Charlotte eventually refused to receive 
 Lady Hamilton, yet Sir William's imminent return was in 
 fact signalised by the honour of a privy councillorship. 
 
 1 The two sums represented the allowance made by Sir William, and never 
 increased even after marriage. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 187. 
 
 I 
 
130 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Long afterwards, he assured Greville that his treatment 
 when he was eventually replaced, and subsequently when he 
 was denied reimbursement for his losses and his services, 
 both of which were to go as unrewarded as his wife's, was 
 not due to the king but to his ministers.^ Moreover, his 
 two old Eton School friends, Banks and the ubiquitous Lord 
 Bristol, Bishop of Derry, had signified their approval. The 
 latter in his peregrinations had already worshipped at 
 Emma's Neapolitan shrine — a devotee at once generous 
 and money-grubbing, cynical and ingenuous, constant and 
 capricious, who (in Lady Hamilton's words) 'dashed at 
 everything,' and who was so eccentric as to roam Caserta 
 in bishop's garb and a white hat. This original — a minia- 
 ture mixture of Peterborough, Hume, and, one might add, 
 Thackeray's Charles Honeyman — had braced Hamilton's 
 resolution by telling him it was only ' manly fortitude ' to 
 brave a stupid world and secure Emma's happiness and 
 his own.? Sir William, whose inclination struggled with 
 Greville's prudence, could not gainsay his friends who 
 echoed the wishes of his heart. And all this was the work 
 of the Duchess of Argyll. 
 
 No wonder that her sad death at the close of 1790, far 
 away from the climate which had proved powerless to save 
 her, desolated Emma. ' I never,' she assured Greville, who 
 already knew of their home-coming in the spring, ' I never 
 had such a freind as her, and that you will know when 
 1 see you, and recount ... all the acts of kindness she 
 shew'd to me : for they where too good and numerous to 
 describe in a letter. Think then to a heart of gratitude 
 
 ^ From a letter in the writer's possession, written by Greville immediately 
 after his uncle's decease to one of the then Foreign Secretaries. This letter will 
 be found in the Appendix (E(i)). It may at once be said that it contains a most 
 important confirmation of Emma's 'claims.' Not only does it establish the 
 strong recommendation of them by Sir William on his death-bed, but the precise 
 Greville in an official note declares that he ' knows ' ' that the records of your 
 office confirm the testimony of their Sicihan Majesties by letter as well as by 
 their Ministers.' Furthermore, this very letter is referred to by Emma in one 
 of her traduced 'Memorials.' It is quite forgotten by modern critics that 
 Hamilton's own services met with equal neglect, and that the reasons given by 
 ministers for not requiting both them and Lady Hamilton's were never that 
 they doubted the truth of the services of either of them. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 200. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 131 
 
 and sensibility what it must suffer. Ma passiema: io ho 
 
 ' 1 
 
 The marriage project was first to visit Rome, where they 
 would meet the Queen, about to be reconciled to the Pope, 
 on her homeward journey from Vienna. Then to repair 
 to Florence, where they could take a short leave both of 
 her and the King ; and thence to Venice, where they were 
 to encounter, besides many English, the cream of the flying 
 French noblesse, including the Counts of Artois and Vau- 
 dreuil, the Polignacs, and Calonne.^ Before May was over 
 they would be in London, and there, if things went smoothly, 
 the wedding should take place. Emma's heart must have 
 throbbed when she reflected on the stray hazards that 
 might still wreck that happiness for which she had long 
 pined, and overthrow the full cup just as it neared her lips. 
 
 Greville was unaware of the dead secret, but he implored 
 Emma not to live in London as she had done in Naples ; 
 he pressed the propriety of separate establishments. Emma 
 laughed him to scorn. The friend of the late Duchess and 
 her friends could afford to flout insular opinion. But she 
 laughed too soon : had she been wiser she might possibly 
 have propitiated the Queen of England by discretion. 
 It further happened that Greville's official friend and 
 Emma's old acquaintance, Heneage Legge, met and 
 spied on the happy pair at Naples, just before he and 
 they left for Rome ; he promptly reported progress to 
 Greville, who had plainly asked for enlightenment. The 
 unsuspecting Hamilton called on Legge immediately to 
 proffer him every friendly service. Mrs. Legge was in 
 delicate health, and Emma, too, kindly offered to act as 
 her companion, or even nurse. Legge was embarrassed ; 
 his wife civilly declined Emma's attentions, 'kindly in- 
 tended,' but owing to Emma's 'former line of life' impos- 
 sible to accept. These proprieties confirmed Sir William's 
 determination, and aroused Emma's ire. The one was 
 accustomed to observe that the 'reformed rake' proverb 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 189, January 1791. Emma's Italian orthography was still 
 as unequal as her tamper. Her constant refrain. It recurs in letters even of 
 1806 ; of. Appendix, Part II. O. (3). 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 193. April 22, 1791. 
 
132 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 applied fully as much to a woman as a man. The other 
 felt herself mortified and insulted just when her virtues 
 rang on every lip. If the frail Lady Craven, for instance, 
 were good enough to touch the hem of Mrs. Legge's 
 garments, why not Emma, who had rashly hastened to be 
 kind ? Legge must tell the rest himself : ' Her influence 
 over him exceeds all belief. . . . The language of both 
 parties, who always spoke in the plural number — we, us, 
 and ours — stagger'd me at first, but soon made me deter- 
 mined to speak openly to him on the subject, when he 
 assur'd me, what I confess I was most happy to hear, 
 that he was not married ; but flung out some hints of doing 
 justice to her good behaviour, if his public situation did 
 not forbid him to consider himself an independent man. 
 . . . She gives everybody to understand that he is now 
 going to England to solicit the K.'s consent to marry her. 
 ... I am confident she will gain her point, against which 
 it is the duty of every friend to strengthen hjs mind as 
 much as possible ; and she will be satisfied with no argu- 
 ment but the King's absolute refusal of his approbation. 
 Her talents and powers of amusing are very wonderfuU. 
 Her voice is very fine, but she does not sing with great 
 taste, and Aprili [szc] says she has not a good ear ; her 
 Attitudes are beyond description beautifull and striking, 
 and I think you will find her figure much improved since 
 you last saw her. TAey say they shall be in London by 
 the latter end of May, that their sta,y in England will be 
 as short as possible, and that, having settled his affairs, he 
 is determined never to return. She is much visited here 
 by ladies of the highest rank, and many of the corps 
 diplomatique; does the honours of his house with great 
 attention and desire to please, but wants a little refine- 
 ment of manners in which ... I wonder she has not made 
 greater progress. I have all along told her that she could 
 never change her situation, and that she was a happier 
 woman as Mrs. H. than she wou'd be as Lady H., when 
 more reserved behaviour being necessary, she wou'd be 
 depriv'd of half her amusements.' ^ 
 
 Sound sense enough, but most unlikely to convince 
 ' Morrison MS. 190; Legge to Greville, Naples, March 8, 1791. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 133 
 
 Emma's self-confidence. Mrs. Legge, too, and afterwards 
 Queen Charlotte, were justified in excommunicating Emma 
 before her marriage; such decencies are concerns of pre- 
 cedent, the etiquette of morality. But it is surely a cruel 
 and un-Christian precedent, to set up without exception 
 that a girl who had raised and trained herself as Emma 
 had done should be debarred from the possibility of legiti- 
 mate retrieval. Such standards savour far more of the 
 world than of Heaven. And, at all events, it must be 
 conceded that at this period Emma, who had been beloved 
 not only by the Duchesses of Argyll and Devonshire, but 
 by such young ladies as Miss Carr, could not possibly have 
 hurt or soiled the British matron. There may well have 
 been quite as much unamiable envy as injured innocence 
 in the blank refusal to let her show that she was a kind 
 and helpful woman, even though she had not always been 
 irreproachable. 
 
 London was reached at last, and the King's reluctant 
 sanction obtained. They were f^ted and entertained by 
 the Marquis of Abercorn, by Beckford at Fonthill, and by 
 the Duke of Queensberry, who gave a brilliant concert at 
 Richmond in their honour, where Emma herself performed.^ 
 But her chief delight was her reunion with those art 
 coteries where she had ever felt herself freest and most 
 at home. One of her first visits was to Cavendish Square. 
 On a June morning she surprised Romney — an apparition 
 in 'Turkish dress' — while he was ailing and melancholy. 
 Neither his trip in the previous year, nor the warm friend- 
 ship of Hayley, who had now fitted up a studio for him 
 at Eartham, could exorcise the demon of dejection which 
 brooded over him. The wonderful girl whose career he 
 had watched afar, cheered him back to his former source 
 of inspiration. His letters to Hayley of this date^ are 
 full of her. She was eager that her old friend should 
 recognise that she was 'still the same Emma.' She sat 
 for him constantly, and besides his many other studies 
 
 ' Newspapers of the summer of 179 1. 
 
 ^ Hayley's Life of Romfiey, pp. 158-165, and cf. the catalogue of MS. 
 letters in Add. MS. 30,895, f. 59, which supplements the letters there tran- 
 scribed. 
 
134 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 and portraits of her, he at once made her the model of 
 his Joan of Arc, the idea of which his recent journey across 
 the Channel had suggested. Both this and a ' Magdalen ' 
 were commissioned by the Prince of Wales, who seems to 
 have met her at the Duke of Queensberry's. He painted 
 her as ' Cassandra,' he designed to paint her as ' Constance,' 
 he commenced a fresh ' Bacchante.' ^ He dined with her 
 and Sir William, and they both dined thrice with him, first 
 in July 2 and afterwards in August. He broke his rule of 
 solitude in order that 'several people of fashion' might 
 behold the performances of one whom he declared ' superior 
 to all womankind.' She in her turn begged him to let 
 Hayley set about writing his life. All that she did or 
 said fascinated him ; and the fondest father, remarks his 
 biographer, could not have taken a keener pleasure in the 
 marriage of a favourite daughter than did Romney in her 
 imminent wedding. Her acting and singing so transported 
 him, that he was on the point of posting off near midnight 
 to fetch Hayley from Eartham. ' She performed both in 
 the serious and comic to admiration : but her " Nina ' " — 
 a part two years later the especial delight of Maria Carolina 
 — 'surpasses everything I ever saw, and I believe, as a 
 piece of acting, nothing ever surpassed it. The whole 
 company were in an agony of sorrow. Her acting is 
 simple, grand, terrible, and pathetic' It was this power 
 of moving others that, according to a tradition often re- 
 peated by the late Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, once so 
 worked on Nelson ten years afterwards, that he walked 
 
 up and down the crowded room muttering, ' D Mrs. 
 
 Siddons ! ' with whom somebody had contrasted her.* On 
 the occasion just mentioned Gallini, the impresario, offered 
 her ;£'2000 a year and two benefits ' if she would engage 
 with him ' ; but, in Romney's words, ' Sir William said 
 pleasantly that he had engaged her for life.' 
 
 For a few weeks Romney fancied her attitude towards 
 him altered; the mere suspicion disquieted his nerves, but 
 
 ' Possibly the picture now known as ' Mirth.' ^ Add. MS. 30,805, f. 51. 
 
 ' This anecdote originates perhaps with Mrs. St. George [Mrs. Trench] in 
 her Journal, recounting the ffites (and slanders) during the Nelson-Hamilton 
 visit to Dresden in 1801. 
 
Emma Lvon, Lady Hamii/ion, as Oss./.vzja'.j. 
 By G. Komnkv. 
 
 From a first stale of the J\Iezzotint irt Hayle Life of Romney. 
 
APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 13S 
 
 the cloud was soon dispelled. Meanwhile Hayley, who 
 was to compose a fresh poem on her just before her 
 wedding.i indited the following :— 
 
 ' Gracious Cassandra ! whose benign esteem 
 To my weak talent every aid supplied, 
 Thy smile to me was inspiration's beam, 
 
 Thy charms my model, and thy taste my guide. 
 
 But say ! what cruel clouds have darkly chilled 
 
 Thy favour, that to me was vital fire ? 
 O let it shine again ! or worse than killed, 
 
 Thy soul-sunk artist feels his art expire.' 
 
 On her very wedding day Emma sat for the last time to 
 the great artist for that noble portrait of her as the 
 'Ambassadress,' and she and her husband 'took a tender 
 leave ' ^ of one inseverable from her for ever. 
 
 Hamilton and she were the talk of the town. When they 
 drove out or went to parties, or entered the box at Drury 
 Lane, every eye was upon them, and it was at Drury Lane 
 that the acting of Jane Powell brought together the two 
 former mates in servitude as the admired of all beholders. 
 
 All this must have nettled Greville, of whose feelings at 
 this time there is no record. But his opposition does not 
 seem to have been serious, for Sir William and Emma 
 passed their time in a round of visits to the whole circle 
 of his relations, who were mostly* her keen partisans. Lord 
 Abercorn, indeed, went so far as to protest that her person- 
 ality had 'made it impossible' for him 'to see or hear 
 without making comparisons ' ; * and from this time forward 
 Lord William Douglas also became Emma's lifelong 
 upholder. The summer of 1791 was unusually hot, and 
 from the latter part of July to mid-August they stayed 
 with relatives in the country, including Beckford, when 
 Emma for the first time beheld the Oriental and the Gothic 
 glories, the mounting spire, the magic terraces, the fairy 
 gardens, and all the bizarre splendours, including its owner, 
 of Fonthill Abbey. 
 
 ' Add. MS. 30,805, f. S. " Add. MS. 30,805, f. 51- 
 
 ' Not so the Dowager Countess of Warwick, or his niece Mrs. Dickenson, 
 formerly Mary Hamilton, whose famed vocal prowess Emma was said to have 
 eclipsed. * Morrison MS. 198. 
 
136 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 On the whole, this perilous experiment had succeeded, 
 although Queen Charlotte's ban doubtless rankled in 
 Emma's breast.^ The King himself was more pained than 
 offended, and had confirmed Hamilton in the security of 
 his appointment. 
 
 Nor was it only grand folks or old friends that Emma 
 had frequented. It is clear from allusions in shortly sub- 
 sequent letters that both she and her mother visited that 
 ' poor little Emma ' who had re-awakened the longings of 
 motherhood in the old but unforgotten days of Parkgate. 
 
 On September 6th Sir William and ' Emy,' or ' Emily,' 
 Lyon were duly wedded at Marylebone Church, long asso- 
 ciated with the Hamilton family. The marriage was 
 solemnised by the Rev. Doctor Edward Barry, rector of 
 Elsdon, Northumberland. The witnesses were Lord 
 Abercorn and L. Dutens,* secretary to the English 
 Minister at Turin, with whom Emma long maintained 
 a faithful friendship.* Her heart was overflowing. She 
 felt, as she told Romney, so grateful to her husband, so 
 glad in restored innocence and happiness, that she would 
 ' never be able to make ' him ' amends for his goodness.' 
 They started homeward by way of Paris, where they were 
 to see for the first and last time that tortured Queen who 
 was fast completing the tragedy of her doom. Hence- 
 forward the name of ' Hart ' is heard no more. Hencefor- 
 ward Emma is no longer obscure, but, as Lady Hamilton, 
 passes into history. 
 
 ' The Queen would never receive Lady Hamilton even after the return of the 
 Hamiltons to England, and Nelson will be found angry that Sir William would 
 go to court alone ; cf. post, chap. xii. 
 
 ' Parish Register, Marylebone Church. 
 
 ' Immediately on her return to Naples she begged Romney to send him, as 
 token, a portrait of herself— 'the little picture with the black hat.' — Morrison 
 MS. 199. She will be found inviting him to Piccadilly in 1801. 
 

CHAPTER VI 
 
 TILL THE FIRST MEETING 
 
 1791-1793 
 
 Lady Hamilton returned to bask in social favour. It 
 was not only the Neapolitan noblesse and the English 
 wives that courted and caressed her. Their young 
 daughters also vied with each other in attentions, and 
 vowed that never was any one so amiable and accomplished 
 as this eighth wonder. Among these was a Miss Carr, 
 who not long afterwards married General Cheney, an Aide- 
 de-Camp to the Duke of York, during the next few years 
 more than once a visitor at Naples. The writer possesses 
 a miniature in water-colour, drawn by this young lady, of 
 the friend to whom she long remained attached. Emma 
 sits, clad all in white, with an air of sweetness and 
 repose. At the back of this memento she has herself 
 recorded : 'Emma Hamilton, Naples, Feb. 11, 1792. I had 
 the happiness of my dear Miss Carr's company all day; 
 but, alas, the day was too short.' 
 
 There is nothing in this likeness to betoken the purpose 
 and ambition which she was shortly to display in the side- 
 scenes of history. Horace Walpole had written, ' So Sir 
 William has married his gallery of statues.' Emma soon 
 ceases to be a statue, and becomes prominent in the labyrinth 
 of Neapolitan intrigue ; her rdle as patriot begins to be fore- 
 shadowed. 
 
 Throughout these three critical years of stress and shock 
 momentous issues were brewing, destined to bring into 
 sharp relief and typical collision the two giants of France 
 and England, Napoleon and Nelson ; while all the time, 
 under fate's invisible hand, Nelson was as surely tending 
 
 137 
 
138 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 towards Naples and Emma, as Emma was being drawn 
 towards Nelson. From the moment of her return in the 
 late autumn of 1791 she began, at first under Hamilton's 
 tuition, to study and understand the political landscape. 
 
 Nowhere outside France did the Revolution bode omens 
 more sinister than at the Neapolitan court. The Queen 
 clearly discerned that her French sister and brother-in-law 
 trembled on the brink of destruction. She knew that the 
 epidemic of anarchy must endanger Naples among the first, 
 and might involve the possible extinction of its dynasty. 
 She was not deceived by the many false prophets crying 
 peace where no peace was ; still less by the wild schemes 
 for hairbreadth escapes which sent visionary deliverers 
 scouring through Europe. Her one hope— soijn rudely 
 shattered — lay in Austria's power to eflfect a coalition of 
 great powers and strong armies. She had just quitted the 
 family council in Vienna, following on the death of her 
 brother Joseph the Second, and the short-lived accession to 
 the throne of her other brother Leopold, the pedantic 
 philanthropist. Its object had been, in Horace Walpole's 
 phrase, to ' Austriacise ' the position of the Italian Bourbons, 
 by family inter-marriages and a betrothal.^ Her efforts 
 were bent on a league against France, and it was for this 
 that on her way home she had contrived a surprise meeting 
 with the weak Pope Pius VI., penetrated the Vatican, 
 abjured her anti-papal policy, and humiliated herself in the 
 dust. And yet Louis XVI. besought her to suspend efforts 
 which might rescue him, and shrank from embittering his 
 false friends. Austria, too, was for seven years to prove a 
 broken reed. Spain was never a whole-hearted enemy of 
 France, and within three years was to become her ally. 
 The Queen awoke to a fury of indignation and hopelessness. 
 Her foes were those of her own household — her nobles, 
 her husband, his Spanish brother and sister, — and herself. 
 Hitherto she had been reckoned an enlightened patroness, 
 
 ' Of her daughter Maria to Leopold's son, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, soon 
 to ascend the Austrian throne as Francis the Second, and to be branded as 
 ' falso Italiano, falso Tedesco ' ; of her second daughter, Luigia Amalia, to the 
 Archduke Ferdinand ; by the betrothal also of her eldest son, now only thirteen^ 
 to the sickly Archduchess Maria Clementina. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 139 
 
 compassing the equality and fraternity of subjects who had 
 never required political liberty. She had stubbornly re- 
 sisted the Spanish Machiavellianism which had manoeuvred 
 to undermine those very freemasonries which Maria Caro- 
 lina had founded and forwarded.^ Spain was, in truth, 
 the key of the present position. Spain was befooling 
 Ferdinand and spiting his wife at every turn. The Spanish 
 queen coveted Naples for her own offspring, and the two 
 queens abominated each other. She was quite aware 
 that the pro-Spanish party, abetted by her blockhead of a 
 husband, covertly designed the transference of the Crown 
 of the two Sicilies to the Duke of Parma, while many of 
 the Neapolitan nobles, affronted at the abolition of their 
 feudal rights, were in secret confederation with it. She 
 sprang from a house glorying in its despotic monopoly 
 of popular principles, yet it was to such fatalities that these 
 very principles were leading. Stability and authority had 
 been her aims, yet the ground was fast slipping from 
 beneath her feet. She was a true scion of the casuist 
 Hapsburgs, who had always considered pride as a sacred 
 duty, and who, if their system were imperilled, would be 
 ready to defend it by conscientious crimes. In the refrain 
 of her own subsequent letters, ' // faut /aire son devoir 
 j'usgu'au tombeau.' ^ 
 
 And added to all this was the shifting mood of her 
 consort, whose infidelities she (like the queen of our own 
 George the Second) only condoned in order that his good 
 humour might enable her to rule. He had always twitted 
 her with being an ' Illuminata,' he now derided her as the 
 ' Austrian hen.' * His advisers would prompt him to rely 
 more than ever on his Spanish kindred, to slight the 
 Hapsburgs and herself. When Emma long afterwards 
 claimed to have ' De-Bourbonised ' the Neapolitan court, 
 it was to these conditions that she referred.* 
 
 ' The court of Madrid had gone so far as to induce Gallo, through Pallanti, 
 to make a raid on those societies and to brave the anger of their royal patroness. 
 — Pepe, p. 17. 
 
 ' To Lady Hamilton, Eg. MS. 1615, f. 58. 
 
 ' Venice under the Yoke, etc., vol. ii. p. 48. The King said to Gallo, ' Ah ! 
 Gallo, Gallo, se non fosse per quella Gallina d'Austria vi farei vedere chi sono.' 
 
 * The non-perception of this fact has led Mr. Jeaffreson astray. 
 
I40 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Gallo, the foreign minister, leaned towards and upon 
 Spain. Even Acton hitherto had been content to pro- 
 pitiate the King by taking his cue from Madrid. The 
 King himself had regarded England merely as a market 
 for dogs and horses,^ the Queen only as an enemy of 
 Spain. That the attitude of both was shortly to be trans- 
 formed was due to Emma's enthusiasm as spokeswoman 
 for her husband. Even in February 1796 Emma wrote to 
 Lord Macartney, who had just arrived at Naples, 'the 
 Queen is worn out with her effort to persuade Ferdinand 
 to take a decided attitude against the ply of Spain,' and 
 that ' she approves of all our prospects.^''' The moot question 
 soon became, Was Naples to be Spanish or English ? The 
 Austrian influence, so prized by an Austrian princess, was 
 on the wane. As England's advocate the light-hearted 
 Emma was drawn into the political vortex, and assumed 
 the mysterious solemnity befitting her part. 
 
 In her perplexity it was to Acton that Maria Carolina 
 turned. She thought him a man of iron, whereas he was really 
 one of wood ; but he was methodical, pro- Austrian, and at 
 the core pro-English. Under the imminence of crisis, he and 
 Hamilton — still a man of pleasure, but not its slave — both 
 came to perceive that unless the whole system of Europe 
 was to be reversed, an Anglo-Sicilian alliance was impera- 
 tive. Hamilton, however, was slower to discern the neces- 
 sity which Emma realised by instinct. Writing in April 
 1792, he says: 'The Neapolitans, provided they can 
 get their bellies full at a cheap rate, will not, I am sure, 
 trouble their heads with what passes in other countries, and 
 great pains are taken to prevent any of the democratic 
 propaganda, or their writings, finding their way into this 
 kingdom.'* Even in 1795 he was to be more concerned with 
 the success of his treatises on Vesuvius than with the 
 tangle of treaties fast growing out of the situation.* It 
 was not till 1796 that he took any strong initiative with 
 
 * Cf. Morrison MS. 105. Lord Pembroke to Sir W. Hamilton, Oct. 16, 
 1791 , where he complains of the King's sporting agent, ' Calabria.' 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 274. 
 ^ Morrison MS. 208. 
 
 * Morrison MS. 252. One of them was being read before the Royal Society. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 141 
 
 Acton.i The two Sicilies indeed were now a shuttlecock 
 between the treacheries of Spain and the dilatoriness as 
 well as venality of Austria.^ 
 
 But for England the French cataclysm meant something 
 wholly different from its significance for the Continent. 
 Great Britain stood alone and aloof from other powers. 
 She was the nurse of traditional order and traditional liberty 
 conjoined ; disorder and licence, although exploitable by 
 political factions under specious masks, never appealed to 
 the nation at large. Britain's upheavals had been settled 
 by happy compromise more than a century before. 
 Jacobinism menaced her ' free ' trade, and might strike even 
 at her free institutions. She was a great maritime and a 
 Mediterranean power whose coign of vantage in Gibraltar 
 would prove useless if Naples and Sicily, Malta and 
 Sardinia* should fall to France. Sicily, indeed, had been 
 one of her objectives in that great Utrecht Treaty which 
 had transferred it to the friendly house of Savoy, while it 
 secured Gibraltar and Port Mahon to Great Britain, And 
 ever since, Spain had been England's sworn enemy. Spain 
 was France's natural ally, nor would the revolutionary 
 burst long deter the Spanish Bourbons from an anti- 
 British policy. Spain had tricked Austria and braved 
 Great Britain throughout the eighteenth century, yet it was 
 on Spain that Maria Carolina's husband habitually relied. 
 From England, too, throughout that century, had rained 
 those showers of gold which had subsidised the enemies of 
 Bourbon preponderance. 'Will England,' wrote Acton 
 
 ' Cf. Eg. MS. 2639, f. 333. He quotes Pontano's inscription in the Chapel 
 of S. Maria : ' Audendo, agendoque res publica crescit, non his consiliis quae 
 timidi cauta appellant.' 
 
 2 The writer has a letter of October 31, 179S, from the burrowing Lord 
 Bristol (then at Berlin) to Lady Hamilton, which tells her ' The poor Austrian 
 General [i.e. Wurmser] . . . had no orders, no permission from that execrable 
 Council of War at Vienna, one half of which are publickly known to be sold to 
 the National Convention. Lord Longford and his pedantick friend Mr. Knott 
 are just arrived from Vienna — they assure me nothing can be more notorious or 
 more publickly talked of than the Venality of the Council of War. . . Dearest 
 Emma, tell our dear inestimable Queen firom me that unless she has weight 
 enough to get that infamous Council of War abolished, suppressed, annihilated, 
 'tis impossible that a General can either seine his advantage ot pursue it. ' 
 
 ^ Under the then conditions of warfare. Nelson always insisted that Sardinia 
 was the key to the Mediterranean position. 
 
142 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 some years later to Hamilton, when Emma, as the Queen's 
 ' minister plenipotentiary,' ^ had ' spurred ' them on, ' see 
 all Italy, and even the two Sicilies, in the French hands 
 with indifference? , . . We shall perish if such is our 
 destiny, but we hope of selling dear our destruction.'^ 
 
 In England the remonstrant Burke forsook the pseudo- 
 Jacobin Whigs. It was hoped, and not without reason, 
 that Pitt as a great statesman might foresee the situation. 
 But the difficulty all along in the British cabinet, and some- 
 times the obstacle, was to prove Lord Grenville,* cold, stiff, 
 timid, official to a fault ; so hesitating that he twice coun- 
 selled the two Sicilies to make the best peace they could with 
 Buonaparte, before whom he quailed ;* and so diplomatic 
 that, even after Nelson's Mediterranean expedition had been 
 concerted between the two courts, he begged Circello, the 
 Neapolitan Ambassador, to pretend discontent in public 
 with what had just been privately ratified.* In the same 
 year, defending the ministry against the Duke of Bedford's 
 abortive motion for their dismissal, and praising the gallant 
 navy ' which had ridden triumphant at the same moment at 
 the mouths of Brest and Cadiz and Texel,' the Secretary for 
 Foreign Affairs could only be wise after the event. He could 
 only defend the prolongation of war by Barere's threat of 
 ' Delenda est Carthago,' by Condorcet's opinion that under 
 a peace we should have been relieved of Jamaica, Bengal, 
 and our Indian possessions ; by bemoaning England's 
 vanished ' power to control the Continent,' by proclaiming 
 that she was ' at her lowest ebb,' and by complaining that 
 Austria had deserted the Alliance.^ Commenting on his 
 attitude, thirteen years afterwards, towards Emma's claims, 
 Canning, who warmly favoured them, dwells on the same 
 characteristic of ' coldest caution.' '' Such a spirit could ill 
 
 ^ In June 1798. Eg. 1618, f. 7, ' Je vous fais mon ministre pUnipotencier. ' 
 
 2 Eg. MS. 2640, ff. S3- 55. 
 
 3 Cf. Acton's letter August 29, 1793, Eg. MS. 2639, f. 66, and ibid. f. 353, 
 where Acton says that Grenville always ' chicaned.' 
 
 * Eg. MS. 2639, ff. 313, 32s, 329. 6 Eg. MS. 2640, f. 63. 
 
 ' * Cf. British Museum 8132 D., f. 9, 1-16. Greville, writing on January 10, 
 1792, says : ' The crisis of France is not far distant. Our Government will not 
 dare involve us ; they are in alarms about India,' — Morrison MS, 20i. 
 
 ' Rose's Diaries, vol. i. p. 263. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 143 
 
 deal with the conjuncture. Mob-despotism was now the 
 dread of Europe.^ Mob-rule was already rampant in 
 France, though the time was still distant when the 
 Marchioness of Solari could declare that the French had 
 robbed her of all but the haunting memory of Parisian 
 gutters swimming with blood.* 
 
 Acton acceded to the Queen's request with rigour, but 
 his weak point lay in the fact that he was a born bureaucrat ; 
 while the sort of bureaucracy that he favoured, one of secret 
 inquisition, turned political offences into heresies, and 
 Jacobins into martyrs. Bureaucracies may check, but have 
 never stemmed, revolutions which are calmed — when they 
 can be calmed — by commanding personality alone. A 
 bureaucrat is never a trusted nor even a single figure, for he 
 belongs to unpopular and unavailing groups and systems 
 which from their nature must at best be temporary stop- 
 gaps. As Jacobinism throve and persevered, the Lazzaroni, 
 who execrated it as a foreign innovation, cheered their care- 
 less King, but they came to hiss the Queen for her counte- 
 nance of bureaucracy, until Nelson entered the arena, and 
 Emma formed, in 1799, a 'Queen's party,' at the very 
 moment when Maria Carolina dared not so much as show 
 her face at Naples. 
 
 Already in the spring the French events began to affect 
 Naples. Mirabeau dead, the abortive escape to Varennes, 
 Louis XVI. in open and abject terror, Danton and Potion 
 bribed, the National Convention, the cosmopolitan cries of 
 ' Let us sow the ideas of 1789 throughout the world. . . . We 
 all belong to our country when it is in danger. . , . Liberty 
 and equality constitute country,' spread their contagion 
 broadcast. They did not yet inflame the Neapolitan middle 
 class ; they never caught the Neapolitan people ; but their 
 
 ' Nelson's future letters constantly point to this factor. Deploring the condi- 
 tion of Rome in August 1799, he observes to Sir James St. Clair Erskine : ' In 
 Civita Vecchia are about 1000 Regulars with the whole country against them, but 
 such mobs are'going about plundering that they ... are sometimes good Repub- 
 licans, and sometimes their bitterest enemy. This mobbing system has its desire 
 of getting also into the Neapolitan Dominions, which would thus be in nearly as 
 bad a state as when in possession of the French.' He then adverts to ' anarchy 
 and confusion,' etc. Cf. the excerpt in Sotheby's catalogue for July 8, 1905. 
 
 " She adds that but for her writing she roust have gone mad. 
 
144 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 leaven had already touched the offended nobles * and the 
 ungrateful students. From the moment of Louis' imprison- 
 ment in the Temple, his sister-in-law changed her tack and 
 resolved to go ' Thorough.' The pulpits were pressed into 
 an anti-Jacobin crusade. The administration of the twelve 
 city wards, hitherto supervised by elected aldermen, was 
 transferred without warning to chiefs of police as judges 
 and inspectors. Denouncers and informers were hired, 
 although as yet the brooding Queen used her spies for pre- 
 caution alone, and not for vengeance. The republican seed 
 of the secret societies, sown by her own hands, had borne a 
 crop of democracy ripening towards harvest. Her academic 
 reformers were fast developing into open revolutionaries. 
 The red cap was worn and flaunted. Copies of the French 
 Statute were seized in thousands as they lurked in sacks on 
 the rocks of Chiaromonte ; two even found their way into the 
 Queen's apartments. This conspiracy she hoped to nip in 
 the bud. It had not assumed its worst proportions ; nor as 
 yet had disloyalty thrown off" the mask, and appeared as a 
 bribed hireling of the National Convention.^ The grisly 
 horrors at Paris of 1792, preluding only too distinctly the 
 crowning executions of 1793, called also for sterner mea- 
 sures. By July, Beckford, an eye-witness, remarks that even 
 Savoy was ' bejacobinised, and plundering, ravaging,' were 
 'going on swimmingly.'® The Queen bestirred herself 
 abroad. A league was formed between Prussia and Austria. 
 The Duke of Brunswick issued his manifesto that one finger 
 laid on Louis would be avenged. Danton exclaimed, ' To 
 arms ! ' France, generalled by Dumouriez, heroof Jemappes, 
 and Kellermann of Valmy, was invaded. The assassination 
 of Gustavus of Sweden followed. But the brief victory of 
 the confederate arms at Longwy soon yielded to the Valmy 
 defeat. Monarchy was on its trial. 
 
 Once more the Queen conferred with Acton, and their 
 
 ' Colonna, Rlario, Pignatelli, etc., who had then no commerce with the 
 professional class that the Queen had always exalted, and that the nobles were 
 beginning to envy. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 238. The writer has a letter in which Acton emphasises the 
 extreme jeopardy of affairs in 1793. Pesched the banker, and Falco the 
 physician, plotted even in 1794 to kill the King. 
 
 " Morrison MS. 212. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 145 
 
 deliberations resulted in the detestable Star Chamber of 
 the ' Camera Oscura.' Force was to be met by force, and 
 cabal by cabal. Prince Castelcicala,^ a far abler minister 
 than Acton,^ was recalled from London to assist in its 
 councils; Ruffo, not yet Cardinal, became its assessor; while 
 the stripling Luigi di Medici, under the title of 'Regente della 
 vicaria,' became its head inquisitor.* But mercy was still 
 shown. Colletta himself, an historian certainly unbiassed 
 in the Queen's favour, admits that she had no idea of 
 ' persecution.' Most odious means, however, were taken to 
 crush a conspiracy of foreign and unpopular origin. Some 
 hundreds of the better class, some thousands of the scum, 
 were banished, or confined in the prisons of Lampedusa 
 and Tremiti. Such is an imperfect outline of what hap- 
 pened in 1 79 1 and 1792.* 
 
 The interview of the Hamiltons with Marie Antoinette 
 on their homeward journey has been already noticed. 
 Nearly twenty-four years afterwards Lady Hamilton, 
 never accurate, and constitutionally exaggerative, declared 
 in her last memorial under the pressure of sore distress, 
 that she then presented to the Queen of Naples her 
 sister's last letter. There is little doubt that substantially 
 she told the truth. She was the bearer of a missive, for 
 Marie Antoinette neglected none of her now rare chances 
 of communication. About the same time, however, the 
 Marchioness of Solari also repaired from Paris to Naples 
 with another communication. Emma has been roundly 
 trounced for her statement by such as occasionally survey 
 history with the diminishing end of their telescope. It is 
 hardly worth while debating whether all credence should be 
 denied to the bearer of an important letter simply on the 
 
 1 He was replaced as Ambassador in England by Sicigniano, after whose 
 suicide the Marquis of Circello succeeded. "■' In Nelson's opinion. 
 
 ' He was himself to head a fresh conspiracy in 1795. Cf. Hamilton's letter 
 to G. Elliot at Vienna of January 27 of that year. Eg. MS. 2638, f. 147. This 
 shows how untrue la fable convenue has been in ascribing Medici's fall to Acton's 
 vindictiveness. 
 
 * In the foregoing, besides the MS. and authorities cited, cf. General Pep^'s 
 Memoirs, Dumas' History of the Italian Bourbons (from the Archives), Croce's 
 references in Eleonora Fonseca di Pimentel, and Coco's Saggio Storico, General 
 Macdonald's Souvenirs, Nardini's Mimoires. 
 
 K 
 
146 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ground of priority. But, as a matter of fact, the Marchioness 
 paid two visits about this time to Naples, and the month of 
 the first may well have preceded that of Lady Hamilton's 
 arrival there in 1791. Moreover, the Marchioness's own 
 language points to a merely verbal message on the first 
 occasion,^ and not to a ' letter ' at all. 
 
 Whether or no this incident fastened afresh the Queen's 
 regard, certain it is that Maria Carolina gave the mot eTordre 
 for Lady Hamilton's acceptability. Nobody disputed her 
 position, least of all the English. She was at once formally 
 presented to the Queen. By mid-April of 1792 Sir 
 William Hamilton could tell Horace Walpole, just acced- 
 ing to his earldom, that the Queen had been very kind, and 
 treated his wife 'like any other travelling lady of dis- 
 tinction.' 'Emma,' he adds, 'has had a difficult part 
 to act, and has succeeded wonderfully, having gained by 
 having no pretensions the thorough approbation of all the 
 English ladies. . . . You cannot imagine how delighted 
 Lady H. was in having gained your approbation in Eng- 
 land. . . . She goes on improving daily. . . . She is really 
 an extraordinary being.' ^ 
 
 Within a month of her arrival in the previous autumn, 
 and in the midst of successes, she sat down to write to 
 Romney. The tone of this letter deserves close attention, 
 for no under-motive could colour a communication to so 
 old and fatherly a comrade : ' I have been received with 
 open arms by all the Neapolitans of both sexes, by all the 
 foreigners of every distinction. I have been presented to 
 the Queen of Naples by her own desire, she [h]as shewn me 
 all sorts of kind and affectionate attentions ; in short, I am 
 the happiest woman in the world. Sir William is fonder of 
 me every day, and I hope I [he ?] will have no corse to 
 
 1 Cf. Venice under the Yoke of France and of Austria, p. 78. The Mar- 
 chioness states generally that (from 1791-93) she was entrusted with ' letters,' but 
 explains the term in the same paragraph by averring that she ' was often charged 
 with verbal messages of a nature too delicate to be committed to paper in those 
 perilous times.' Mr. Jeaffreson has left this unnoticed, and he has assumed that 
 the Marchesa paid her short and secret visit of 1791 after Emma's return from 
 London. He evidently confuses this with the later visit of October 1793. But 
 the Marchioness was herself by no means accurate in details. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 208, April 17, 1792. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 147 
 
 repent of what he [h]as done, for I feel so grateful to him 
 that I think I shall never be able to make him amends for 
 his goodness to me. But why do I tell you this ? You 
 was the first dear friend I open'd my heart to ; you ought 
 to know me.^ . . . How gratefuU then do I feel to my dear, 
 dear husband that has restored peace to my mind, that has 
 given me honors, rank, and what is more, innocence and 
 happiness. Rejoice with me, my dear sir, my friend, my 
 more than father ; believe me, I am still that same Emma 
 you knew me. If I could forget for a moment what I was, 
 I ought to suffer. Command me in anything I can do for 
 you here ; believe me, I shall have a real pleasure. Come 
 to Naples, and I will be your model, anything to induce 
 you to come, that I may have an opportunity to show my 
 gratitude to you. . . . We have a many English at Naples, 
 Ladys Malm[e]sbury, Maiden, Plymouth, Carnegie, and 
 Wright, etc. They are very kind and attentive to me ; 
 they all make it a point to be remarkably cevil to me. 
 Tell Hayly I am always reading his Triumphs of Temper; 
 it was that that made me Lady H.,for God knows I had for 
 five years enough to try my temper, and I am affraid if it 
 had not been for the good example Serena taught me, my 
 girdle wou'd have burst, and if it had I had been undone ; 
 for Sir W. minds more temper than beauty. He therefore 
 wishes Mr. Hayly wou'd come, that he might thank him for 
 his sweet-tempered wife. I swear to you, I have never 
 once been out of humour since the 6th of last September, 
 God bless you.' ^ 
 
 Romney, whose friend Flaxman, now in Rome, counted 
 himself among Emma's devotees,* replied in terms of humble 
 respect. He deprecated the liberty of sending a friend 
 with a letter of introduction, and only wished that he could 
 express his feelings on the perusal of her 'happyness.' 
 ' May God grant it may remain so to the end of your 
 days.'* 
 
 How ' attentive ' to her Lady Plymouth and the English 
 
 1 Here follows the passage about her ' sense ot virtue ' not being overcome in 
 her earliest distresses, quoted ante in chap. ii. ' Morrison MS. 199. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 307, and cf. his interview and Hayley's with her and Nelson 
 in l%02, post, chap. xii. ■* Morrison MS. 210. 
 
148 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 sisterhood were at this early period is shown by a letter 
 which changed hands during the present year. It is couched 
 not only in terms of afTection, but of trust. If the French 
 terror became actual at Naples, Lady Plymouth would take 
 refuge with Lady Hamilton, and ' creep under the shadow 
 of ' her ' wings.' The leaders of English society relished, as 
 always, a new sensation, and, away from England, delighted 
 to honour one so different from themselves. 
 
 While so much underground disturbance proceeded, 
 the outward aspect of court and city was serenity itself. 
 Ancient Pompeii could not have been more frivolously 
 festive. Ill as they suited her mood, the Queen, from policy, 
 encouraged these galas. They distracted the court from 
 treason, they pleased her husband and people, and they 
 attracted a crowd of useful foreigners, especially the English, 
 who, during these two years, inundated Naples to their 
 Ambassador's dismay. The distinguished English visitors 
 of 1792 included the sickly young Prince Augustus, after- 
 wards Duke of Sussex, whose delicate health and morganatic 
 marriage ^ alike added to Hamilton's anxieties. But for the 
 disturbed state of the Continent, 'Vathek' Beckford — to 
 whom Sir William was always kind — would have revisited 
 his kinsman also. He had not long quitted his 'dear' and 
 queenly friend ' Mary of Portugal,' and was now travelling 
 through Savoy with a retinue worthy of Disraeli's Sidonia 
 and composed of half the imigris, musicians, and cooks — 
 chefs dorchestre et de cuisine — of Versailles ; * and Emma's 
 old friend Gavin Hamilton was also among the throng.® 
 
 A correspondence* between husband and wife during 
 the January of this year, and his absence with the King at 
 Persano, is pleasant reading, and pictures a happy pair. 
 The Ambassador, who up to now had found his business 
 in sport, cheerfully roughing it on bread and butter, going 
 
 > With Lady Augusta Murray, to whom he was a devoted husband in the 
 teeth of his father's and brother's opposition. Lady Hamilton continued to 
 enjoy his firiendship long afterwards. The Estes, Nelson's and her friends and 
 correspondents, were related. 
 
 = Morrison MS. 212, 213. ' Stowe MS. 1020, f. 2. 
 
 < Nelson Letters, vol. ii. pp. I37-I39- 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 149 
 
 to bed at nine and rising at five, reading, too, ' to digest 
 his dinner,' is affectionate and playful. He was ' sorry,' 
 he writes on leaving, that his 'dear Em' must 'harden' 
 herself to such little misfortunes as a temporary parting ' ; 
 but he 'cannot blame her for having a good and tender 
 heart' 'Believe me, you are in thorough possession of 
 all mine, though I will allow it to be rather tough.' His 
 diary of the hour flows from a light heart and pen. He 
 tells her the gossip : ' Yesterday the courier brought the 
 order of St Stephano from the Emperor^ for the Prince 
 Ausberg,^ and the King was desired to invest him with it. 
 As soon as the King received it, he ran into the Prince's 
 room, whom he found in his shirt, and without his breeches, 
 and in that condition was he decorated with the star and 
 ribbon by his majesty, who has wrote the whole circum- 
 stance to the Emperor. Leopold may, perhaps, not like 
 the joking with his first order. Such nonsense should 
 certainly be done with solemnity ; or it becomes, what it 
 really is, a little tinsel and a few yards of broad ribbon.' 
 His watchful wife, in her turn, acquaints him with London 
 cabals to dislodge him from office. ' Our conduct,' he 
 answers with indignation, ' shall be such as to be unattack- 
 able. . . . Twenty-seven years' service, having spent all the 
 King's money, and all my own, besides running in debts, 
 deserves something better than a dismission. ... I would 
 not be married to any woman but yourself for all the 
 world.' And again, ' I never doubted your gaining 
 every soul you approach. . . . Nothing pleases me more 
 than to hear yon do not neglect your singing. It would 
 be a pity, as you are near the point of perfection.' The 
 very etiquette of the Embassy he leaves with confidence in 
 her hands. 'You did admirably, my dear Em., in not 
 inviting Lady A. H,' to dine with the prince, and still 
 better in telling her honestly the reason. I have always 
 found that going straight is the best method, though not 
 
 1 Leopold. 
 
 * He was illiterate. Cf. Nelson Letters, p. 158. ' Having no opportunity of 
 making lore does nothing but talk of his new flame, which is Lady A. Hatton. 
 I put him right, for he thought she spelt her name with two rr instead of t wo rt. ' 
 
 ' Hatton. Cf. the last note. 
 
ISO EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the way of the world.^ Yoq did also very well in asking 
 Madame Skamouski, and not taking upon you to present 
 her [to the Queen] without leave. In short, consult your 
 own good sense, and do not be in a hurry ; and I am sure 
 you will always act right, ... As the Prince asked you, 
 you did right to send for a song of Douglass's,^ but in 
 general you will do right to sing only at home.' He also 
 politely deprecates his plebeian mother-in-law's attendance 
 at formal receptions. But Emma, throughout her career, dis- 
 dained to be parted for a moment. Unlike most parvenues, 
 she never blushed for the homely creature who had stood by 
 her in the day of trouble, and her intense love for her 
 mother, even, when it stood most in her way, ennobles her 
 character. 
 
 The Neapolitan revelries were sometimes the reverse of 
 squeamish : ' Let them all roll on the carpet,' he writes, 
 ' provided you are not of the party. My trust is in you 
 alone.' 
 
 It should be marked that from other letters of this series 
 it is evident that even thus early Lady Hamilton was 
 copying and translating despatches. Sir William was 
 naturally torpid, and his enthusiasm centred on the wife 
 who bestirred him. His efforts to keep eternally young 
 were already being damped by the deaths of contemporaries. 
 That of his old intimate. Lord Pembroke, in 1794,* was to 
 evoke a characteristic comment : — ' It gave me a little twist ; 
 but I have for some time perceived that my friends, with 
 whom I spent my younger . days, have been dropping 
 around me.' 
 
 The close of 1792 saw the first of those serious illnesses 
 through which Emma was so often to nurse him. For 
 more than a fortnight he lay in danger at Caserta. Lady 
 Hamilton was 'eight days without undressing, eating, or 
 sleeping.' The Queen and King sent constantly to in- 
 quire. Although Naples was distant sixteen miles, Ladies 
 Plymouth, Dunmore, and Webster, with others of the 
 
 ' Cf. Nelson's 'upright and straightforward.' 
 ^ Lord W. Douglas, Sir W.'s relation. 
 
 ^ The letter from which this excerpt comes is wrongly included in this series 
 of 1792. A letter exists from him in June 1793. Morrison MS. 225. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 151 
 
 British contingent, offered even to stay with her. She tells 
 her dear Mr. Greville (how changed the appellation !) of 
 her ' great obligations,' and of her grief. ' Endead I was 
 almost distracted from such extreme happiness at once to 
 such misery. . . . What cou'd console me for the loss of 
 such a husband, friend, and protector? For surely no 
 happiness is like ours. We live but for one another. But 
 I was too happy. I had imagined I was never more to be 
 unhappy. All is right. I now know myself again, and 
 shall not easily fall into the same error again. For every 
 moment I feel what I felt when I thought I was loseing 
 him for ever.'^ This is the letter concerning her grand- 
 mother to which reference has already been made. Since 
 I lay stress on the fact that Emma was a typical daughter 
 of the people both in scorn and affection, that she was 
 warm-hearted, unmercenary, and grateful, and that she 
 never lowered the natures of those with whom she was 
 brought into contact, another excerpt may be pardoned: — 
 ' I will trouble you with my own affairs as you are so 
 good as to interest yourself about me. You must know I 
 send my grandmother every Cristmas twenty pounds, and 
 so I ought. I have 200 a year for nonsense, and it wou'd 
 be hard I cou'd not give her twenty pounds when she has 
 so often given me her last shilling. As Sir William is ill, 
 I cannot ask him for the order; but if you will get the 
 twenty pounds and send it to her, you will do me the 
 greatest favor ; for if the time passes without hearing from 
 me, she may imagine I have forgot her, and I would not 
 keep her poor old heart in suspense for the world. . . . 
 Cou'd you not write to her a line from me and send to her, 
 and tell her by my order, and she may write to you ? Send 
 me her answer. For I cannot divest myself of my original 
 feelings. It will contribute to my happiness, and I am 
 sure you will assist to make me happy. Tell her every 
 year she shal have twenty pound. The fourth of November 
 last I had a dress on that cost twenty-five pounds, as it 
 was Gala at Court ; and believe me I felt unhappy all the 
 while I had it on. Excuse the trouble I give you.' 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 215 ; Caserta, December 4, 1792. 
 
152 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 The end of 1792 and the whole of 1793 loomed big with 
 crisis. The new year opened with the judicial murder of 
 the French King, it closed with that of Marie Antoinette. 
 Her execution exasperated all Europe against France. 
 England declared war ; Prussia retired from the first 
 Coalition, and the second was formed. An Anglo-Sicilian 
 understanding ensued. Through the arrival of La Touche 
 Tr^ville's squadron at Naples, the French sansculottes 
 shook hands with the Italian. Hood's capture of Toulon, 
 Napoleon's undoing of it, and Nelson's advent in the 
 Agamemnon, opened out a death-struggle unfinished even 
 when the hero died. 
 
 To the Queen's promptings of temperament and habits 
 of principle were now to be added the goads of revenge. 
 Jacobinism for her and her friends soon came to mean the 
 devil. And with this year, too, opened also Lady Hamilton's 
 intimacy with the Queen, her awakening of her listless 
 husband, and her keen endeavours on behalf of the British 
 navy. 
 
 The worst hysteria is that of a woman who is able to con- 
 ceal it. Such was now the Queen's. The overture to this 
 drama of 1793 was her formal dismissal of Citizen Mackau,^ 
 for a few months past the unwelcome Jacobin representa- 
 tive of France at the Neapolitan court ; at the same time, 
 the Queen's influence procured the dismissal of yet another 
 'citizen' ambassador at Constantinople.^ Tr^ville's fleet 
 promptly appeared to enforce reparation. His largest 
 vessel dropped anchor in face of Castel Del Uovo, and the 
 rest formed in line of battle behind it. A council was 
 called. The Anglo-Sicilian treaty was yet in abeyance, 
 and with shame and rage Maria Carolina had to submit, 
 and receive the minister back again. But this was not all. 
 No sooner had Tr^ville departed than a convenient storm 
 shattered his fleet, and he returned to refit. His sailors 
 
 ' On his departure he took with him the family of Basseville his secretary, 
 who had been murdered under the eyes of the Supreme Pontiff at Rome. Cf. 
 Dumas' / Borboni. After Mackau returned, he was replaced for a time by 
 the Comte de Michelle, he again by La Ch&e, and he, in his turn, by Garat. 
 Emma in her 'Prince of Wales' memorial of 1813 confuses Michelle with 
 Garat. 
 
 " S^mouville. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING i53 
 
 hobnobbed with the secret societies, and a definite re- 
 volution began. France had hoped for attack ; open 
 war being refused, she renewed her designs by stealth. 
 The Queen, incensed beyond measure, redoubled her 
 suspicions and her precautions. To the secret tribunal 
 she added a closed 'Junta,' and the grim work of de- 
 portation and proscription set in. All Naples, except 
 the Lazzaroni, rose. Despite the Neapolitan neutrality, 
 Maria now organised a second coalition against France, 
 which was at first successful,^ The French, too, were 
 beaten off Sardinia. In August she renewed her desperate 
 attempts to save her sister;* the jailor's wife was inter- 
 viewed. Archduchess Christine contrived to send the 
 Marquis Burlot and Rosalia D'Albert with carte blanche on 
 a mission of rescue. It was too late : they were arrested. 
 But Toulon was betrayed by Trogoff to Hood, who took 
 possession of it for Louis xvii. 
 
 Meanwhile, repression reigned at Naples. Every French 
 servant was banished ; some of the English visitors, among 
 them Mr. Hodges, the present and future pesterer of Emma 
 by his attentions, were implicated.* The Queen, mistrust- 
 ful of the crew who had played her false, turned to Emma 
 in her misfortunes, for Lady Hamilton was now quite as 
 familiar with the royalties as her husband.* One of the 
 Neapolitan duchesses long afterwards insinuated to the 
 Marchioness of Solari that Emma's paramount influence 
 was due to spying on them and the libertine King.^ This 
 may at first have been so (though envy supplies a likelier 
 reason), but the real cause lies deeper. The Queen's corre- 
 spondence commences in the winter of 1793, and it is quite 
 clear that its mainspring was sympathy. 
 
 ' At Magonza. 
 
 * She wrote to poor young Tonlan, ' Aina poco chi teme dimorire.' 
 
 ' Lord Hervey's and the Prince of Wales's friend. Cf. Eg. MS. 2639, ff. 97 
 and 123. 
 
 * Cf. Morrison MS. 220, March 12, 1793. Hamilton to Greville. 
 
 " Abominable and unfounded rumours, both of her and the Queen, passed 
 current among the French Jacobins, who fastened the same filth with as little 
 foundation on Marie Antoinette. Emma told Greville how she despised and 
 ignored the lying scandals of Paris which Napoleon afterwards favoured ftom 
 policy. He used to call Maria Carolina ' Fr^degonde,' in allusion to the cruel 
 mistress of King Chilperic I. 
 
154 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ' Par le sort de la naissance 
 
 L'un est roi, I'autre est berger. 
 Le hasard fit leur distance ; 
 L'esprit seul peut tout changer.' ' 
 
 The constraint of a traitorous and artificial court left the 
 Queen without a confidante, and she welcomed a child of 
 nature whom she fancied she could mould at will. The 
 more her pent-up hatred fastened on her courtiers, the more 
 she spited them by petting her new favourite. The friend- 
 ship of queens with the lowly appeals to vanity as well as 
 to devotion. It proved so with both Sarah Jennings and 
 even more with the humbler Abigail Masham. In still 
 greater degree did it now so prove with Emma. It was 
 not long before she rode out regularly on a horse from the 
 royal stables, attended by a royal equerry, and enjoying 
 semi-royal privileges. Maria's haughty ladies-in-waiting, 
 the Marchionesses of San Marco and of San Clemente, can 
 scarcely have been pleased. Jealousy must have abounded, 
 but it found no outlet for her downfall. That the Neapolitan 
 nobility, at any rate, believed in her real services to England, 
 is shown by the rumour among them that she was Pitt's 
 informer. Henceforward dates the growth of an English 
 party and an Anglo-mania at the Neapolitan court which 
 was violently opposed alike by the pro-Spanish, the pro- 
 Jacobin, and the ' down-with-the-foreigner ' parties. Emma, 
 however, stood as yet only on the threshold of her political 
 influence. 
 
 In the June of that year, ' for political reasons,' Lady 
 Hamilton informs Greville, ' we have lived eight months at 
 Caserta,' formerly only their winter abode, but now the 
 Queen's regular residence during the hot months. 'Our 
 house has been like an inn this winter.' (Sir William 
 naturally sighed over the expense.) '. . . We had the 
 Duchess of Ancaster several days. It is but 3 days since 
 the Devonshire family has left; and we had fifty in our 
 family for four days at Caserta. 'Tis true we dined every 
 
 ' It may thus be paraphrased : — 
 
 ' Random lot of birth can start 
 
 Peasant one, another Queen. 
 Chance has placed them far apart ; 
 Mother-wit can change the scene.' 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 155 
 
 day at court, or at some casino of the King ; for you cannot 
 imnu^ne how good our King and Queen as been to the 
 principal English who have been here — particularly to Lord 
 and Lady Palmerston, Cholmondely, Devonshire, Lady 
 Spencer, I^dy Bessborough, Lad\- Plymouth, Sir George 
 and Lady Webster. And 1 have carried the ladies to the 
 Queen very often, as she as permitted me to go very 
 often in private, which I do. ... In the evenings I go to 
 her, and we are tc'te-^-UU 2 or 3 hours. Sometimes we 
 sing. Yesterday the King and me sang duetts 3 hours. It 
 was but bad. . . . To-day the Princess Royal of Sweden 
 comes to court to take leave of their Majesties. Sir William 
 and me are invited to dinner with her. She is an amiable 
 princess, and as lived verj- much with us. The other 
 ministers' \vi\-es have not shewed her the least attention 
 because she did not pay them the first visit, as she travels 
 under the name of the Countess of Wasa. . . . Her Majesty 
 told me I had done very well in waiting on Her Royal 
 Highness the moment she arrived. However, the ministers' 
 wives are ven,' fond of me, as the[y] see I have no pre- 
 tentions ; nor do I abuse of Her Majesty's goodness, and 
 she observed the other night at court at Naples [when] 
 we had a drawing-room in honner of the Empress having 
 brought a son. I had been with the Queen the night before 
 alone en famiUe laughing and singing, etc etc, but at the 
 drawing-room I kept my distance, and payd the Queen as 
 much respect as tho' I had never seen her before, which 
 pleased her verj' much. But she shewed me great dis- 
 tinction that night, and told me several times how she 
 admired my good conduct. I onely tell you this to shew 
 and convince you I shall never change, but allvcays be 
 simple and natural. You may imms^ne how happy my 
 dear, dear Sir \Mlliam is. . . . We live more like lovers 
 than husband and wife, as husbands and wives go nowa- 
 days. Lord deliver me ! and the English are as bad as the 
 Italians, some few excepted. 
 
 •I study very hard, . . . and I have had all my songs 
 set for the viola, so that Sir William may accompany me, 
 which as pleased him very much, so that we study 
 together. The English garden is going on very fast The 
 
156 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 King and Queen go there every day. Sir William and me 
 are there every morning at seven a clock, sometimes dine 
 there and allways drink tea there. In short it is Sir 
 William's favourite child, and booth him and me are now 
 studying botany, but not to make ourselves pedantical 
 prigs and shew our learning like some of our travelling 
 neighbours, but for our own pleasure. Greffer ^ is as happy 
 as a prince. Poor Flint, the messenger, was killed going 
 from hence. I am very sorry. He was lodged in our house 
 and I had a great love for him. I sent him to see Pompea, 
 Portici, and all our delightful environs, and sent all his 
 daughters presents. Poor man, the Queen as expressed 
 great sorrow. Pray let me know if his family are provided 
 for as I may get something for them perhaps. . . . Pray 
 don't fail to send the inclosed.' ^ 
 
 But more than such surface-life was now animating 
 Emma. A peasant's daughter, at length in the ascendant 
 over an Emperor's, was receiving, communicating, intensify- 
 ing wider impressions. When her Queen denounced, she 
 abominated the Jacobins ; her tears were mingled with 
 Maria's over the family catastrophes. She preached up to 
 her the English as the avengers of her wrongs. She rejoiced 
 with her over the Anglo-Sicilian alliance concluded in 
 July. She longed for some deliverer who might justify 
 her flights of eloquence. 
 
 England had at last joined the allies and thrown down the 
 gauntlet in earnest. The loth* of September 1793 brought 
 Nelson's first entry both into Naples and into the Am- 
 bassador's house. 
 
 He had been despatched by Lord Hood on a special 
 mission to procure ten thousand troops from Turin and 
 Naples after that wonderful surrender* of starved-out 
 
 ' Grafer — a trusted agent of Hamilton's, He afterwards became the manager 
 of Nelson's Bronte estates. His wife was a scheming woman who, in later 
 years, gave much trouble both to Nelson and Lady Hamilton. 
 
 ^ Probably relating to ' little Emma.' Morrison MS. 221 ; Caserta, June 2, 
 
 1793- 
 
 " This is the date of arrival usually given, but a letter from Acton respecting 
 salutes of ceremony, dated September 4, seems to point to that of a few days 
 earlier. Cf. Eg. MS. 2639, f. 74. 
 
 * August 22. 
 
Lord Nelson. 
 
 From an engraved vtedallion after a bust by Flaxjiian. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 157 
 
 Toulon : — ' The strongest in Europe, and twenty-two sail 
 of the line . . . without firing a shot. ' ^ 
 
 The previous year had called forth two ruling strains in 
 his nature: the one of irritable embitterment at his un- 
 recognised solicitations for a command ; the other of 
 patriotic exultation when Chatham ^ and Hood suddenly 
 'smiled' upon him, thanks, it would seem, to the impor- 
 tunity of his early adnfirer and lifelong friend, the Duke of 
 Clarence. For five years he had been eating out his heart 
 on half-pay in a Norfolk village ; and even when the long- 
 delayed command had come, crass officialism assigned him 
 a sixty-four gunner and the fate of drifting aimlessly off 
 Guernsey with no enemy in sight. If proof be wanted of 
 Nelson's inherent idealism, it is found in the fact that in 
 these long days of stillness and obscurity he was brooding 
 over the future of his country, and devising the means of 
 combating unarisen combinations against her. 
 
 He was now almost thirty-five, and had been married six 
 years and a half;* his wife was five years younger than himself 
 
 From his earliest years, at once restrained and suscep- 
 tible, companionable and lonely, athirst for glory rather than 
 for fame, simple as a child yet brave as a lion, he had ex- 
 perienced at intervals several passionate friendships for 
 women.* As a stripling in Canada he conceived so vehement 
 an affection for Miss Molly Simpson^ that he was with diffi- 
 culty restrained from leaving the service. After a short 
 interval, Miss Andrews in France had rekindled the flame. 
 His intensest feeling in the Leeward Islands had been 
 for Mrs. Moutray, his ' dear, sweet friend.' His engagement 
 to her associate, Frances Nisbet, had been sudden — some 
 
 ^ Nelson to his wife, nth September (the day after his arrival at Naples). 
 Laughton's Letters and Despatches, p. 5 1 . The French always persisted in assert- 
 ing the capitulation to have been caused by TrogofPs treachery. Cf. Dumas. 
 
 2 Second earl. First Lord of Admiralty, 1788. 
 
 ' A copy of their marriage certificate is in the British Museum. Add. MS. 
 28,333, f. I. 
 
 * Cf. his letter announcing his engagement to his uncle. Sir William Suckling: 
 'You . . . will perhaps smile and say " This Horatio is ever in love."' 
 
 ' Mary Simpson was a famous beauty at Quebec in 1782, when Nelson com- 
 manded the sloop Albemarle. She was the daughter of Sandy Simpson, one of 
 Wolfe's provost marshals, and eventually married Colonel Matthews, Governor 
 of Chelsea Hospital. For the whole episode, cf. J. M. Le Moine's General Sir F. 
 Haldeinand (iSs8), Maple Leaves (2 vols., 1863), and Picturesque Quebec {18S2). 
 
158 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 suspected from pique. The young widow of the Nevis 
 doctor attracted him less by her heart than what he called 
 her ' mental accomplishments, . . . superior to most people's 
 of either sex.' These were, in truth, of a second-rate board- 
 ing-school order. Nelson's unskilled, uncritical mind and 
 his frank generosity always exaggerated such qualities in 
 women, and not least in Emma, more self-taught than him- 
 self. His wife's virtues were sterling, but her power of 
 appreciation very limited. She was more dutiful than 
 gentle, less loving than jealous ; her self-complacent cold- 
 ness was absolutely unfitted to understand or hearten or 
 companion genius. She entirely lacked intuition. Her 
 outlook was cramped — that of the plain common-sense 
 and unimaginative prejudice which so often distinguishes 
 her class. She was a nagger, and she nagged her son. 
 She was quite satisfied with her little shell and, ailing 
 as she was, perpetually grumbled at everything outside 
 it. But directly success attended her husband, she at 
 once gave herself those social airs for which that class 
 is also distinguished when it rises. She became ridicu- 
 lously pretentious.^ It was this feature that disgusted 
 Nelson's sisters in later years, as appears from many letters 
 in the Morrison Collection. Some disillusionment succeeded 
 as time familiarised him with the lady of his impulsive 
 choice. She nursed him dutifully in 1797 ; but, for her, 
 duties were tasks. At Bath, a short time before his eventful 
 voyage of 1798, he was to express his delight at the charms 
 of the reigning toasts ; but in steeling himself against 
 temptation, he got no further than the avowal of having 
 ' everything that was valuable in a wife.' 
 
 There are two sorts of genius, or supreme will : the cold 
 and the warm. The one commands its material from sheer 
 fibre of inflexible character and hard intellect; ; the other 
 creates and enkindles its fuel by idealism. The former in 
 England is signally illustrated in differing spheres by Wal- 
 
 1 Even to the close of Nelson's life. On October 18, 1805, Mrs. Bolton tells 
 Lady Hamilton from Bath, 'I saw Tom Tit [Lady N.'s sobriquet] yester- 
 day in her carriage at the next door come to take Lady Charlotte Drummond 
 out with her. . . . Had I seen only her hands spreading about, I should have 
 known her.' — Morrison MS. 846. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING l59 
 
 pole and Wellington ; the latter by Chatham and Nelson. 
 Both of these shared that keen faculty of vision, really, if 
 we reflect, a form of spiritual force, and allied to faith 
 which, in volume, whether for individuals or nations, is 
 irresistible. This sword of the spirit is far more powerful 
 than ethical force without it ; still more so than merely 
 conventional morality, which, indeed, for good or for ill, 
 and in many partings of the ways, it has often by turns 
 made or marred. Both, too, were histrionic — a word fre- 
 quently misused. The world is a stage, and of all nature 
 there is a scenic aspect. The dramatic should never be 
 confused with the theatrical, nor attitude with affectation. 
 And the visionary with a purpose is always dramatic. He 
 lives on dreams of forecast, and his forecast visualises com- 
 binations, scenes of development, characters, climax. When 
 he is nothing but a lonely muser, or, again, an orator 
 destined to bring other hands to execute his ideas, his 
 audience is the future — the ' choir invisible.' But when he 
 himself acts the chief part in the dramas which he has 
 composed, he needs the audience that he creates and holds. 
 He depends on a sympathy that can interpret his best 
 possibilities to himself. 
 
 In Nelson's soul resided from boyhood the central idea 
 of England's greatness. His intuitive force, his genius, 
 incarnated that idea, and what Chatham dreamed and 
 voiced, Nelson did. He realised situations in a flash, and, 
 from first to last, his courage took the risk not only of 
 action, but of prophecy.* Indeed, his own motto may be said 
 
 ' A signal instance, recorded in the diary of Scott, his chaplain, has been 
 privately communicated to the writer. It occurred in 1805 when Nelson was 
 chasing the French fleet to the West Indies. 'May 6. — Arrived in the harbour 
 of Gibraltar; but because the wind has just come from the east we have sailed 
 away. The fleet had been for so long a time baffled by contrary winds . . . that 
 the favourable change . . . was quite unexpected by them. So much so, that 
 oiflcers and men had gone on shore, and the linen was landed to be washed. 
 Lord Nelson, however, . ■ . perceived an indication of a probable change of 
 wind. Off went a gun from the Victory, and up went the Blue Peter, whilst the 
 Admiral paced the deck in a hurry, with anxious steps, and impatient of a 
 moment's delay. The officers said, " Here is one of Nelson's mad pranks." But 
 Nelson was nevertheless right. . . . This course Nelson pursued solely on his 
 own responsibility. He said to me, "... To be burnt in effigy, or Westminster 
 Abbey, is my alternative." ' 
 
i6o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to have been that fine phrase of the other which he quoted 
 to Lady Hamilton in the first letter which counselled the 
 flight of the royal family in 1798 — ' The Boldest measures are 
 the Safest.''^ George Meredith's badge of true patriotism 
 fits Nelson beyond all men : ' To him the honour of England 
 was as a babe in his arms ; he hugged it like a mother.' ^ 
 
 Nelson, again, was eminently spontaneous. There was 
 nothing set or petty about him. He never posed as ' Sir 
 Oracle.' He dared to disobey the formalists. He despised 
 and offended insignificance in high places ; the prigs and 
 pedants, the big-wigs of Downing Street, the small and 
 self-important purveyors of dead letter, the jealous Tritons 
 of minnow-like cliques. Above all, he abhorred from the 
 bottom of his honest heart the ' candid friend ' — ' willing to 
 wound and yet afraid to strike ' ; but he honoured— to 
 return from Pope's line to Canning's — ' the erect, the manly 
 foe.' Clerical by association, the son of a most pious, the 
 brother of a most worldly clergyman, his bent was genuinely 
 religious, as all his letters with their trust in God and their 
 sincere ' amens ' abundantly testify. To clergymen he still 
 remains ' the great but erring Nelson.' But his God was the 
 God of truth, and justice, and battles — the tutelary God that 
 watches over England; and he himself owns emphatically 
 in one of his letters that he could never turn his cheek to 
 the smiter. He liked to consecrate his ambitions, but am- 
 bition, even in childhood, had been his impulse. ' Nelson 
 will always be first ' had been ever a ruling motive. 
 
 And, man of iron as he was in action, out of it he was 
 unconstrained and sportive.* He loved to let himself go ; 
 he delighted in fun and playful sallies. He formed a band 
 
 ' Add. MS. 34,989, f. 12 (one of our newly found letters): 'And may the 
 words of the great Mr. Pitt, Earl of Chatham, be instilled into the Ministry of 
 this country, " The Boldest measures are the Safest." ' Oct. 3, 1798. 
 
 * Rhoda Fleming. 
 
 ' It may not be out of place to subjoin here the character of Nelson given in 
 a letter to Lady Hamilton, of July 1803, by John Scott, his secretary, and then 
 with him off Toulon in the Amphion : ' In my travels through the service 
 I have met with no character in any degree equal to his Lordship. His pene- 
 tration is quick, judgment clear, wisdom great, and his decisions correct and 
 decided ; nor does he in company appear to have any weight on his mind, so 
 cheerful and pleasant that it is a happiness to be about his hand. In fact, he is 
 a great and wonderful character.' — Morrison MS. 720. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING i6i 
 
 of firm believers, and Jie believed in them with enthusiasm 
 — an enthusiasm which accentuated his bitterness whenever 
 it was damped or disappointed. A daredevil himself, he 
 loved daredevilry in others. In Emma as he idealised her, 
 he hailed a nature that could respond, encourage, brace, and 
 even inspire, for she was to be transfigured into the creature 
 of his own imaginings. She was his Egeria. It was a 
 double play of enthusiastic zeal and idealisation. She fired 
 him to achieve more than ever she could have imagined. 
 He stirred her to appear worthier in his eyes. She wreathed 
 him with laurel ; he crowned her image with myrtle. Many 
 to whom the fact is repugnant refuse to see that this 
 idealised image of Emma in Nelson's eyes, however often 
 and lamentably she fell short of it, was an influence as real 
 and potent as if she had been its counterpart. Her nearest 
 approach to it may be viewed in her letters of 1798. 
 
 It is idle to brand her as destitute of any moral standard ; 
 her inward standards were no lower than those of the 
 veneered ' respectables ' around her. Her outward conduct, 
 as Sir William's partner, had been above suspicion ; the sin 
 of her girlhood had been long buried. And in many 
 respects her fibre was stronger than that of a society which 
 broadened its hypocrisies some thirty years later, when 
 Byron sang 
 
 ' You are not a moral people, and you know it, 
 Without the aid of too sincere a poet.' 
 
 The radical defect in her grain was rather the complete 
 lack of anything like spiritual aspiration. Hers, too, were 
 the vanity that springs from pride, and the want of dignity 
 bred of lawlessness. She had been a wild flower treated as 
 a weed, and then transplanted to a hothouse ; she was a 
 spoiled child without being in the least childlike ; she was 
 self-conscious to the core. But if she was ambitious for 
 herself, she was fully as ambitious for those that she loved, 
 and she admired all who admired them. 
 
 It is idle to dwell on the ' vulgarity ' of an adventuress 
 Adventure was the breath of Nelson's nostrils, and Emma's 
 unrefined clay was animated by a spirit of reality which he 
 loved. It is idle, again, to talk of his ' infatuation,' for that 
 
 L 
 
i62 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON , 
 
 word covers every deep and lasting passion in idealising 
 natures. It is equally idle, as will be seen when we come 
 to proofs, to say that Nelson was a ' dupe ' in any portion of 
 his claims for her 'services' which lay within his own 
 experience.^ With regard to these he was absolutely aware 
 of what had actually transpired, and if it had not transpired 
 he himself was a liar, which none have had the temerity to 
 assert. The only sense in which Nelson could ever be styled 
 the ' dupe ' of Emma would be that he was utterly cheated 
 in his estimate of her. If she merely practised upon his 
 simplicity, if there was nothing genuine about her, and all 
 her effusiveness was a tinsel mask of hideous dissimulation ; 
 if she was a tissue of craft and cunning, then she was the 
 worst of women, and he the most unfortunate of men. 
 Wholly artless she was not ; designedly artful, she never 
 was. She was an unconscious blend of Art and Nature. 
 In all her letters she is always the same receptive creature 
 of sincere volitions and attitudes; and these letters, when 
 they describe actions, are most strikingly confirmed by inde- 
 pendent accounts. They are genuine. Her spirit went out 
 to his magnetically ; each was to hypnotise the other. Had 
 she ever been artful she would have feathered her nest. 
 Throughout her career it was never common wealth or 
 prodigal youth that attracted her, and in her greatest 
 dependence she had never been a parasite. It was talent 
 and kindness that she prized, and towards genius she 
 gravitated. It is not from the bias either of praise or 
 blame that her character must be judged. It is as a 
 human document that she should be read. The real harm 
 in the future to be worked by her on Nelson was that of 
 the falsehood, repugnant to them both, which, eight years 
 later, the birth of Horatia entailed — an evil aggravated 
 by reaction in the nature of a puritan turned cavalier, 
 and anxious to twist the irregularities of a ' Nell Gwynne 
 defender-of-the-faith ' into consonance with the forms of his 
 upbringing. 
 
 At Naples, Nelson and his men found a royal welcome in 
 every sense of the word. The King sailed out to greet 
 
 ' With regard to all of them his solemn affirmation in his last codicil is that 
 they had happened to his ' knowledge.' 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 163 
 
 him,^ called on and invited him thrice within four days.^ 
 He was hailed as the ' Saviour of Italy,' and while he was 
 f^ted, his crew, who from the home Government had ob- 
 tained nothing but ' honour and salt beef,' ^ were provisioned 
 and petted. A gala at San Carlo was given in their 
 honour ; six thousand troops were offered without hesita- 
 tion ; a squadron was despatched. The atmosphere of 
 despairing indecision was dispersed by his unresting alert- 
 ness, his lightning insight, his faith in Great Britain and 
 himself, and the heroic glow with which he invested duty. 
 
 The phlegmatic Acton was impressed. His only fear was 
 lest England's co-operation with Naples should provoke 
 the interference of the allies, and be impeded by it.* He 
 superintended all the arrangements, for he was eminently a 
 man of detail; he brought Captain Sutton^ (who stayed 
 throughout the autumn) to see the King.* Nelson he 
 mis-styled 'Admiral,' and there for the moment his 
 respect ended. But the hospitable Hamilton, under the 
 sway of Emma's enthusiasm, was enraptured. He brought 
 him to lodge at the Embassy in the room just prepared for 
 Prince Augustus, who was returning from Rome. He 
 caught a spark of the young Captain's own electricity, he 
 mentioned him in despatches, and conceived friendship at 
 first sight. Here was a real man at last, a central and 
 centralising genius. His wife shared and redoubled his 
 astonishment. Here was a being who, like herself, ' loved 
 to surprise people.' Here was one who, indefatigable in 
 detail, and almost sleepless ^ in energy, took large views, 
 was a statesman as well as a sailor, and showed the quali- 
 ties of a general besides ; one, too, who although a stern 
 disciplinarian, could romp and sing with his midshipmen, 
 
 ' Dumas' Storia de' Borboni, p. 149. 
 
 ' On September 24 he tells his brother William that he 'was placed at 
 Ferdinand's right hand before our Ambassador and all the Nobles present.' 
 
 5 Letter to Mrs. Nelson, Sept. 7, 1793 (cited Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 40) : ' My 
 poor fellows have not had a morsel of fresh meat or vegetables for near nineteen 
 weeks, and in that time I have only had my foot twice on shore at Cadiz. ' 
 
 * Eg. MS. 2639, f. 74. He resented Lord Mulgrave's proposal of concert- 
 ing plans. 
 " Of the Ramilies. Cf. Morrison MS. 227 ; Eg. MS. 2639, f. iii, 
 
 6 Eg. MS. 2639, ff. 83, 87, 91. 
 
 ' He seldom slept more than four or five hours. 
 
i64 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 one who made their health and his country's glory his chief 
 concern. Moreover, his appearance, small, slight, wiry in 
 frame, and rugged of exterior, was nevertheless prepossess- 
 ing and imposing. When he spoke, his face lit up with 
 his soul ; nor had he yet lost an eye and an arm. And his 
 contempt for Jacks-in-office, which seldom failed to show 
 itself, chimed with her own — with that of a plebeian who 
 in after years constantly used that Irish phrase, adopted by 
 Nelson, ' I would not give sixpence to call the King my 
 uncle.' Here was one who might rescue her Queen and 
 shed lustre on Britain ; who might prove the giant-killer 
 of the Jacotin ogres. 
 
 What Emma thought of her guest may be gathered from 
 two facts, one of which is new. Though they were not to 
 meet again until 1798,^ Nelson and both the Hamiltons 
 were in constant and most sympathetic correspondence for 
 the next five years. In 1796 Sir William recommended 
 him to the Government as 'that brave officer, Captain 
 Nelson ' ; ' if you don't deserve the epithet,' he told him, ' I 
 know not who does. . . , Lady Hamilton and I admire 
 your constancy, and hope the severe service you have 
 undergone will be handsomely rewarded.' ^ And her first 
 letter of our new series in 1798, written hurriedly on June 
 17th while Nelson, anchored off Capri, remained on the 
 Vanguard, contains this sentence : ' I will not say how 
 glad I shall be to see you. Indeed I cannot describe to 
 you my feelings on your being so near us.'* A woman 
 could not so express herself to a man unseen for five years 
 unless the twelve days or so spent in his company had pro-r 
 duced a deep effect. Every concern of his already enlisted, 
 her eagerness. His stepson, Josiah, then a young midship- 
 man, was driven about by her and caressed. She laughingly 
 called him her cavali^re servente. As yet it was only 
 attraction, not love for Nelson. This very third anniversary 
 of her wedding day had enabled her proudly to record that 
 her husband and she were more inseparable than ever, and 
 
 ^ The received version, of course, gives their second encounter as after the 
 battle of the Nile. But there is strong reason for thinking, as will be seen, that 
 they met on the 17th of June in that year. 
 
 » Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 188. « Add. MS. 34,989, f. i. 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 165 
 
 that he had never for one moment regretted the step of 
 their union. But She did fall in love with the quickening 
 force that Nelson represented. Infused by the ardour of 
 her Queen, proud of the destiny of England as European 
 deliverer, urged by her native ambition to shine on a bigger 
 scale, she reflected every hue of the crisis and its leaders. 
 If his hour struck, hers might strike also. He, she, and 
 Sir William had for this short span already realised what 
 the legend round Sir William's Order of the Bath signified.^ 
 ' Tria juncta in uno' — three persons linked together by one 
 tie of differing affections. 
 
 The sole mentions of Emma by Nelson at this time are in 
 a letter to his brother, and another to his wife, already 
 noticed.^ But that her influence had already begun to work 
 is proved by the fact that he carefully preserved the whole 
 series of her letters of the summer and autumn of 1798, 
 which find their place in the Appendix to this volume. Three 
 days only after he had started for Leghorn, he wrote as 
 follows : ' In my hurry of sailing I find I have brought 
 away a butter-pan. Don't call me an ungrateful guest for 
 it, for I assure you I have the highest sense of your and 
 Lady Hamilton's kindness, and shall rejoice in the oppor- 
 tunity of returning it. . . . The sending off the prints adds 
 to the kindness I have already received from you and 
 Lady Hamilton.'^ And when at the close of August in the 
 next year he stayed at Leghorn once more, he assured 
 Sir William how glad he would have been to have visited 
 them again, ' had the state of the Agamemnon permitted it,' 
 but ' her ship's crew are so totally worn out, that we were 
 glad to put into the first port, . . . therefore for the present 
 I am deprived of that pleasure.' * 
 
 When Nelson was not dining at court or concerting 
 operations with the Ministers, he was at the Embassy 
 or Caserta, meeting the English visitors, who included 
 the delicate Charles Beauclerk, whom the artistic Lady 
 
 ' She uses the phrase already in our correspondence of September 1798. 
 
 ' 'Lady Hamilton has been wonderfully good and kind to Josiah. She is a 
 young woman of amiable manners, and who does honour to the station to which 
 she is raised.' — Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 42. 
 
 'Morrison MS. 226, Sept. 24, 1793. 
 
 « Ibid. 24s, Aug. 31, 1794. 
 
166 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Diana had commended to Emma's charge.' All was Joy, 
 excitement, preparation. * I believe,' wrote Nelson, ' that 
 the world is now convinced that no conquests of importance 
 can be made without us.'* Nelson had aroused Naples 
 from a long siesta, and henceforward Emma sings 'God 
 save the King ' and calls for ' Hip, hip, hurrah I ' which she 
 teaches the Queen, at every Neapolitan banquet. Naples 
 is no more a hunting-ground for health or pleasure, but a 
 focus of deliverance. It is as though in our own days the 
 Riviera should suddenly wake up as a centre of patriotism 
 and a rallying-ground for action. Within a few years 
 Maria Carolina could write to Emma that she sighed for 
 the ' brave, loyal, Nelson ' and his party of ' magnanimous ' 
 English, whom she loves and for whose glory she hat) vowed 
 to act.^ She is ever dilating on 'your great and heroic 
 nation.' As for Nelson, she 'cherishes and admires him 
 with the truest attachment.' 
 
 On September 24th Nelson purposed a slight mark of 
 gratitude for the hospitality and the substantial reinforce- 
 ments so liberally proffered. The Agamemnon was all flowers 
 and festivity. He had invited the King, the Queen, the 
 Hamiltons, Acton, and the M inisters to luncheon. The guests 
 were awaiting the arrival of the court under a cloudless sky 
 amid the flutter of gay bunting and all the careless chatter 
 of southern mirth. Suddenly a despatch was handed to the 
 captain. He was summoned to weigh anchor and pursue 
 a French man-of-war with three vessels stationed off Sar- 
 dinia. Not an instant was lost. The guests dispersed in 
 excitement. When I^erdinand arrived in his barge, it was 
 to find the company vanished, the decks cleared, and the 
 captain buried in work. Within two hours Nelson had set 
 sail for Leghorn,* which he had immediately to quit for 
 Toulon, Calvi and its further triumph awaited him after- 
 wards, 
 
 ' Morrbon MS. 223, Jttly 20, 1793. With the meimige that ' if it 1« pm'Me dlie 
 iihouM feci th« Icaitt »j<a.rl! r/f gratitude Uir ((xj admiration of »tich a poor animal 
 a» I am, »he can fully repay me \iy joining yon in the protection of my don,' 
 
 ^ Laugfaton'f Dei^atckei, p. 43, &ei^, 11, 1792, 
 
 * Eg. MS, 1615, (. 83, Deccmi/er 1796, 
 
 * Cf. Jeaffreton, Qmm of Naphi, vol, i, p< aa5 ^ Laughton'* Dtipalehti, 
 
 p. 52, 
 
TILL THE FIRST MEETING 167 
 
 But over the bright horizon was fast gathering a cloud 
 no bigger than a man's hand. By the end of the year the 
 Queen was again in the depths. Her sister had been 
 executed with infamy. Buonaparte — whom Nelson heard 
 described at Leghorn as an 'ugly, unshaven little ofificer' — 
 had shot into pre-eminence and had worked his wonders ; 
 Toulon was evacuated. At home fresh conspiracies were 
 discovered, this time among the nobles. The best names 
 were implicated. The Dukes of Canzano, Colonna, and 
 Cassano, the Counts of Ruvo and Riario, Prince Carac- 
 ciolo the elder were arrested. The whole political land- 
 scape was overcast. Next year was to be one of ' public 
 mourning and prayer,' of plague, famine, and pestilence. 
 The ragged remnant of the squadron, forwarded with such 
 royal elation to Toulon, returned in shame for shelter ; and 
 with it the ship of Trogoff, whom the French had branded 
 as traitor. Two hundred victims had been slaughtered, four 
 hundred languished in French prisons. These fresh 
 disasters were heightened and shadowed by the terrible 
 earthquake of June 12-16, when the sun was blotted out ; 
 and while the Archbishop, grasping the gilt image of St. 
 Januarius, groped his way in solemn procession to the 
 cathedral, the darkened sky bombarded the interceding 
 city with emblematic bolts of relentless artillery.^ 
 
 ' Dumas' / Borboni di NapoH. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ' STATESWOMAN ' 
 
 1794-1797 
 
 ' STATESWOMAN ' is Swift's term for Stella. It fits better 
 the Trilby of the political studio. The muse as medium 
 was already being transferred from attitude to affairs. 
 
 Since Nelson's brief sojourn and its keen impress, 
 the Queen, under growing troubles, leaned more and 
 more on the English. The King's pro-Spanish faction was 
 now defied ; even the pro- Austrian group lost ground and 
 flagged. Acton, save for a brief interval, remained her 
 right hand — hie, haec, et hoc et omnia, as they now styled 
 him. The Hamiltons' enthusiasm for the budding hero 
 had communicated itself through Emma to her royal 
 friend, who had hitherto cared little even for the English 
 language. Maria Carolina clung more closely to a con- 
 soler not only responsive and diverting, but unversed 
 enough in courts to be flattered by the intimacy and free 
 in it. They were constantly together ; by 1795 so often as 
 every other day.^ It was 'naturalness' and 'sensibility' 
 once more that prevailed. Doubtless, policy entered also 
 into her motives. Notes to Emma would pass unsuspected 
 where notes to Sir William might be watched. Verbal 
 confidences to a frequenter of the palace would never 
 excite the curiosity which Sir William's formal presence 
 must arouse. But the bond of policy was mutual. 
 Hamilton encouraged his wife to glean secret informa- 
 tion for the British Government. What the Queen did not 
 at first realise, though afterwards she recognised it to the 
 full, was Lady Hamilton's ' native energy of mind ' which 
 
 ' Add. MS. 34,710 D. Hamilton to Greville ; Caseita, Nov. 17, 1795. 
 16S 
 
..yC'y,/, 
 
 
 ■y^,:„ 
 
 
 "/'■' 
 
 ://,„y»y. 
 
' STATESWOMAN ' 169 
 
 Hayley, comforting her after Nelson's death, recalled as 
 one of her earliest characteristics ; ^ and for the work of life, 
 as has been truly said, inborn vigour is apter than culti- 
 vated refinement. . 
 
 Emma now definitely emerges as patriot and politician. 
 Did she aspire thus early to help her country ? The field 
 of controversy begins to open, and controversy is always 
 irksome. It is necessary, however, at this juncture, to con- 
 sider this first of Emma's ' claims ' in its context. 
 
 In her latest memorial for the recognition of her 'services' 
 — her petition to the Prince Regent of 1813^ — she claimed 
 to have responded to the then Sir John Jervis's appeals for 
 help while employed upon the reduction of Corsica. In 
 this statement, which is one of several, she makes some 
 confusion between two names influential in. two successive 
 years. If such lapses as these stood alone, without sub- 
 stantial evidence beneath them, her censors might have been 
 fairly justified in pressing them to the utmost. But since 
 (as will be shown) there is strong corroboration of the 
 substance of her services in 1796, considerable proof of her 
 main service in 1798, with abundant new and historical 
 evidence for her truthfulness in the account of the part 
 played by her in the royal escape just before Christmas 
 of the same year — they amount to little more than the 
 material inaccuracies which recur in several of her recitals. 
 Her critics, in fixing on the memorial to the Prince Regent 
 — framed in her declining years and her extremest need — 
 have consistently ignored her other applications for relief, 
 and especially that to King George III. in which she does 
 not specify this claim at all, but only implies it under 
 ' many inferior services.' 
 
 In her ' Prince Regent ' memorial she urges that ' In the 
 year 1793, when Lord Hood had taken possession of 
 Toulon, and Sir John Jervis was employ'd upon the reduc- 
 tion of Corsica, the latter kept writing to me for everything 
 he wanted which I procured to be promptly provided him ; 
 
 ' Cf. the letter transcribed by Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 557. 
 
 ' For the draft of this cf. Morrison MS. 1046. This claim is omitted in the 
 draft of her memorial to the King in the same year. It only contains her two 
 chief claims. Ibid. 1045. 
 
170 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 and, as his letters to me prove, had considerably facilitated 
 the reduction of that island. I had by this time induced 
 the King through my influence with the Queen to become 
 so zealous in the good cause, that both would often say I 
 had de-Bourboniz'd them and made them English.' 
 
 In the same ' memorial ' she mentions a side-circumstance 
 which can now be fully substantiated. She there asserts 
 that Sir William in his ' latter moments, in deputing Mr. 
 Greville to deliver the Order of the Bath to the King, 
 desired that he would tell His Majesty that he died in the 
 confident hope that his pension would be continued to me 
 for my zeal and service.' Greville's letter of 1803, which is 
 given in the Appendix,^ more than bears out her veracity 
 in this trifle. Greville himself, the precisest of officials, and 
 just after his uncle's death by no means on the best of 
 terms with Lady Hamilton, added that he knew that the 
 public ' records ' confirmed ' the testimony of their Sicilian 
 Majesties by letter as well as by their ministers, of circum- 
 stances peculiarly distinguished and honourable to her, and 
 at the same time of high importance to the public service' 
 Hamilton's own share in the many transactions which are 
 to follow passed equally disregarded with his widow's. And 
 with regard to the preliminary 'service' which we must 
 now discuss, she repeats her asseveration in almost the last 
 letter that she ever wrote,^ adding that in this case, as in 
 the others, she paid ' often and often out of her own pocket 
 at Naples.' 
 
 As has been recounted. Hood took Toulon in August 
 1793- It had to be evacuated on December 17th of that 
 year; and it was Lord Hood, not the future Lord St. 
 Vincent, who superintended the Corsican operations from 
 the December of 1793 to their issue in Nelson's heroism at 
 Calvi in July 1794. Sir John Jervis, on the other hand, 
 was in command of the West Indian expedition of 1794. 
 He does not, it is true, figure as corresponding with the 
 Hamiltons on naval affairs until 1798, when, in an interest- 
 ing correspondence,* he thanks her for services as 'patroness 
 
 ' App. Part II. F. (l), Greville to Lord Hobart (or Lord Pelham), April 12, 1803. 
 ' App. Part II. C. (loa), LadyHamilton to Sir William Scott, Sept. 12, 1814. 
 ' Nelson Letters, vol. i. pp. 217-233. 
 
' ST ATES WOMAN ' 171 
 
 of the navy,' protests his ' unfeigned aifectionate r^ard,' and 
 signs himself her ' faithful and devoted knight' But none the 
 less he was (and this has eluded notice) in close correspon- 
 dence with Acton throughout the early portion of 1796.^ 
 
 Such, then, in this instance, are the material discrepan- 
 cies. In dwelling long afterwards on her first endeavours 
 for her country, she transposed the sequence of two suc- 
 cessive years, while she confounded Lord Hood and the 
 future Lord St Vincent together. Little sagacitj', how- 
 ever, is needed to perceive that these very confusions point 
 to her sincerity. Had she been forging claims, imperatively 
 raised in the extremities of her fate, nothing would have 
 been easier than to have verified these trifles, especially as 
 Nelson's dearest friends remained staunch to her till the 
 close. Wilful liars do not concoct and elaborate evidence 
 manifestly against themselves. A reference to the Ap- 
 pendix^ will show that, for the truth of this, the least 
 important and most general of her services, Acton's manu- 
 script correspondence of these years with Hamilton supplies 
 a new presumption. What England wanted during these two 
 years from the Neapolitan premier was something outside 
 and beyond what her treaty with Sicily enabled her, as a 
 fact, to require, and it was just these extras that Emma's 
 rising ascendency with the Queen and her own ambition 
 would prompt her to procure. 
 
 In the Appendix will also be found a new and pathetic 
 letter addressed by her in 18 13 to Lord St. Vincent, or at 
 any rate to some naval peer, which proves that what she 
 pressed on the Government she urged also on men cog- 
 nisant of the facts.' The real pretexts for refusal, as we 
 shall find in their proper place, were not scepticism, but 
 royal disfavour,* technical precedent, lapse of time, private 
 
 » C£. Add. MS. 2639, flF. 275-277, 283, 285, 294. » Note E. 
 
 ' It conclades : ' Fo^ve me ibis introsion, but Nelson loved you, and I am 
 alone and feel forlorn in the world, and bis spirit, if it cou'd look down, would 
 bless you for your kindness and attention to his last wishes in the moment of 
 death and victory.' 
 
 * Full confirmation is given in chap. xr. Here I need only cite Lord 
 Holland's assertion (Rose's Diaries, vol. i p. 219) : " He (Nelson) never was a 
 favourite at St. James's. His amour with Lady H. , if amour it was, shocked 
 the King's morality.' 
 
172 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 pique, and party interest. Canning thought her 'richly- 
 entitled' to compensation.^ Grenville himself admitted 
 the performance of her services. Addington grounded his 
 refusal mainly on the multiplicity of other claims on the 
 Government.^ 
 
 If such slips of memory as Lady Hamilton's were to be 
 held fatal to her own case, similar ones should be equally 
 or more so to that of her critics. Mr. Jeaflfreson implies 
 that Toulon was evacuated in 1794! His further mistake 
 as to the meaning of Emma's phrase ' De-Bourbonised ' has 
 been noticed, and other misconstructions by him and others 
 will appear as we proceed. Even Miss Cornelia Knight, in 
 her recollections of the events witnessed by her in 1798, 
 trips equally in her record.^ So does Lord Holland in his 
 accounts of the victualling of the fleet.* So did Beckford in 
 his malicious statements afterwards.^ These confusions are 
 common enough when the memory has to deal with crowded 
 emergencies and excitements. 
 
 The year 1794 at Naples was one of continuous calamity; 
 while successive catastrophes were heightened by the un- 
 doubted tyrannies of the Queen. France, by fomenting 
 the Neapolitan ferment, was deliberately inveigling the 
 two Sicilies. No quarter would Maria Carolina give to 
 the French assassins or to the Neapolitan republicans. 
 Hitherto, in the main, her old clemency had found vent, 
 and she had striven to be just. She still deemed justice 
 her motive, but she deceived herself. While the King 
 always remained optimist, her pessimism verged on mad- 
 ness. She treated affairs of State just as if they had 
 been affairs of the heart. Her mistrust both of the con- 
 spiring nobles and the thankless students, now, from changed 
 incentives, in attempted combination, showed signs of yield- 
 ing to a paroxysm of revenge disguised by an inscrut- 
 
 ' Rose's Diaries, vol. i. p. 265. 
 
 * His letter of March 6, 1813 (the original of which the writer possesses), will 
 be found in Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 631. . ' Autobiography (1861). 
 
 * In Rose's Diaries and Correspondence, vol. i. p. 215, he is actually made 
 to say that it happened in Palermo, and through Lady Hamilton, whom Nelson 
 had not seen since 1793. 
 
 ' Cf. Cyrus Redding's Fifty Years' Recollections, vol. iii, p. 103. 
 
' STATESWOMAN ' 173 
 
 able face. Robespierre was branded on her brain. Her 
 word for every rebellious aristocrat was ' We will not give 
 him time to become a Robespierre.' ^ The close of the year 
 witnessed Robespierre's doom, and a false lull brought with 
 it a film of security.* Yet the signal baseness now con- 
 fronting her would have justified a moderate severity. 
 Disaffection was not native but imported. The great mass 
 of the people never wavered in allegiance to the King of the 
 Lazzaroni, and agitation was bought and manipulated by 
 France.* The rest of Europe recognised the real signifi- 
 cance of these insurrections. ' God knows,' wrote Nelson 
 to the Hamiltons in 1796, 'I only feel for the King of 
 Naples, as I am confident the change in his Government 
 would be subversive of the interest of all Europe.'* The 
 English Government, the Russian, even the Prussian, felt 
 the same. The Queen, who had really done so much in the 
 teeth of sharp difficulties for the ' Intellectuels,' was beside 
 herself. Jacobinism, at first narrowed to a faction, after- 
 wards, at the worst, diffused as a leaven, was by this time 
 hydra-headed. Its disorders had spread to Sicily, where 
 their suppression had been signalised by the execution of 
 the ringleaders and the imprisonment of three hundred.^ 
 By the spring of 1795 the French had divulged their 
 determination of attacking the British squadron in the 
 Mediterranean.* The receivers of her most generous bounty 
 
 1 Dumas' Storia afc" Borboni, p. 190. 
 
 " Cf. Acton's letter to Hamilton, Add. MS. 2639, f. 197. The Jacobins, he 
 says, are vowed to execration. ' Their clubs are shut up : many of their infernal 
 societies, tt^ether with the Commune de Paris, sont hors de la loi.' 
 
 * How Napoleon availed himself of it afterwards, just before he showed his 
 hand in annexing the crown, is best shown by his letter to Maria Carolina 
 of January 1805. I excerpt a short passage here : — ' What must be the hatred 
 your Majesty bears to Fiance that, after the experience you have had, neither 
 your conjugal love nor your parental . . . induce you to forbear a little ? ... Is 
 your Majesty's mind, so distinguished among women, unable to divest itself of 
 the prejudices of sex ? ... Is your love for England so uncontrolled that you 
 would (although certain to be the first victim) set the Continent in a blaze ? ' 
 Cited by Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 453. 
 
 * Morrison MS. 288. Commodore Nelson to Sir W. Hamilton, Oct. 18, 
 1796. 
 
 " Cf. the excerpt in Sotheby's catalogue for May 17, 1905, out of a letter from 
 Hamilton to Sir J. C- Hippisley of April 14, 1795. 
 
 ' Cf. a letter from Acton (in the writer's possession) : — ' Caserla, April 28, 
 1795. — We are now in a most critical moment if the French come to their 
 
i;4 ^ EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 bit the hand of their benefactress, Luigi di Medici, the 
 young cavalier on whom she had conferred absolute power, 
 was denounced by a mathematical professor. As ' Regente 
 della Vicaria ' he was tried by the last novelty in tribunals, 
 an invention of Acton. Besides other old hands like the 
 inevitable Prince Pignatelli, it consisted of three principal 
 assessors — Guidobaldi, a judge ; Prince Castelcicala, a prop 
 always trusted ; and lastly Vanni, a man of the people, a 
 ' professional ' whom the Queen had actually made Marquis. 
 This trio was nicknamed ' Cerberus.' It was the reverse of 
 former experiments : for the first time two members of the 
 disaffected 'professionals' were admitted into the bureau- 
 cracy. Vanni, a miniature Marat, who well merited his 
 subsequent downfall, dictated ; and his dictatorship stank 
 in the nostrils of all Italy as ' the white terror of Naples.' 
 Di Medici had himself headed a fresh conspiracy — for 
 the King's murder — which for a long time simmered in 
 the political caldron.^ He was imprisoned ^ in the fortress of 
 Gaeta, to reappear, however, a few years later as a pardoned 
 ptot6g6. Prince Caramanico, despatched after Sicigniano's 
 sad suicide to the Embassy in London, died before starting, 
 with the usual suspicion of poison. The execution in the 
 ' Mercato Vecchio ' of the cultivated Tommaso Amato, who 
 was deprived even of supreme unction, lent its first horror to 
 the notorious death-chamber of the ' Capella della Vicaria,' 
 and was soon followed by that of sixty more Jacobins, The 
 cause of ' order and religion ' was publicly pitted against 
 these damnable heresies. Even communications with the 
 self-styled ' Patriots ' were to be punished. It was decreed 
 treason for more than ten to assemble, save by licence. 
 The judges, it is true, were bidden to be ' conscientious in 
 equity and justice,' but three witnesses sufficed for the 
 
 divulged determination of attacking soon the British squadron in a couple of 
 weeks longer.' He expresses a hope for 'proper reinforcements'; 'then no 
 allarm [sic] is for Italy any longer.' 
 
 1 Cf. Hamilton to Sir G. Elliot, June 27, 1795. Eg. MS. 2638, f. 147. 
 
 ^ Our old friend, the Bishop of Derry, thus writes to Emma about this affair : 
 'There is no doubt but Don Luizi is implicated. That very circumstance 
 argues the extent of the mischief. ... I have conversed with one of his inti- 
 mates — one "who is no stranger to his dearest secret." . . . Sweet Emma, 
 adieu ! Every wish of my heart beats for the dear Queen.' — Nelson Letters, 
 vol. i. p. 245- 
 
' STATESWOMAN ' 175 
 
 death-sentence. Apart from capital sentences, the castles 
 and prisons were crammed with suspects, so much so that 
 those of Brindisi were requisitioned. Massacres desolated 
 Sicily ; blood ran in the Neapolitan streets. Ferdinand, 
 who had been amusing himself by lengthened law-suits with 
 the Prince of Tarsia over a silk monopoly, called on the 
 clergy to expose the ' French errors ' ; and at Naples devotion 
 and disaster ever trod closely on each other's heels. Three 
 days of solemn prayer were once more decreed in the 
 Metropolitan Church of St. Januarius. Both King and 
 Queen were perpetually seen in devout attendance at the 
 principal shrines. The pulpits preached 'death to the 
 French,' and war against Jacobinism was declared religious. 
 To be a ' patriot ' (an innocent fault in palmier days) was 
 now sacrilege. A fresh eve of St. Bartholomew was feared.^ 
 In a word, the methods of crushing rebellion and opinion 
 were eminently southern, but they were also a counterblast 
 to equal barbarities in the north. Save for the sansculottes 
 and their propaganda, Naples would have escaped the 
 fever and remained a drowsy castle of contented indolence. 
 
 While, as queen, Maria Carolina cowed the city, as 
 woman she was demented by Buonaparte's Italian victories. 
 Naples, alone of all Italy, still defied him. The Neapolitan 
 royalties — to their honour — sacrificed fortune and jewels 
 to dare the new Alexander. At the same time, they called 
 on both nobles and ecclesiastics to emulate their public 
 spirit, and thereby unconsciously did much to hasten the 
 'patriot' insurrection. One hundred and three thousand 
 ducats were demanded from the town, one hundred and 
 twenty thousand from the nobles; church property was 
 alienated. Everything was seized for the common cause. 
 The news of Nelson's heroism and the English triumph in 
 Corsica was received with rapture. And the Neapolitan 
 troops on this occasion shamed the general cowardice. By 
 1795 Prince Moliterno was acclaimed a national hero; the 
 courage of General Cuto's three regiments in the Tyrol raised 
 the Neapolitan name, while Mantua and Rome showed the 
 white feather and necessitated the onerous peace of Brescia. 
 
 It may now be guessed what agitated the Queen's bosom 
 
 ' Dumas' Staria d^ Barbani, pp. 167-200. 
 
176 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 as day by day she sat down to pen her French missives 
 to Emma, and what were the feelings naturally instilled in 
 Emma by Hamilton, Nelson's letters, and the Queen. The 
 Jacobin cause was the prime pest of Europe, to be crushed 
 at all costs ; Napoleon, an impudent upstart and usurper ; 
 the Neapolitan rebels, monsters of ingratitude and treachery. 
 All these convictions were as binding as articles of faith. 
 Emma's own heart was tender to a fault. She detested 
 bloodshed and was to use all her influence for mercy, as, to 
 do her bare justice, the Queen also was often to do after the 
 first spasm had passed. In Emma's eyes the Queen herself, 
 so kind and good at home, so sincere and friendly, was 
 ' adorable.' She could do no wrong. The past peccadilloes 
 of this baffling woman, contrasting with her present domes- 
 ticity, seemed to her, even if she believed them, merely 
 a royal prerogative. She was — as Emma assured Greville 
 in a letter congratulating him on his new vice-chamberlain- 
 ship, 'Everything one can wish — the best mother, wife, and 
 freind in the world. I live constantly with her, and have 
 done intimately so for 2 years, and I never have in all 
 that time seen anything but goodness and sincerity in her, 
 and if ever you hear any lyes about her, contradict them, 
 and if you shou'd see a cursed book written by a vile French 
 dog, with her character in it, don't believe one word.' Hours 
 passed with her were ' enchantment.' ' No person can be so 
 charming as the Queen. If I was her daughter she could 
 not be kinder to me, and I love her with my whole soul.' ^ 
 As she grew more and more influential on the stirring scene 
 she caught and exaggerated her royal friend's own effusive- 
 ness. ' Oh that everyone,' is her indorsement on a letter, 
 ' would esteem her as I do from my soul. May every good 
 attend her and hers.'^ Thus Ruth, of Naomi. From such a 
 friend critical impartiality was no more to be expected than 
 from such enemies as the ' vile, French dogs.' 
 
 The Queen's correspondence with Emma^ opens earlier 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 250 ; Caserta, December 18, 1794. 
 
 ^ Eg. MS. 161S, f. 62, Oct. 10, 1796. 
 
 ' Most of her letters of this and the next five years are transcribed from the 
 various Egerton MS. by R. Palumbo in his violent diatribe Maria Carolina and 
 Emma Hamilton, which to some real material adds all the old false stories 
 about her earlier and later life—' The lie revived, the tale so oft o'erthrown.' 
 
' ST ATESWOM AN ' 1 7j 
 
 with a touching note about the fate of the poor Dauphine; 
 a sweet little portrait still remains under its cover. This 
 innocent child, she wrote, implores a signal vengeance for 
 the massacre of his parents before the Eternal Throne.^ His 
 afflictions ' have renewed wounds that will never heal.' In 
 January 1794 a fete was given by the Hamiltons to Prince 
 Augustus. It was a golden occasion for fanning the English 
 fever, which by now had spread throughout the lo^'alist 
 ranks. The Queen's letter of that afternoon b^ged the 
 hostess to tell her company 'God save great George our 
 King,' rejoiced over the Anglo-Sicilian alliance, and sent 
 her compliments to all the English present In the follow- 
 ing June she exulted over George's speech to Parliament 
 renewing the war. She longed for English news from 
 Toulon.* Next year, at his next fete, she was to protest 
 that she loved the British prince as a son.* She was per- 
 petually anxious about Emma's health and prescribing 
 remedies. As for her own 'old health,' it was not worth 
 her young friend's disquietude.^ When Sir William lay at 
 death's door she bade her 'put confidence in God, who never 
 forsakes those who trust in Him,' and count on the ' sincere 
 friendship ' of her ' attached friend.'* Emma's performances 
 she applauded to the skies, especially that of ' Nina,' which 
 had been Romney's favourite. 
 
 In one of her constant billets * she tenderly inquired after 
 ' ce cher aitnabU bienfaisant evique ' — the flippant but kindly 
 worldling and ' Right Reverend Father in God ' (as Beck- 
 ford terms him) Lord Bristol, Bishop of Derry. Of this 
 odd wit, erratic vagrant and sentimental scapegrace, so 
 typical of a century that included both Horace Walpole 
 and Laurence Sterne — a veritable Gallio-in-gaiters, with 
 his whimsical projects for endless improvements,^ his 
 connoisseurship, his restlessness, his real pluck and inde- 
 
 1 Eg. MS. 161S, f. 37. » Eg. MS. 1615, S. 8, 10. 
 
 » Eg. MS. 161S, £69. *Sg. MS. 161S, f. 48. 
 
 ' lUd. to £ 18. Emma's endorsement nins : ' From my dear Queen, 
 Ajnil 17, 1795, when I was in gieat affliction for my much loved husband, who 
 is ill of a bilioiis fever.' 
 
 ' Eg. MS. f. 38, where she also praises Pitt's patriotic eloquence in his war- 
 like speech — 'his cirfifaitore.' 
 
 ^ One of them for draining the marshes of Ronu^na. 
 
 M 
 
178 EMMA, l-ADY MA MILTON 
 
 pendonca, wo have Blraady ciiught (jllmp«0H In ocfriitrk 
 attire at Caserta. One of Kin queereit featureit vim the 
 blended cure and careleaineRN both of inoiiry and family. 
 Attached to hit devoted and ctmnomlcal (liui^iiinr LouIrKi 
 he quarrelled with his son for not marrying un Imlrrdii. 
 HIi bitterest rc|)roach nKnInHt hli old wife w&n iliiii Mho 
 disbelieved 'in tlm current coin of ilin realm.' I<ady 
 Hamilton thus at this time doHcrlbed him lo (Irovllloi 
 'lie Is very fond of me, iind vary kind. I In \h very enter- 
 taining and dashes at ovcrytliln(.r. Nor <li»fiM lui mind King 
 and Queen when he Is inclined lo nhew his tiilonlM,''' The 
 French victories were soon io be liitiil lit ilir tsfiHt me^umr, 
 and to cool his volatile impulinicn for some eighteen 
 months within the clammy walls of n Milanese fortress, 
 Besides his autographs In the Morrison Collecllon, and two 
 now belonging to tlin writer, ii few letters from him in ICmma 
 exist in that surreptitious edition of the pilfered Nelmn 
 Letters which. In 1814, wnrn to iidij orin mora dro|) to her 
 cup of bitterness. They all show Unit he purveyed In- 
 formation, both serious und scandalous, tliron^l) Emma 
 to the Queen. Tluy stamp the Intriguer, ilio [tatriot, and 
 the friend. The first seems written amon^', the ombrdlinnnis 
 of i;93. 
 
 The sale and purchase of unli(|in'tIoN absorbed liim like 
 Sir William; nnlike the Ambassador, he nrvrr shirked 
 labour, but rather meddled officiously with ilie department! 
 over which his leisurely friend had been np 1.0 now so dlr*- 
 posed to loiter. In 1793 he is to be ionnd spying on the 
 spies who misled ' the dear, dear Queen.' At the openinK, 
 too, of 1 794, he forwards Venetian ftecrelM to he communi- 
 cated ' A la prgmUri desfemmes, ci'llc mtif/rifx.ii< ftrnma,"* ' I 
 have been in bed,' he adds, ' tliewe four weel<« will) wliiit is 
 called a flying gout, but were it such It would )»e gone 
 long ago, and it hovers round me like a ghost round Its 
 sepulchre,'* In 17^5 uy,iui) the nomad was at Berlin routing 
 out State-secrets, The dale nf the following must be that 
 
 ' Morrison MH, 350, U'u;, iH, iji)^, 'J'),|s |« flm UUm j,, wIiI-Ii wht »».y»i 
 ' 1)11 lUtoA III'; ft pl»n bmv I •■nM slluuln /////« ICmma, (niiii tlilnjj ( hn \ mi|«|) fl,' 
 * TJ)« vwy «xpr«Mion ttMd '<( I'Jimiiit li«rMlf liy llio Klny in /yyy, 
 » M'lrria'/ii MS. sja J 'iVIijufc, Januftfx »5, ^^|j^. 
 
' STATESWOM AN ' 1 79 
 
 of the shameful Austrian treaties in 1797 which succeeded 
 the galling peace of Brescia. 
 
 'My ever dearest Lady Hamilton,— I should cer- 
 tainly have made this Sunday an holy day to me, and have 
 taken a Sabbath day's journey to Caserta, had not poor Mr. 
 Lovel ^ been confined to his bed above three days with a 
 fever. To-day it is departed ; to-morrow Dr. Nudi ^ has 
 secured us from its resurrection; and after to-morrow, I 
 hope, virtue will be its own reward. . . . All public and 
 private accounts agree in the immediate prospect of a 
 general peace. It will make a delicious foreground in the 
 picture of the new year ; many of which I wish, from the 
 top, bottom, and centre of my heart, to the incomparable 
 Emma — gueUa sensa paragone' ^ The next snatch is worth 
 quoting for its humour : — ' I went down to your opera-box 
 two minutes after you left ; and should have seen yoM on 
 the morning of your departure — but was detained in the 
 arms of Murphy, as Lady Eden expresses it, and was too 
 late. You say nothing of the adorable Queen ; I hope 
 she has not forgot me. ... I veritably deem her the very 
 best edition of a woman I ever saw — I mean of such as 
 are not in foUo. . . . My duties obstruct my pleasure. . . . 
 You see, I am but the second letter of your alphabet, 
 though you are the first of mine." 
 
 A last extract, penned a few months after his liberation, 
 must complete this vignette : — ' I know not, dearest Emma, 
 whether friend Sir William has been able to obtain my 
 passport or not ; but this I know — that if they have refused 
 it, they are damned fools for their pains : for never was a 
 Malta orange better worth squeezing or sucking; and if 
 they leave me to die, without a tombstone over me to tell 
 the contents — tant pis pour eux. In the meantime, I will 
 frankly confess to you that my health most seriously and 
 urgently requires the balmy air of dear Naples, and the 
 more balmy atmosphere of those I love, and who love me ; 
 and that I shall for^o my garret with more regret than 
 
 ' A dersyman much interested in Vesuvius and the Arts, who stayed with 
 him on several occasions. 
 ^ Hamilton's doctor, an eminent phyddan and natoralist. 
 * 'A nonpareil,' 
 
178 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 pendence, we have already caught glimpses in eccentric 
 attire at Caserta. One of his queerest features was the 
 blended care and carelessness both of money and family. 
 Attached to his devoted and economical daughter Louisa, 
 he quarrelled with his son for not marrying an heiress. 
 His bitterest reproach against his old wife was that she 
 disbelieved 'in the current coin of the realm.' Lady 
 Hamilton thus at this time described him to Greville : 
 • He is very fond of me, and very kind. He is very enter- 
 taining and dashes at everything. Nor does he mind King 
 and Queen when he is inclined to shew his talents.' ^ The 
 French victories were soon to be fatal to the esprit moqueur, 
 and to cool his volatile impatience for some eighteen 
 months within the clammy walls of a Milanese fortress. 
 Besides his autographs in the Morrison Collection, and two 
 now belonging to the writer, a few letters from him to Emma 
 exist in that surreptitious edition of the pilfered Nelson 
 Letters which, in 1814, were to add one more drop to her 
 cup of bitterness. They all show that he purveyed in- 
 formation, both serious and scandalous, through Emma 
 to the Queen. They stamp the intriguer, the patriot, and 
 the friend. The first seems written among the embrdilments 
 of 1793. 
 
 The sale and purchase of antiquities absorbed him like 
 Sir William ; unlike the Ambassador, he never shirked 
 labour, but rather meddled officiously with the departments 
 over which his leisurely friend had been up to now so dis- 
 posed to loiter. In 1793 he is to be found spying on the 
 spies who misled ' the dear, dear Queen.' At the opening, 
 too, of 1794, he forwards Venetian secrets to be communi-- 
 cated ' a la premiere des femmes, cette maitresse femme.' ^ ' I 
 have been in bed,' he adds, ' these four weeks with what is 
 called a flying gout, but were it such it would be gone 
 long ago, and it hovers round me like a ghost round its 
 sepulchre.' * In 179S again the nomad was at Berlin routing 
 out State-secrets. The date of the following must be that 
 
 " Morrison MS. 250, Dec. 18, 1794. This is the letter in which she says : 
 ' Do send me a plan how I could situate Ittile Emma, poor thing ; for I wish it.' 
 * The very expression used of Emma herself by the King in 1799. 
 ' Morrison MS. 232 ; Trieste, January 15, 1794. 
 
' STATESWOMAN ' 179 
 
 of the shameful Austrian treaties in 1797 which succeeded 
 the galling peace of Brescia. 
 
 'My ever dearest Lady Hamilton, — I should cer- 
 tainly have made this Sunday an holy day to me, and have 
 taken a Sabbath day's journey to Caserta, had not poor Mr. 
 LoveP been confined to his bed above three days with a 
 fever. To-day it is departed ; to-morrow Dr, Nudi * has 
 secured us from its resurrection ; and after to-morrow, I 
 hope, virtue will be its own reward. . . . All public and 
 private accounts agree in the immediate prospect of a 
 general peace. It will make a delicious foreground in the 
 picture of the new year ; many of which I wish, from the 
 top, bottom, and centre of my heart, to the incomparable 
 Emma — quella senza paragone! ^ The next snatch is worth 
 quoting for its humour : — ' I went down to your opera-box 
 two minutes after you left ; and should have seen you on 
 the morning of your departure — but was detained in the 
 arms of Murphy, as Lady Eden expresses it, and was too 
 late. You say nothing of the adorable Queen ; I hope 
 she has not forgot me. ... I veritably deem her the very 
 best edition of a woman I ever saw — I mean of such as 
 are not in folio. . . . My duties obstruct my pleasure. . . . 
 You see, I am but the second letter of your alphabet, 
 though you are the first of mine.' 
 
 A last extract, penned a few months after his liberation, 
 must complete this vignette : — ' I know not, dearest Emma, 
 whether friend Sir William has been able to obtain my 
 passport or not ; but this I know — that if they have refused 
 it, they are damned fools for their pains : for never was a 
 Malta orange better worth squeezing or sucking; and if 
 they leave me to die, without a tombstone over me to tell 
 the contents— if<a!«^ pis pour eux. In the meantime, I will 
 frankly confess to you that my health most seriously and 
 urgently requires the balmy air of dear Naples, and the 
 more balmy atmosphere of those I love, and who love me ; 
 and that I shall forego my garret with more regret than 
 
 ' a clergyman much interested in Vesuvius and the Arts, who stayed with 
 him on several occasions. 
 ' Hamilton's doctor, an eminent physician and naturalist. 
 * ' A nonpareil.' 
 
i8o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 most people of my silly rank in society forego a palace or a 
 drawing-room.' He then sketched his tour on horseback to 
 ' that unexplored region Dalmatia ' ; he described Spalato 
 as ' a modern city built within the precincts of an ancient 
 palace.' Spalato reminded him of Diocletian, the 'wise 
 sovereign who quitted the sceptre of an architect's rule,' and 
 the two together, of a new project for a 'packet-boat in 
 these perilous times between Spalato and Manfredonia.' " 
 
 The serious d^but of Emma as ' Stateswoman ' (in the 
 sense of England's spokeswoman at Naples) chimes with 
 the episode of the King of Spain's secret letters heralding 
 and announcing his rupture with the anti-French alliance 
 during 1795 and 1796. But before dealing with that crisis, 
 I may be pardoned for glancing at one more picturesque 
 figure among Emma's surroundings — that of Wilhelmina, 
 Countess of Lichtenau. 
 
 She was nobly born and bred ; but in girlhood, under a 
 broken promise, it would seem, of morganatic marriage, had 
 become mistress and intellectual companion of Frederick, 
 King of Prussia — a tie countenanced by her mother. 
 Political intrigue drove her from Berlin to Italy, as it after- 
 wards involved her in despair and ruin. She was cultivated, 
 artistic, sensitive, and unhappy. She became the honoured 
 correspondent of many distinguished statesmen and authors. 
 Lavater and Arthur Paget ^ were her firm friends, as also 
 the luckless Alexandre Sauveur, already noticed in his 
 ' hermitage ' on Mount Vesuvius. Lord Bristol, naturally, 
 knelt at her shrine. In her Mimoires^ she frankly 
 admits that she (like Emma) was vain ; but maintains 
 that all women are so by birthright. Lovel, the parson 
 friend of the Bishop of Derry, used to sign himself her 
 'brother by adoption,' and address her as 'a very dear 
 sister ' ; Paget corresponded with her as ' dear Wilhelmina,' 
 Throughout 1795 she was at Naples, where her cicisbeo was 
 the handsome Chevalier de Saxe, afterwards killed in a duel 
 with the Russian M. Saboff. A letter from him towards 
 the close of this year of Neapolitan enthusiasm for the 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. pp. 253-261. ' Hanoverian Ambassador. 
 
 * In two volumes, Colburn, i8og. Volume two contains many letters from 
 friends, including Lady Hamilton and Lord Bristol. 
 
'STATESWOMAN' i8i 
 
 English, when the Elliots among others were praising and 
 applauding Emma to the skies/ describes the great ball 
 given by Lady Plymouth in celebration of Prince Augustus's 
 birthday. The supper was one of enthusiasm and "God 
 save the King.' ' They drank,' he chronicles, ' a CAnglaise : 
 the toasts were noisy, and the healths of others were so 
 flattered as to derange our own.' Sir William was constantly 
 begging of her to forward the sale of his collections at the 
 Russian capital ; nor was tea, now fashionable at court, the 
 least agent for English interests. Emma herself had become 
 the ' fair tea-maker ' of the Chiaja instead of, as once, of 
 Edgware Row, and Mrs. Cadogan too held her own tea- 
 parties. Emma often corresponded with the beautiful 
 Countess ; one of her letters is transcribed in Note D. of the 
 Appendix, as an evidence of what kind of French she had 
 learned to write by a period when she had mastered not only 
 Neapolitan/fl^ozj but Spanish and Italian.^ At the outset of 
 the troubles of 1796 Wilhelmina quitted Italy never to return. 
 
 These characters are scarcely edifying. The scofifing 
 Bishop, the frail Countess, however, were a typical outcome 
 of sincere reaction against hollow and hypocritical observ- 
 ance. There was nothing diabolical about them. The 
 virtues that they professed, they practised ; their faults, 
 those of free thinkers and free livers, do not differentiate 
 them from their contemporaries. It is surely remarkable 
 that these, and such as these, paved the way for Nelson's 
 vindication of Great Britain in the Mediterranean, far more 
 than the train of decent frivolity and formal virtue that did 
 nothing without distinction. High Bohemia has always 
 wielded some power in the world. Far more was it a force 
 when the French Revolution threatened the very founda- 
 tions of society, and opened up avenues to every sort of 
 adventure and adventurer. 
 
 Emma has already been found twice acquainting Greville 
 
 ^ Hamilton writes that Lady Elliot had quite ' a passion for Emma ' ; she 
 herself has recorded her impressions, which find a place in the Letters and 
 Diaries of the First Earl of Minto. 
 
 ^ Among the autographs sold at Sotheby's in the May of 1905 was an Italian 
 one of Lady Hamilton. In another, sold in July, she mentions herself, shortly 
 before her death, as instructing Horatia in Spanish and in the after-acquired 
 German. 
 
i82 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 of her new metier as politician. Her present circum- 
 stances and influence over the Queen may be gauged in- 
 dependently by a letter from her husband to his nephew 
 from Caserta of November, which has only recently passed 
 into the national collection : — ^ 
 
 '. . . Here we are as usual for the winter hunting and 
 shooting season, and Emma is not at all displeased to retire 
 with me at times from the great world, altho' no one is 
 better received when she chuses to go into it. The Queen 
 of Naples seems to have great pleasure in her society. She 
 sends for her generally three or four times a week. ... In 
 fact, all goes well chez nous. [He is taking more exercise.] 
 . . . I have not neglected of my duty, and flatter myself that 
 I must be approved of at home for some real services which 
 my particular situation at this court has enabled me to 
 render to our Ministry. I have at least the satisfaction of 
 feeling that I have done all in my power, altho' at the expense 
 of my own health and -fortune.' This last sentence points to 
 the political situation, and Emma's assistance in the episode 
 of the King of Spain's letters ; for not one, but a whole 
 series were involved. 
 
 These letters, from 1795 to 1796, were the secret channels 
 by which Ferdinand was made aware first of his brother's 
 intention to desert the Alliance, and, in the next year, to 
 join the enemy. 
 
 In touching the effects and causes of an event so critical, 
 Emma's pretensions to a part in its discovery must be dis- 
 cussed also. Their consideration, interrupting the sequence 
 of our narrative, will not affect its movement. It is no dry 
 recital, for it concerns events and character. 
 
 From 1795 to the opening of 1797 the league against 
 Napoleon, as thrones and principalities one by one tottered 
 before him, was faced by rising republics and defect- 
 ing allies. In vain were Wurmser and the Neapolitan 
 troops to rally the Romagna. In vain did Nelson recount 
 to the Hamiltons Hood's and Hotham's successes along 
 the Italian coast. Acton's own letters of this period are 
 full of complaints against Austria and Tuscany.^ Prussia 
 estranged herself from the banded powers. England her- 
 
 ' Add. MS. 34,710 D., Nov. 17, 1795. "^ Cf. Add. MS, 2,639,225, 
 
' STATESWOMAN • 183 
 
 self was, for a moment, ready to throw up the sponge. In 
 179s, so great was the popular fear of conflict, that prints in 
 every London shop \yindpw represented the blessings of 
 peace and the horrors of war. Even in the October of 1796 
 Nelson told the Hamiltons, with a wrathful sigh, ' We have 
 a narrow-minded party to work against, but I feel above it.' ^ 
 And writing from Bastia in December 1796, he was again 
 indignant at the orders for the evacuation of the Mediter- 
 ranean, which plunged the Queen in despair. 'Till this 
 time,' commented the true patriot, ''it has been usual for the 
 allies of England to fall from her, but till now she never 
 was known to desert her friends whilst she had the power 
 of supporting them,'^ 
 
 The home explosion had been arrested ; Neapolitan dis- 
 content had been appeased ; but the frauds of the Scots 
 contractor, Mackinnon,* added knavery to increasing fiscal 
 embarrassments. And Naples was soon to become, involved 
 in a mesh of degrading treaties. The Peace of Brescia, enforc- 
 ing her neutrality and mulcting her of eight milHon francs, 
 sounded the first note of Austrian retreat. It culminated 
 by 1797 in the shameful treaties of Campoformio and Tolen- 
 tino,* which eventually bound Austria to cry off. By the 
 close of 1796 the distraught Queen raved ^ over a separate 
 and clandestine* compact exacted by France^-the most 
 galling condition of which excluded more than four vessels 
 of the allies at one time'' from any Neapolitan or Sicilian 
 port — a proviso critical in 1798. By 1797 Naples was 
 
 » Morrison MS. 288. 
 
 ^ Ibid. 290. Three years later Nelson could exclaim with pride that no other 
 power had been ' faithful to its engagements.' Cf. excerpt from a letter of 
 July 19, 1799, addressed from Naples to Sir J. St. Clair Erskine (Sotheby's 
 catalogue for July 8, 1905). 
 
 ^ He had a lengthy lawsuit against a competitor and compatriot, the banker 
 Macaulay. After being imprisoned, he returned to England and traduced Lady 
 Hamilton. Writing in April 1798, Sir William says he is capable of any villainy. 
 Eg. MS. 2640, f. 59. 
 
 * The last happened in February, the first in October 1797. For their terms 
 cf. the note towards the close of this chapter. ' Cf. Eg. MS. 1615, f. 75. 
 
 ° Cf. Lady Hamilton's own transcription of it, Morrison MS. 289, Oct. 28, 
 1796. 
 
 ' This portion of the clause — on which Acton always laid stress — has much to 
 do with Emma's ' services ' of 1798, and is often lost sight of in the historical 
 accounts. 
 
i84 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 forced to acknowledge the French Cisalpine Republic, and 
 France had gained the natural frontiers of the Alps and 
 the Rhine. Buonaparte returned to Paris covered with 
 glory. In a single campaign he had defeated five armies, 
 and won eighteen pitched battles, and sixty-seven smaller 
 combats. He had made one hundred and fifty thousand 
 prisoners. He had freed eighteen states. He had rifled 
 Italy of her statues, pictures, and manuscripts. For his 
 adopted country's arsenals he had pillaged eleven hundred 
 and eighty pieces of artillery, and fifty-one muniments for 
 her harbours ; while no less than two hundred million francs 
 were secured for her treasuries. 
 
 But a worse defection than Prussia's or Austria's was that 
 of Spain, which fell like a bomb on the coalition against 
 France, and which, as Emma alleged, first brought her on the 
 political stage to the knowledge of the English Ministry. 
 
 Her claim, and Nelson's for her, differing in dates, since 
 there were several transactions, was that her friendship 
 with the Queen obtained the loan of a secret document 
 addressed by the Spanish monarch to the King of Naples, 
 and forewarning him of his intention to ally himself with 
 France, a copy of which she got forwarded to London. 
 
 This service has been roundly denied both by Mr. Jeaffre- 
 son and Professor Laughton. Only the main results of in- 
 vestigation can be here narrated ; some supplement will 
 be found in Note F. of the Appendix. Whatever its sub- 
 sequent embroidery, Emma's contention, certified by Nelson, 
 nor ever denied by the truthful Hamilton, is favoured by 
 existing evidence ; and it is amusing to notice at the outset, 
 that one of the subsidiary cavils of her judges^namely, 
 that no ciphered despatch would ever have been so entrusted 
 to her — falls at once to the ground, since there exists such 
 a document in her own handwriting among the Morrison 
 autographs ; ^ while in the Queen's correspondence occurs 
 more than one mention of a cipher transmitted to her. But, 
 indeed, neither in her memorial of 1813 to the Prince of 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 259. Transcript (in Italian) in Lady Hamilton's hand- 
 writing of a letter (in cipher) to the Foreign Minister of Naples. Dated Aran- 
 juez, March 31, 1796. The Queen sent her many such, among them the 
 Austrian ciphers of July 1798, v. post, chap. viii. 
 
' STATESWOMAN ■ . 185 
 
 Wales, nor in that other to the King, nor in Nelson's last 
 codicil, is a ' ciphered letter ' mentioned. The first document 
 styles it only a 'private letter.' The last two agree in 
 calling it the King of Spain's letter 'expressive of or 
 'acquainting him with ' his 'intention of declaring war against 
 England.' The critics need not surely have been at such 
 pains to identify the document meant with the celebrated 
 cipher of Galatone, which the Queen handed to Emma in 
 the spring of 1795. All the evidence fits the likelihood of 
 the document for which she claimed being one that was 
 forwarded home in September 1796, the year specified by 
 Nelson's last codicil, by his conversation at Dresden in 
 1800, and on many other occasions. 
 
 Roughly speaking, the facts are these. 
 
 From the opening of the year 1795 to the autumn of 
 1796 the Neapolitan Ambassador at Madrid (in 1795 
 ' Galatone,' Prince Belmonte) was in constant communica- 
 tion, both open and secret, with the King, Queen, and Gallo, 
 then foreign minister; and in such cases official letters, 
 which are naturally guarded, should be carefully dis- 
 tinguished from private information surreptitiously con- 
 veyed. From the moment that the French Directory 
 replaced the Reign of Terror in Thermidor 1794, and 
 represented itself under the dazzling triumphs of Napoleon 
 as a stable, if ipider. Government, Spain had been steadily 
 smoothing the way for wriggling out of the Anti-Gallic 
 Coalition, the more so as she longed to try conclu- 
 sions with Great Britain in partnership with France, whom 
 she had hitherto been bound to attack. For this pur- 
 pose — as all Acton's manuscript letters attest — she sought 
 to bully Naples, first out of the Anti-Gallic league, and 
 subsequently, in 1797, out of enforced neutrality. She still 
 considered her navy powerful, although throughout 1795 
 Nelson derided it as worse than useless. Her Florentine 
 envoy wrote insolently in the autumn of 1795 that it was 
 of no consequence that the English flag was flaunted in 
 Mediterranean waters ; the real Spanish objective ought to 
 be Cuba, Porto Rico, St. Domingo.^ Tradition, national 
 
 1 Cf. Sir W. Hamilton's letter to Lord Grenville of October 17, 1795, cited 
 from the P.R.O. by Professor Laughton in his Nelson's Last Codicil, Colburn's 
 United Service Magazine, April 1889. This policy was exemplified in 1805. 
 
i86 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 pride, and inclination all united in her eflFort gradually and 
 insidiously to prepare a breach with the allied powers and 
 a rapprochement with France. 
 
 During these long negotiations both Acton and Hamilton 
 were kept in designed ignorance by the King, who, under 
 his inherited bias for Spanish influence, rejoiced to think 
 that he was now at last his own minister, emancipated from 
 and outwitting his thwarted Queen. Maria Carolina, how- 
 ever, had provided her own channels of information also. 
 All that she could ferret out was carefully communicated to 
 Lady Hamilton, and forwarded, under strict pledges not to 
 compromise by naming her, to Lord Grenville in London.^ 
 
 There are two distinct sets of the correspondence between 
 Hamilton and Acton and Acton and Hamilton — that of 
 spring and early summer 1795 relative to the Spanish 
 peace with France achieved in July, the project for which, 
 however, had leaked out long before ; and that of late 
 summer and autumn 1796, regarding Spain's much more 
 secret and momentous decision to strike a definite alliance, 
 offensive as well as defensive, with the enemy of Europe.* 
 
 It was in connection with the latter that Nelson's last 
 codicil claimed Emma's assistance in divulging it to the 
 ministers, while he regretted the opportunities missed by 
 their failure to improve the occasion. Lady Hamilton's 
 last memorial assigns no specific date, though her brief 
 narrative there confuses (as usual) the peace and the alliance 
 together. The evidence points to a probability of her 
 having been twice instrumental in procuring documents 
 weighty for both these emergencies ; but her main exertioiij 
 as Nelson was aware, was bound up with the last. Professor 
 Laughton's acumen bears upon the letters of 1795 ; my 
 reasons for disagreeing with him about these also will be 
 found in the Appendix,^ to which the student is referred. 
 Both he and Mr. Jeaffreson fasten upon her statement in the 
 ' Prince Regent ' memorial alone,* and have not considered 
 
 ^ Egerton MS. 1617, ff. 22, 29. 
 
 ^ The Franco-Spanish Treaty was clandestinely signed August 19, 1796, 
 ratified September 12. On October n Spain declared war against England. 
 
 3 Note F. 
 
 * These are its words : — 'By unceasing application of that influence' — i.e. 
 with the Queen — 'and no less watchfulness to turn it to my country's good, it 
 
' STATESWOMAN ' 187 
 
 her undecorated and simple account tallying with Nelson's 
 in her memorial to the King. I beg the reader's patient 
 attention to the wording of both of these, below cited. 
 
 It is clear from the first that Emma in treating of two 
 years mixes up the documents which she admittedly 
 obtained from the Queen and delivered to Hamilton for 
 tansmission both in April and June 1795, with one of the 
 many that she obtained in 1796. No single 'letter' could 
 have comprised both the rupture with the alliance and the 
 compact with France, belonging respectively to two succes- 
 sive years. The attendant scenes of the abstracted letter, 
 the precautions, the heavy payment, the special messenger, 
 her husband's illness, do not figure either in the King of 
 England's memorial or Nelson's codicil. The minor events 
 of 1795, in their present bearing, are reserved for the 
 Appendix. 
 
 My point now and here is that Emma's chief aid in 
 unravelling a long and tangled skein of maturing crisis 
 was rendered about September 1796. Its history will 
 resume our thread ; and, since the next chapter's evidence 
 
 happened that I discovered a courier had brought the King of Naples a private 
 letter from the King of Spain. I prevailed on the Queen to take it from his 
 pocket unseen. We found it to contain the King of Spain's intention to with- 
 draw from the Coalition, and join the French against E^ngland. My husband 
 at that time lay dangerously ill. I prevailed on the Queen to allow my taking 
 a copy, with which I immediately dispatched a messenger to Lord Grenville, 
 taking all the necessary precautions ; for his safe arrival then became very 
 difficult, and altogether cost rae about ;^40O paid out of my privy purse.' — Cf. 
 Morrison MS. 1046, where the date conjectured ' March 1813 ' tallies with her 
 letter in the Rose diaries inclosing it. 
 
 Her memorial to the King (ignored or unknown by the critics) contains a 
 simpler statement. ' That it was the good fortune of your Majesty's memorialist 
 to acquire the confidential friendship of that great and august Princess, the Queen 
 of Naples, your Majesty's most faithful and ardently attached Ally, at a period 
 of peculiar peril, and when her august Consort . . . was unhappily constrained 
 to profess a neutrality, but little in accordance with the feelings of his own 
 excellent heart. By which means your Majesty's memorialist, among many 
 inferior services, had an opportunity of obtaining, and actually did obtain, the 
 King of Spain's letter to the King of Naples expressive of his intention to declare 
 war against England. This important document, your Majesty's memorialist 
 delivered to her husband. Sir William Hamilton, who immediately transmitted 
 it to your Majesty's Ministers' This assertion tallies with Nelson's. There is 
 no proof of the date of this paper, which in the Morrison MS. (104S) is guessed 
 to be identical with that of the ' Prince Regent ' memorial above transcribed. 
 
i88 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 is to favour not only her crowning service with regard to 
 the Mediterranean fleet, but the substantial accuracy of her 
 two statements of it.^ it is worth while in this matter also to 
 inquire somewhat closely whether Emma was a liar, and 
 Nelson a dupe. 
 
 The Acton manuscripts throughout 1796 cast consider- 
 able light on the numerous letters from the Spanish court 
 of that year, culminating in the crucial announcement of 
 the Spanish King to his brother of Naples towards the close 
 of August. 
 
 Acton vied with Hamilton as to who should be first in 
 the field to acquaint the British ministers ; ^ and indeed to 
 Acton's pmckani (like our own Harley's under Queen Anne) 
 for engrossing business and favour Nelson afterwards 
 referred in a letter to Lady Hamilton, where he declares 
 that he will no longer ' get everything done ' through Acton, 
 as was his 'old way.' Both Acton and Wyndham, Eng- 
 land's envoy at Leghorn, were, it is true, early if vaguely 
 aware of Spain's tentatives with France ; * but neither they 
 nor the English Ambassador at Madrid had discovered the 
 precise terms of a coming alliance, vital to Europe. It 
 would press the more on Naples, in view of that undignified 
 and stringent accommodation with the French Directory, 
 into which the Franco-Hispanian conspiracy, after a brief 
 armistice, was fast driving her reluctant councils. For months 
 Prince Belmonte (transferred from Madrid to Paris) had 
 been dangling his heels as negotiator in the French capital, 
 subjected to insolent demands and mortifying delays and 
 chicanes.* From the spring of 1796 onwards a series of 
 ' threatening letters ' had been received by Ferdinand from 
 Charles ; and all the time the pro-Spanish party, designing 
 
 ' It will be seen that one of her statements has passed unknown, and that the 
 meaning of the other has been curiously distorted. A kind statement was inserted 
 by Emma in Nelson's Letter-Book. 
 
 2 Cf. especially Egerton MS. 2639, ff. 303-315. 
 
 ^ Cf. ibid. ff. 303, 304 et seq. ' Spanish troops to be put into Leghorn ' 
 (Acton to Hamilton, Aug. 21, 1796). — 'But the odd and open threatenings of 
 the King of Spain to his brother do not leave any room to hope for a separation 
 from the French, or change in that Court of their strange and most shamefuU 
 system.' — (The same to the same, Aug. 18, 1796.) 
 
 * Egerton MS, 2629, f. 313 (Acton to Hamilton, Sept. 22, 1796), and cf. 
 ibid. ff. 325-329. 
 
'STATES WOMAN' 189 
 
 a dethronement of the Neapolitan Bourbons, kept even pace 
 with Maria Carolina's hatred of a sister-in-law caballing 
 for her son.^ Ferdinand himself still clung to the Spanish 
 raft ; Charles of Spain was his brother, and blood is thicker 
 than water. While England grew more and more faint- 
 hearted, and Grenville forwarded despatch after despatch 
 advising Naples to give up the game and make the best 
 terms available with the Directory ; ^ while Napoleon's 
 victories swelled the republicanisation of Italy, the Spanish 
 plot also for sapping Great Britain's Mediterranean power,* 
 and overthrowing the dynasty of the two Sicilies, increased 
 in strength. Yet the King of Naples still temporised. For 
 a space even Acton veered; he listened to Gallo and the 
 King, the more readily because his own post was endan- 
 gered in 1795, when there had been actual rumours of his 
 replacement by Gallo.* In 1796 he saw no way out but the 
 sorry compromise with France, which he half desired, and 
 the enforced neutrality which disgusted Naples in December. 
 Milan had fallen. Piedmont had been Buonaparte's latest 
 democratic experiment. The Austrians, led by Wurmser, 
 were failing in combat, as their court by the first month of 
 the next year was to fail in faith. Naples was fast being 
 isolated both from Italy and Britain ; small wonder then 
 that through Acton's earlier letters of 1796 there peers a 
 sour smile of cynical desperation. But directly he realised 
 the full force of the Franco-Hispanian complot, and the 
 stress of reverses to the allied arms, he changed his ply. 
 He avowed himself ready ' to break the peace ' ; he rejoined 
 and rejoiced the Queen ; he again looked to England. As 
 Grenville waxed colder, the more warmly did Acton com- 
 pete with Hamilton in egging on the British Government 
 by disclosing the hard facts detected. Hamilton, however, 
 forestalled him. He, Emma, and the Queen had throughout 
 
 ' Acton speaks at this date of there being ' no bounds to female resent- 
 ment.' 
 
 ^ Cf. {e.^.) Egerton MS. 2639, f. 329. Acton complains daily more of 
 Grenville's attitude. 
 
 ' Hamilton's own words in his despatch of Sept. 21, 1796 — 'To exclude 
 Great Britain from all the ports in the Mediterranean.' 
 
 ♦ Cf. P.R.O. documents, F.O. Records, Sicily (I79S)> 4I' C'ted by 
 Professor Laughton. 
 
190 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 been in frequent confabulation,^ while the Hamiltons were 
 also in close correspondence with Nelson. But it was 
 Emma, not her husband, who was daily closeted with 
 Carolina, whose letters to the ambassadress prove how well 
 she was informed of Spain's machinations.^ So early as 
 June 1793 we have seen Emma already politicising. In 
 April 1795 she reports once more to Greville : ' Against my 
 will, owing to my situation here, I am got into politics, and 
 I wish to have news for my dear, much loved Queen whom 
 I adore.' * She had already transcribed a ciphered com- 
 munication from Spain as to King Charles's probable 
 defection from the alliance.* She now definitely advances 
 towards the political footlights. 
 
 The preceding year had settled the habit by which the 
 Queen conveyed secret documents to the friend who as 
 regularly copied or translated them for her husband.^ So 
 far the chief of these had been the ' Chiifre de Galatone ' 
 transmitted to England at the close of April 1795.^ All 
 of them, however, principally related to the Spanish peace 
 with France then brewing in Madrid, of which the British 
 Government had gained other advices from their represen- 
 tative at the Spanish court. That even this, however, was 
 not quite a secret de Polichinelle, is shown by the scarcity of 
 
 1 He already offered Hamilton the use of his own courier, Eg. MS. 2639, ifl 
 303 and 304 et seq. 
 
 ''■ Spain she regarded as a pawn of France. Cf. her letter at the opening of 
 1796, where she tells Emma that Spain is so weak that if France ordered her to 
 knife her brother, she would do it. Egerton MS. 1615, f. 48. 
 
 * Morrison MS. 263. ^ Ibid. 259. 
 
 ^ On April 21, 1795, for example, the Queen sends three papers 'confiden- 
 tially,' 'which maybe useful to your husband.' Cf. Eg. MS. 1615, ff. 20-22, 
 containing another example. It is needless to multiply instances. One citation 
 only will illustrate Emma's initiative. In Hamilton's despatch of April 30, 
 1795, he says, 'However, Lady Hamilton having had the honour of seeing the 
 Queen yesterday morning, H.M. was pleased to promise me one, etc' In 
 another of the following year he speaks of documents being ' communicated ' to 
 him 'as usual.' 
 
 ^ Cf. Emma's transcript of this ciphered despatch, March 31, 1795, together 
 with the Queen's note forwarding it to her, Eg, MS. 1615, f. 22, and Emma's 
 reference to the courier and her having 'got into politicks,' April 19. Morrison 
 MS. 259, 263. On June 9 she copied another despatch from Galatone (Prince 
 Belmonte), ibid. 265. Much earlier in the year the Queen communicated 
 hidden information about Spain and rumours about Hood having got out of 
 Toulon, Eg. MS. 161 7, f. 3. 
 
'STATESWOMAN' 191 
 
 references to it in the Acton correspondence with Hamilton 
 of these very dates. Nor is it any answer to Emma's 
 activities, even in this and less material years, that she 
 voiced the Queen's urgent interest, because it is abundantly 
 manifest that the Queen, in her need, did for Emma what 
 she would never have done for Hamilton apart, while in re- 
 turn Emma doubtless communicated also Nelson's Mediter- 
 ranean information to Maria Carolina. She had suddenly 
 become a safe and trusted go-between, and none other at 
 this juncture could have performed her office. The supine 
 Sir William had at last been pricked into action. He had 
 now every incentive to earn the King of England's gratitude. 
 In a private missive to Lord Grenville of April 30, 179S, 
 alluding to the communication of this very 'cipher of 
 Galatone,' he himself asserts, ' Your Lordship will have 
 seen by my despatch of 21st April the unbounded con- 
 fidence which the Queen of Naples has placed in me and 
 my wife' ^ Emma could now advantage not only herself 
 and her country, but her royal friend and her own husband 
 — Triajuncta in uno. 
 
 But the position in the late summer of 1796 was far 
 more serious both for Naples and England than it had ever 
 been before. Acton had been dallying. During the interval 
 Ferdinand had been literally pelted with letters from 
 Charles, menacing, cajoling, persuading him. Already in 
 August Hamilton had communicated secrets respecting the 
 movements of the French and Spanish squadrons.^ Every 
 one knew that Spanish retirement from the European 
 Coalition was soon to be succeeded by some sort of league; 
 but nobody, either at Naples or in England, could ascer- 
 tain its exact conditions revealed to Ferdinand alone. If 
 it was to be (as it was) an alliance of offence, the issues 
 must prove momentous for Great Britain. All was kept 
 a profound secret. 
 
 About mid-September 1796 Charles the Fourth's final 
 
 ' Cited by Professor Laughton in his Nelson's Last Codicil (Colburn's United 
 Semice Magazine, April 1889) from P.R.O.and F.O. Records, Spain (1795), 
 388. 
 
 ^ Cf. the excerpt in Sotheby's catalogue of his autograph document sold in 
 May of this year (1905). It bears date August 16, 1796. 
 
192 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 epistle reached the hands of his Neapolitan brother.^ The 
 murder was out. The compact between the two courts 
 was fixed as one of war to the knife against the allied powers, 
 among whom England was wavering and Austria on the 
 verge of concluding a scandalous peace. Ferdinand, who 
 alone knew what was impending, must have chuckled 
 as he thought how he had worsted his masterful spouse. 
 If Emma could only clear up the mystery and the un- 
 certainty, England might be forearmed against the veiled 
 sequel of that long train of hidden pourparlers which she 
 had been able to discover and announce during the previous 
 year ; and in such a case she counted with assurance on 
 her country's gratitude towards her and her husband. 
 
 How the Queen or Emma, or both, obtained the loan of 
 this document, whether out of the King's pocket, as Emma 
 avers in her Prince Regent's memorial, and Pettigrew, with 
 embellishments, in hisZ^ of Nelson; or whether, according 
 to the posthumous Memoirs of Lady Hamilton, through a 
 bribed page, does not concern us. Such strokes of the 
 theatre are, at any rate, quite consistent with the atmosphere 
 of the court. The sole question is : Did she manage to 
 receive and transmit it ? 
 
 Professor Laughton, in trying to identify Emma's claim 
 with the occasion of Galatone's 'ciphered letter' of the 
 spring of 1795, has ignored somewhat the precise applica- 
 bility both of her own wording and Nelson's. The letter 
 to which I apply her pretensions, was in Spanish — a ' private 
 letter,' as they describe it, and not a 'letter in cipher' like 
 the one received from Galatone in the year preceding. 
 Moreover, it will be found on reference to the Appendix^ 
 that what Emma seems really to have distinguished herself 
 by procuring in 179S, was not so much the ' letter in cipher ' 
 as the clue for deciphering it, which has eluded the critics. 
 
 Is there any distinct circumstance in her favour to 
 counterweigh the hypotheses against her? One such exists 
 
 1 This was not the letter cited by Mr. Jeaffreson in his Queen of Naples and 
 Lord Nelson (vol. ii. p. 206), for this only states that since France has at last 
 got a moderate Government and the Jacobins are utterly ruined, he will begin 
 negotiations. The real document is a later one, as Mr. Jeaf&eson admits on the 
 next page. 
 
 " Note F. 
 
'STATESWOMAN' 193 
 
 of some weight. It relates to her statement that a private 
 messenger was despatched with the document to London. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton forwarded the critical news in a 
 ' secret ' despatch to Lord Grenville. It is dated September 
 21, 1796;^ and the bearer of it, as will be seen, started 
 on the 23rd. It should be observed that this lengthy epistle 
 is exceptional in only transmitting the purport of the letter, 
 and not, as habitually before and afterwards, either copies 
 of hazardous documents, or, in earlier cases, the originals 
 themselves.^ 
 
 On this very September 21st the Queen of Naples wrote 
 to thank Emma for putting at her service the unexpected 
 medium of 'the poor Count of Munster's courier,' available 
 through his employer's decease, though the usual couriers 
 were also at hand. She says that she will profit by the 
 opportunity, and that Emma shall receive her 'packet' 
 to-morrow.* Acton, once more addressing Hamilton on 
 September 22, and before this special courier had started, 
 begged him to include both his and the Queen's despatches 
 to Circello, Ambassador at St. James's, 'by the courier which 
 \sic\ goes to-morrow for London.' * 
 
 On this identical September 21, 1796, once again Lady 
 Hamilton herself sat down for a hurried chat with Greville. 
 ' We have not time,' she says, ' to write to you, as we have 
 been 3 days and nights writing to send by this courrier 
 letters of consequence for our Government. They ought to 
 be gratefull to Sir William and myself in particular, as my 
 situation in this Court is very extraordinary, and what no 
 person [h]as yet arrived at.' ^ 
 
 1 Cited from the P.R.O. by Professor Laughton. 
 
 " He had consistently so done heretofore. On April 28, 1795, for example, 
 Emma specially endorses the fact of her husband sending the original of the 
 Qaeen's letter to England. Eg. MS. 161 5, f. 22. On October 3 following, 
 divulging the secret articles of the Gallo-Hispanian treaty, he encloses Acton's 
 original letter (cf. Professor Laughton's article). Emma's own copy of the 
 succeeding secret articles between France and Naples remains too in her hand- 
 writing. Morrison MS. 289. The original must have been forwarded. In the 
 present case such a document must have been of necessity only lent to be copied 
 and returned without delay ; nor could the Queen have ever allowed her name 
 to transpire. It was her husband's secret, and probably purloined. 
 
 s Eg. MS. 161S, f. 50. * Eg. MS. 2639, f. 313 et seq. 
 
 s Morrison MS. 287. 
 
 N 
 
194 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 The coincidence of these combined statements of two 
 successive days suggests the 'poor Count of Munster's' 
 courier as the possible bearer both of official despatches 
 and of Emma's private copy of the King of Spain's most 
 crucial declaration.^ 
 
 There are two alternatives with regard to Hamilton's 
 exceptional omission to forward some copy at least of such 
 a document, and both are in Emma's favour. Either he 
 feared to do so, in which case Emma could truthfully 
 describe her husband's detailed rhumi oi the information 
 procured at her instance as the ' King of Spain's letter ' ; 
 or — as the whole course of their custom confirms — she 
 copied it verbatim and forwarded her copy by special 
 messenger, after hastily restoring the original through the 
 Queen to the unsuspecting King. In no case could it have 
 been suffered to remain long out of his possession. 
 
 Professor Laughton, pinning Lady Hamilton's claim to 
 the less grave issues of 179S, and not, as I hope to have 
 made clear, to their critical upshot on which the case is 
 here rested, has urged with some force that no such 
 document has yet been found in the British archives. But 
 I am convinced that he will be the first to admit that 
 many important documents are mentioned in the secret 
 despatches of Hamilton alone, which have not as yet come to 
 public light, if, indeed, they have not been destroyed ; more- 
 over, copies, and even originals, of official records, relating 
 to the period and the persons, have appeared in the auction- 
 rooms during recent years, and must have been parted with 
 by their recipients. The King of Spain's letter itself, how- 
 ever, exists elsewhere, and is familiar. Hamilton's rdsumi 
 of its contents in his despatch is so faithful and circum- 
 stantial as to warrant the certainty that he had seen it. 
 The Queen could not have lent it for long, and by 
 established habit must have done so through Emma. If 
 it was copied, Emma, by the same custom, must have been 
 its copyist. 
 
 ^ This is by no means the sole occasion of a special messenger being employed 
 in despatches to Lord Grenville. In one of 1795 Hamilton says his own servant 
 will take it as far as Rome (P.R.O., F.O. Records (Spain) 388, cited by 
 Professor Laughton). In another, that a ' person ' is conveying it. But none 
 of these are so exceptional as the chance courier in question. 
 
'STATESWOMAN' 195 
 
 Mr. Jeaffreson has further dwelt on the unlikelihood of 
 such a sum ^ as Emma names being spent on retaining the 
 messenger out of her private purse, when her allowance 
 was limited to ;^2C)0 a year. But this allowance was only 
 nominal. Had he scrutinised the Morrison Collection, he 
 would have seen that for some time she had been authorised 
 by her husband to overdraw her account in view of increas- 
 ing requirements.^ Minutiae, too, about Sir William's state 
 of health in September 1796 to refute her allegation of his 
 ill-health, at the time when she transmitted the contents of 
 the letter to England, seem to me out of place. He was 
 constantly in bed and out of it within a few days from the 
 opening of 1795 to the close of 1796. Everything, it must 
 be conceded, remains inconclusive. But the critic's whole 
 argument is also a balance of probabilities. All rests on 
 circumstantial evidence merely, and Professor Laughton 
 himself seems to have drawn mistaken inferences from the 
 documents of 1795.® 
 
 It is possible, of course, that this claim also may have 
 confused some of the events of the two years, especially 
 Hamilton's illness ; or, on the other hand, even that this 
 crucial letter of 1796 might have been forwarded by her 
 during the next month, when she is still to be found tran- 
 scribing documents, and endorsing effusive gratitude on one 
 of the Queen's letters.* But that her story, stripped of 
 accidentals, is a myth, I cannot bring myself to believe. 
 Even Lord Grenville, thirteen years afterwards, rejected 
 her claims on grounds far other than their fabrication.* 
 That during her future she proved often and otherwise 
 blameworthy, that her distant past had been soiled, are 
 scarcely reasons for discrediting the substance of her story 
 in the teeth of inferences as telling as have been marshalled 
 against it ; nor should Greville's repeated acknowledg- 
 
 ^ Hamilton in the succeeding November paid eighty ducats himself to a special 
 messenger conveying despatches to Bastia. Cf. Sotheby's catalogue of May 1 7, 
 1905, giving an excerpt from a document to that effect. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. '250; Caserta, December 18, 1794. 'He told me I might, 
 for I have so many occasions to spend my money that my 2 hundred pounds will 
 scarcely do for me.' 
 
 s Cf. Appendix, Note F. * Eg. MS. 1615, f. 62. 
 
 5 Cf. especially Canningjs letter to Rose, July 5, 1809. Rose's Diaries, 
 vol. i. p. 263, and post, chap. xv. 
 
196 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 merits of her natural candour be forgotten. To every 
 motive for political exertion had now been added immense 
 opportunity. There is ample reason why she should have 
 used it for her country's advantage. She was no dabbler. 
 She had wished to play a big part, and she was playing it. 
 She had every qualification for acquitting herself well in the 
 arena where she longed to shine, and promptitude alone 
 could ensure success. 
 
 Gloom deepened with the opening of the year 1797, but 
 it riveted the Neapolitan House faster to England. The 
 many French immigrants exulted. The pro-Spanish party 
 and all the Anglophobes became confident. Austria had 
 ignobly desisted,^ and her ministers were rewarded by 
 diamonds from the Pope.* Great Britain — hesitating though 
 she seemed — remained the sole champion against Buona- 
 parte. Lord St. Vincent's name and Nelson's rang 
 throughout Europe on the 'glorious Valentine's day,' and 
 Emma infused fresh hope in the downcast Queen. She 
 delighted to vaunt England's sinew and backbone. She 
 prevented Hamilton from relaxing his efforts, and kept him 
 at his post of honour. She was already ambitious for 
 Nelson. Maria Carolina at last divined that Buonaparte's 
 objective was the Mediterranean. But Nelson had divined 
 the aims of France earlier, when he wrote in October 1796, 
 ' We are all preparing to leave the Mediterranean, a measure 
 which I cannot approve. They at home do not know what 
 this fleet is capable of performing ; anything and every- 
 thing.'* But Downing Street, in the person of the narrow- 
 sighted Lord Grenville, still closed its eyes, shut its ears, 
 and hardened its heart. At Rome the French republicans 
 organised an uprising, and were driven for shelter into 
 Joseph Buonaparte's Palazzo Corsini. He himself was 
 
 ^ By the Peace of Campoformio Austria ceded the Low Countries to France ; 
 Milan, Mantua, Modena to the Cisalpine Republic. Venice was for the 
 moment left to the Emperor, but France regained the Ionian Islands. The 
 Peace of Tolentino turned the Romagna into a Republic. 
 
 ^ Dumas, p. 204. 
 
 2 Prof. Laughton's Nelson Letters and Despatchts, p. 109. The Neapolitan 
 peace with France, however, disgusted him, and made him think it time to be 
 o'S.—Ibid. p. 112. 
 
' STATESWOMAN ' 197 
 
 threatened, and Duphot was killed, by the Papal guard. 
 Eugfene Beauharnais made a sortie of vengeance. Napoleon 
 utilised the manceuvre to despatch General Berthier against 
 the Pope's dominions. By the February of the ensuing 
 year the Castle of St. Angelo was taken. On Ascension 
 Day the Pope himself, in the Forum, heard the shouts of 
 ' Viva la Republica ; abasso il Papa ! ' He did what other 
 weak pontiffs have done before and since. He protested 
 his ' divine right,' took his stand on it — and fled. Ousted 
 from Siena by earthquake, he retired to the Florentine 
 Certosa, where his rooms fronting that beautiful prospect 
 may still be viewed. Hounded out once more, he was 
 harried from pillar to post — from Tortona to Turin, from 
 Briangon to Valence — in the citadel of which, old and dis- 
 tressed, he breathed his last. 
 
 At home Maria Carolina now reversed her policy of the 
 knout. Vanni,^ the brutal Inquisitor of State, was deposed 
 and banished, the diplomatic Castelcicala was given a free 
 hand. All the captives were released. The Lazzaroni 
 cheered till they were hoarse over the magnanimity of their 
 rulers. 
 
 And Acton, relieved from the burdens of bureaucracy, at 
 last pressed Great Britain for a Mediterranean squadron. 
 He and the Queen had both determined that their forced 
 neutrality should be of short duration. 
 
 If we would appreciate Emma's influence for England at 
 Naples, the tone of his correspondence at this date should 
 be compared with his indifference during the earlier portion 
 of the preceding year. The Mediterranean expedition 
 which Nelson was to lead to such decisive triumph was far 
 more the fruit of Neapolitan importunities than of English 
 foresight. 
 
 Buonaparte had boasted that he would republicanise the 
 two Sicilies also. No sooner was Acton apprised of 
 the fact than he immediately invited Sir Gilbert Elliot, 
 who happened to be visiting Naples, to meet him and 
 ' His barbarities to victims were summed up in the Latin sentence, 'Torqueri 
 acriter adhibitis quatuor funiculis.' An adventurous Colonel Pisa, who was to 
 fight against Cardinal Ruffo in 1799, and would have been then executed but 
 for royal intervention, was his relative. — Cyrus Redding's Recollections, vol. ii. 
 P- 341- 
 
198 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the Hamiltons.1 He again murmured against Lord 
 Granville's 'chicane.' He assured Sir Gilbert that his 
 country had strained ' every sinew ' ' to move and engage 
 seventeen million Italians to defend themselves, their 
 property, and their honour'; all had been vain for lack 
 of extraneous assistance ; even their fleet had laboured 
 to no purpose ; in his quaint English, their ' head-shipman 
 had lost his head, if ever he had any.' ^ The case was now 
 desperate. All hinged on a sufficient Mediterranean 
 squadron. 'Any English man-of-war, to the number of 
 four at a time,' could still be provisioned in Sicilian pr 
 Neapolitan ports. Their compelled compact with France 
 allowed no more. And at a moment when the French 
 were disquieting Naples by insurgent fugitives from the 
 Romagna and elsewhere,* Napoleon's smooth speeches were, 
 said Acton, mere dissimulation. A ' change of masters ' 
 might soon ensue.* By the April of 1798 Acton was still 
 more explicit in his correspondence with Hamilton, A 
 fresh incursion was now definitely menaced. Naples was 
 being blackmailed. The Parisian Directors offered her 
 immunity, but only if she would pay them an exorbitant 
 sum ; otherwise she must be absorbed in the constellation 
 of republics,, while her monarch must join the debris of 
 falling stars. Viennese support was little more than a 
 forlorn hope for ravaged Italy. In the King's name he 
 implored Hamilton to forward an English privateer to 
 announce their desperate plight and urgent necessities 
 to Lord St. Vincent. — ' Their Majesties observe the 
 critical moment for all Europe, and the threatens \sic\ of an 
 invasion even in England. They are perfectly convinced 
 of the generous and extensive exertions of the British 
 nation at this moment, but a diversion in these points 
 might operate advantage for the common war. Will Eng- 
 land see all Italy, and even the two Sicilies, in the French 
 hands with indifference ? ' The half-hearted Emperor 
 had at last consented to think of assisting his relations, 
 
 ' Eg. MS. 2639, f. 369. 
 
 ''■ Hamilton smiles at Acton's English. — Eg. MS. 2640, f. 45. 
 ' Among these was Micheroux, who was to play such a fatal part in the 
 Jacobin capitulation of 1799. * Eg. MS. 2640, ff. i, 11, 15. 
 
' STATESWOMAN ' 199 
 
 though only should Naples be assailed ; this perhaps might 
 ' hurry England.' Seventeen ships of the line would soon 
 be ready ; there were seventy in Genoa, thirty at Civita 
 Vecchia. These could carry ' perhaps 8000 men.' But the 
 French at Toulon could convey 18,000. 'With the English 
 expedition we shall be saved. This is my communication 
 from their Majesties.' ^ 
 
 Hamilton's replies were bitterly cautious. ' We cannot, 
 however,' he observed, 'avoid to expose that His Sicilian 
 Majesty confides too much in His Britannic Majesty's 
 Ministry's help.' ^ 
 
 And all this time Emma is never from Maria Carolina's 
 side ; writing to her, urging, praising, heartening, caressing 
 the English. The Queen is all gratitude to her humble 
 friend, whose enthusiasm is an asset of her hopes : — ' Vous 
 en ^tes le maltre de mon cceur, ma ch^re miledy,' she 
 writes in her bad and disjointed French ; ' ni pour mes 
 amis, comme vous, ni pour mes opinions [je] ne change 
 jamais.' She is 'impatient for news of the English 
 squadron.' ^ But she is still a wretched woman, disquieted 
 by doubts and worn with care, as she may be viewed in the 
 portraits of this period. She had deemed herself a pattern 
 of duty, but had now woke up to the consciousness 
 of being execrated by her victims ; while the loyal 
 Lazzaroni, always her mislikers, visited each national 
 calamity on her head. Gallo, Acton, Belmonte, Castel- 
 cicala, Di Medici — all had been tried, and except Acton, 
 who himself had wavered, all had been found wanting; It 
 is the Nemesis of despots, even if enlightened, to rely suc- 
 cessively on false supports, to fly by turns from betrayed 
 trust to treachery once more trt^sted. Emma at all events 
 would not fail her, and never did. ' You may read,' says 
 Thackeray, ' Pompeii in some folks' faces.' Such a Pompeii- 
 countenance must have been the Queen's. 
 
 The English squadron was at last a fact. On March 29, 
 
 1 Eg. MS. 2640, ff. 45, 46, 48. 2 Eg. MS. 2640, f. 57, April 9. 
 
 2 Eg. MS. 1615, ff. 89, 69. Acton knew of it on May 19, 'Saturday morn- 
 ing.' Grenville had enjoined strict secrecy. Eg. MS. 2640, f. 63. On June 10 
 he wrote, ' With the good Admiral Nelson at the head of them, we must hope 
 the desired and long expected success.' 
 
200 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 1798, Nelson hoisted his flag as Rear- Admiral of the Blue 
 on board the Vanguard. On April 10 he sailed on one of 
 the most eventful voyages in history. 
 
 And meanwhile Maria Carolina, with Emma under her 
 wing, might be seen pacing the palace garden, and eagerly 
 scanning the horizon from sunny Caserta for a glimpse of 
 one white sail. 
 
 Sister Anne stands and waits on her watch-tower, 
 feverish for Selim's arrival, while anguished Fatima peers 
 into Bluebeard's cupboard, horror-stricken at its gruesome 
 medley of dismembered sovereigns — martyrs or tyrants — 
 which you please. 
 
Lady Hamilton as Euphrosvne. 
 
 From a Mezzotint by Hiiry after ike original picture by G. Romney. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TRIUMPH 
 
 1798 
 
 Nelson was in chase of Buonaparte's fleet. 
 
 Napoleon's Egyptian expedition was, perhaps, the great- 
 est wonder in a course rife with them. He was not yet 
 thirty ; he had been victorious by land, and had dictated 
 terms at the gates of Vienna. In Italy, like Tarquin, he 
 had knocked off the tallest heads first. Debt and jeal- 
 ousy hampered him at home. It was the gambler's first 
 throw, that rarest audacity. For years his far-sightedness 
 had fastened on the Mediterranean ; and now that Spain 
 was friends with France, he divined the moment for crush- 
 ing Britain. But even then his schemes were far vaster 
 than his contemporaries could comprehend. His plan was 
 to obtain Eastern Empire, to reduce Syria, and, after 
 recasting sheikhdoms in the dominion of the Pharaohs, 
 possibly after subduing India, to dash back and conquer 
 England. Italy was honeycombed with his republics. To 
 Egypt France should be suzerain, a democracy with 
 vassals ; as for Great Britain, if she kept her King, it must 
 be on worse terms than even Louis the Bourbon had once 
 dared to prescribe to the Stuarts. This, too, was the first and 
 only time when he, an unskilled mariner, was for a space 
 in chief naval command. Most characteristic was it also of 
 him — the encyclopaedist in action — to have remembered 
 science in this enterprise against science's home of origin. 
 That vast Armada of ships and frigates, that \\\xgQ L' Orient, 
 whose very name was augury, those forty thousand men in 
 transports, did not suffice. An array of savants, with all 
 their apparatus, swelling the muster on board their vessel 
 
 201 
 
202 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to no less than two thousand,^ accompanied the new man 
 who was to make all things new. It was nigh a month 
 after Nelson started when Napoleon sailed. Sudden as a 
 flash of lightning, yet impenetrable as the cloud from which 
 it darts, he veiled his movements and doubled in his course. 
 It was on Saturday, June i6, that Hamilton first sighted 
 Nelson's approach. The van of the small squadron of four- 
 teen sail was visible as it neared Ischia from the westward 
 and made for Capri.^ He at once took up his pen to send 
 him the latest tidings of the armament which, eluding his 
 pursuit, had now passed the Sicilian seaboard.* The glad 
 news of Nelson's arrival spread like wildfire. The French 
 residents mocked and scowled. The people cheered. The 
 solemn ministers smiled. The royal family, in the depths 
 of dejection,* plucked up heart ; the Queen was in 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 317. Much light is cast on these savants, and on the whole 
 Egyptian expedition, by Buonaparte's and his officers' letters, intercepted by 
 Nelson, and published in translation by 'J. Wright' in 1798. The expedition 
 itself was undertaken, despite treasuries drained already by the Italian campaign, 
 and the rapacity of its now dominant pioneers, who lavished the State's last gold 
 en route for Cairo, in bribing Malta. All Buonaparte's officers were bitterly 
 disappointed, and murmured against their commander for betraying them, going 
 back on his original pretext of pacification, and leaving them unpaid. The 
 savants were to discover 'the real Egypt.' On July 6 Buonaparte wrote to the 
 Directory, ' This country is anything but what travellers ... represent it to be.' 
 The Directory ' did not set much store by their savants ; they exported several 
 head of them to Cayenne.' It was hoped that the plunder of Malta would 
 reimburse some of the expense. The Directory's main object was to get rid of 
 their Italian army. ^ Eg. MS. 2640, f. 69. 
 
 = His letters both to Nelson and Lord St. Vincent (Morrison MS. 317, 318) 
 were partly founded on Acton's communication of ' Sunday, June 10' (Eg. MS. 
 2640, f. 67), announcing that part of the French fleet was ' between Marittimo 
 and the Favignana,' after being at Trapani, and was heading for Malta. 
 Buonaparte's interference there changed the whole situation and precipitated the 
 probability of an open breach between Naples and France. 
 
 * This has been made clear, I hope, in my previous chronicle. But, since it 
 has been doubted, I subjoin a few references to Acton's correspondence alone 
 (though the Queen's of this period is also most despairing), to show that 
 Nelson's expression on June 17th of ' this suffering family' was a commonplace 
 at the time. Cf. Eg. MS. 2640, ff. 53-56. ' We shall perish if such is our 
 destiny,' etc., f. 67. f. 71: — 'Our critical circumstances' — isolated on the 
 Continent — ' our hopes and, indeed, all our expectations of help and assistance 
 lay Isic] on the British squadron,' etc. f. 72: 'Our consolation.' f. 75: 
 ' Nelson's passage through Messina Straits,' 'a prodigious consolation.' 'We 
 are undoubtedly undone,' etc. On sighting the fleet, the Queen styled Nelson 
 'Conservateur.' — Eg. MS. 1615, f. 9S. And on June 20, as I shall shortly 
 
TRIUMPH 203 
 
 ecstasy.! But Gallo and the anti-English group were sus- 
 picious and perplexed. They and the King still waited on 
 Austria. On Spain they could no longer fawn. 
 
 Nelson's instructions were to water and provide his 
 fleet in any Mediterranean port, except in Sardinia,^ if 
 necessary by arms. It was not that for the moment he 
 needed refreshment for those scanty frigates, the want of 
 which, he wrote afterwards, would be found graven on his 
 heart. But he had a long and intricate enterprise before 
 him. He was hunting a fox that would profit by every 
 bend and crevice, so to speak, of the country. He could 
 not track him without the certainty that, apart from the 
 delays that force must entail, all his requirements, perhaps 
 for two months, would be granted on mere demand. Even 
 so early as June 12 he had requested definite answers from 
 Hamilton as to what precise aid he could count upon * from 
 a pseudo-neutral power trifling over diplomatic pedantries 
 with the slippery chancelleries of Vienna ; while on that 
 same day Hamilton had forwarded to Eden at Vienna a 
 despatch from Grenville emphasising the ^ necessity I as it 
 was now regarded at home, for ensuring the 'free and 
 unlimited' admission of British ships into Sicilian harbours, 
 and 'every species of provisions and supplies usually 
 afforded by an ally.'* Hamilton had tried in vain to 
 surmount an obstacle repugnant alike to France, to the 
 King, and to Austria. Nelson also knew too well the 
 barrier set against compliance by the terms of the fatal 
 Franco-Neapolitan pact of 1796. Not more than four 
 frigates at once might be received into any harbour of 
 Ferdinand's coasts. He knew that the Queen and her 
 
 notice, Hamilton adds a most significant and outspoken statement to a memo- 
 randum for his despatch, cf. fast, p. 212. But apart from these sidelights, 
 the fact might certainly have been discerned from Lord St. Vincent's letter to 
 Emma of May 22, 1798 : 'The picture you draw of the lovely Queen of Naples 
 and the Royal Family would rouse the indignation of the most unfeeling of the 
 creation. ... I am bound — by my oath of chivalry— to protect all who are 
 persecuted and distressed.' Cited by Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 117. 
 
 ' Cf. her impatience evidenced in her letter just before. Eg. MS. 161 5, 
 f. 99. 
 
 ^ Laughton's Letters and Despatches, p. 136. Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 119. 
 
 ? Laughton's Letters and Despatches, p. 137, 
 
 ^ Clarke and M 'Arthur, vol. ii. p. 263. 
 
204 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 friends were in the slough of despond. He knew too — for 
 the Hamiltons had been in continual correspondence — that 
 Austria was once more shilly-shallying. While Naples was 
 longing to break her neutrality, Austria, for the moment 
 satisfied with shame, was now secretly negotiating, with all the 
 long and tedious array of etiquette, preliminaries to a half- 
 hearted arrangement. Even in deliberation she would, as 
 we have seen, only succour Naples if Naples were attacked. 
 Against this Napoleon had guarded: so far as concerned 
 him and the present, Naples should be left in perilous peace. 
 He was content with the seeds of revolution that he had 
 stealthily sown. Even as he passed Trapani on his way to 
 Malta, which already by the loth of June he had invested, 
 and whose plunder he had promised to his troops, he 
 pacified the Sicilians with unlimited reassurances of good- 
 will.^ And Nelson knew well also that Maria Carolina and 
 Emma chafed under the fetters of diplomacy and of treaty 
 that shackled action. If only he could obtain some roving 
 mandate for his purpose, either through them — for the 
 Queen had rights in Council — or from Acton, rather than 
 the King still swayed by Gallo, he felt convinced of success. 
 Otherwise, should emergencies arise within the next few 
 weeks, as arise they must, he would perforce hark back to 
 Gibraltar ; and in such a water-hunt of views and checks 
 as he now contemplated, delay might spell failure, and 
 failure his country's ruin. 
 
 At about six o'clock by Neapolitan time,^ on a lovely 
 June morning,^ Captains Troubridge and Hardy landed 
 from the Mutine, which, together with the Monarch, com- 
 manded by Captain T. Carrol,* lay anchored in the bay, 
 leaving Nelson in the Vanguard with his fleet ofif Capri. 
 Troubridge, charged with important requests by Nelson, 
 at once proceeded to the Embassy. 
 
 ' Cf. Eg. MS. 2640, ff. 67, 71. 
 
 "^ It is curious that the critics who quibble over the discrepancy between the 
 earlier time alleged by Lady Hamilton fifteen years later in her ' Prince 
 Regent's ' memorial, and that given by the ship's log-book (allowing for the 
 difference of log-British and London time), should never even have thought of 
 the difference in Neapolitan time. In the 'King's' memorial no time is 
 specified. 
 
 ^ Sunday, June 17. The day of the week is mentioned in several of the 
 letters. * Cf. Add. MS. 34>989. f- i- 
 
TRIUMPH 205 
 
 Our interrupting critics have stubbornly disputed step by 
 step Lady Hamilton's after allegations ; and even these, as 
 will be shown, they seem to have misread ; nor have they 
 noted her simpler account in her ' King's Memorial,' still 
 less Nelson's repeated assurances about her 'exclusive 
 interposition' to Rose, Pitt's favourable consideration. 
 Canning's own acknowledgment, the acquiescence even of 
 Grenville, and a remarkable statement by Lord Melville, 
 afterwards to be mentioned.^ I shall endeavour by close 
 comparison to reconstruct what really happened out of 
 Lady Hamilton's valuable manuscript correspondence with 
 Nelson, and Acton's with Hamilton. More relating to 
 the whole complicated subject are discussed in Note G. 
 of the Appendix. The present narrative must be confined 
 to results alone, though, at the same time, I feel bound to 
 substantiate them by material evidence. 
 
 Emma and her husband were awakened by their early 
 visitors, who included Hardy and, perhaps, Bowen. 
 Hamilton arose hurriedly, and took all of them together ^ 
 to Acton's neighbouring house, where an irregular council * 
 was held, at which the mincing and shifty Gallo, as foreign 
 minister, was also present. Troubridge, as Nelson's mouth- 
 piece, stated his requirements.* Gallo seems to have 
 hummed and hawed. The whole arrangement with the 
 court of Vienna now lagging under his procrastination, 
 would be spoiled if Naples were prematurely to break with 
 France, and an open breach must be certain if succour for 
 the whole of Nelson's fleet were empowered at the Sicilian 
 ports in contravention of the burdensome engagement with 
 the French Directory; while it would further be implied 
 that the British fleet was at the Neapolitan service. Re- 
 course to the King would not only be dangerous, but 
 
 ' Cf. post, chap. XV. ; Rose's Diaries, vol. i. p. 245 et seq. ; Morrison MS. 
 804. 
 
 " Hardy, and perhaps Bowen (then staying with the Ambassador), seem to 
 have been present at the council, as well as Troubridge. Cf. Acton's letter to 
 Hamilton of June 22, Eg. MS. 2640, where he speaks of the Sunday 'council' 
 as including the ' British officers' 
 
 ' It was followed after the French protest by a formal council on the 22nd, v. 
 Hat close of note 5, p. 207. 
 
 ■» On this very day Nelson told Hamilton, ' Troubridge will say everything 
 I could put in a ream of paper.' Morrison MS. 319. 
 
206 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 probably futile ; the more so, since the French minister at 
 Naples was now citizen Garat, a pedant, pamphleteer, and 
 lecturer of the straitest sect among busybodying theorists. 
 Such a man would be, urged Gallo, the loudest in umbrage 
 at even the appearance of pro-British zeal. Acton rebutted 
 these objections by observing that the ' order ' need not be 
 signed by Ferdinand, but merely informally by himself 'in 
 the King's name ' ; as, in fact, a sort of roving ' credential ' ; ^ 
 that it could be so worded as to imply no breach of treaty 
 but only the refreshment of four ships at a time ; that the 
 governors of the ports might be separately instructed to 
 offer a show of resistance if more were demanded of them;^ 
 that Garat need never know what had transpired till the 
 moment came when Austria had signed her pact with 
 Naples, and France might be dared in the face of day ; 
 Troubridge's reception could be represented as no more 
 than a civility which Acton paid to every English 
 visitor under Hamilton's protection. All must be 'under 
 the rose,' and thus far only could Nelson be obliged. To 
 Nelson's further requisition for frigates a polite non 
 possumus was the only answer. Pending these delicate 
 Austrian negotiations, and until an open rupture with 
 France was possible with safety, Naples was in urgent need 
 of a permanent fleet in the Mediterranean,^ and this, quid 
 pro quo. Nelson naturally would not bind himself to con- 
 cede, though, so far as his instructions and the situation 
 warranted, he was ready, even eager, to do so.* 
 
 This half-formal but scarcely effectual 'order' was obtained. 
 
 There exists an original draft of Hamilton's official 
 recital of what passed to Lord Grenville. Its alterations 
 
 ^ Hamilton's own words of it to Nelson. ' The letter. Captain Troubridge and 
 I got from General Acton I look upon as a sort of credeniial,' eic. Morrison 
 MS. 322. Hamilton to Nelson, June 26, 1796. 
 
 ^ Cf. Morrison MS. 318 (Hamilton to Lord St. Vincent) : 'Meantime every 
 concealed assistance will be given to the British fleet, on which the very existence 
 of this monarchy depends at this moment.' — Cf. ibid. 327 (a copy). The original 
 must have been sent elsewhere. It refers to the just-concluded defensive alliance 
 with Austria opening the ports to the British squadron, but continues : ' Our 
 demands for the respective garrisons are but an excuse to give in case of a 
 rupture, to show that we are, in a kind, forced to admit them above the fixed 
 number.' 
 
 s Eg. MS. 2640, ff. 71, 7S. * Morrison MS. 320. 
 
TRIUMPH 207 
 
 and interlineations are most instructive. Here I will single 
 out but one sentence. ' This order,' he writes, interlineating 
 only 'in the Kin^s Name,' was immediately given. The 
 'immediately' is erased.^ It was not such a plain-sailing 
 affair as it seemed. 
 
 ' We did more business in half an hour,' wrote Hamilton 
 in a final despatch to the same minister, ' than we should 
 have done in a week in the usual official way. Captain 
 Troubridge went straight to the point. ... I prevailed 
 upon General Acton to write himself an order in the name 
 of His Sicilian Majesty, directed to the governors of every 
 port in Sicily, to supply the King's ships with all sorts of 
 provisions, and in case of an action to permit the British 
 seamen, sick or wounded, to be landed and taken proper 
 care of in their ports.' ^ The draft, however, contains a 
 telling supplement. ' He expressed only a wish to get 
 sight of Buonaparte and his army, " for," said he, " By God, 
 we shall lick them!' ' ^ Before Nelson's officers departed, 
 they received also from Hamilton's hands Gallo's fatuous 
 replies to their Admiral's questions of five days before.* 
 
 Troubridge was perforce 'satisfied,'^ but within an hour 
 
 > Eg. MS. 263s, f. 287. 
 
 ^ Sir William's despatch to Lord Grenville, June 18, 1798. Cited from the 
 P.R.O. by Professor Laughton in Colburn's United Service Magazine, May 
 1889. 3 Eg. MS. 263s, f. 289. 
 
 * This new fact appears from yet another oraft of Hamilton's despatch sold 
 at Sotheby's, July 8, 1905. 
 
 ^ The word 'satisfied' occurs both in Hamilton's official letter to Lord St. 
 Vincent of June 17 (Morrison MS. 318), and in Acton's to Hamilton of June 18 
 (Eg. MS. 2640, f. 71). The preceding account is the purport of the light cast 
 on what Hamilton describes in his official letters by Acton's letters to him of 
 the day following and the 22nd, when a regular council was held. Eg. MS. 
 2640, ff. 71, 72, 73, 75. The two latter are very important. In the first he 
 acknowledges an unsurviving communication from Hamilton of the night previous 
 (June 21) — four days, be it noticed, after Troubridge had received the secret but 
 formal mandate. 
 
 It establishes : 
 . (i) (By implication), that something had happened known to Hamilton but 
 '^unknown to Acton. 
 
 (2) That something had led to a demand for co-operation with the English by 
 Naples. 
 
 (3) That even Acton could not gain the grant of this, until the secret 
 negotiations with Austria were concluded. 
 
 (4) That Acton considered Buonaparte's presence at Malta a mere means 
 
2o8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 he was joyful.^ Something else, something informal, some- 
 thing surprising had happened. The King was probably 
 asleep. Emma had rushed to the Queen, for they both 
 knew how little such a conclave would probably achieve ; 
 and Gallo's attendance of itself was enough to deter Acton 
 from straightforward compliance. Nelson might fancy this 
 council's ' order ' a quick passport to his desires. But they 
 knew its formal flourishes to be most misleading. In 
 the result, indeed, it proved of itself most disappointing.^ 
 Emma's own after-story is that she besought Maria Carolina, 
 with tears and on bended knees, to exercise her preroga- 
 tive and supplement the mandate by the promise of direct 
 instructions. From after events and from inveterate habit 
 the dramatic scene is probable. Years afterwards, she 
 added that her husband wrote to Nelson, ' You will receive 
 from Emma herself what will do the business and procure 
 all your wants.' ^ One can see this impulsive woman clap- 
 ping her hands for joy, and singing aloud with exultation. 
 Within two hours Troubridge and Hardy had rowed back 
 to the Mutine and rejoined their Admiral. 
 
 Within a few hours at any rate Emma, throbbing with 
 excitement, penned two hasty notes to Nelson himself, 
 both included in her newly found correspondence of this 
 year. Each — and they are brief — must be repeated here, 
 for the second of them disposes of the version, hitherto 
 
 for him to get possession of Naples. (In this view Nelson then agreed. Cf. 
 Morrison MS. 319.) 
 
 (S) That the Malta affair must inevitably now lead to an open rupture with 
 France. 
 
 With regard to point (3), Acton's most important letter to Hamilton of 
 June 25, Eg. MS. 2640 (f. 75) and of August I following (Morrison MS. 327) 
 should also be compared. This letter was forwarded by him to Nelson {ibid. 
 328). The second shows that the mandate handed to Troubridge on June 17 was 
 informally obtained, and that the French protests occasioned its formal consider- 
 ation in council on the 22nd. 
 
 ' The expression in Hamilton's draft of his despatch is ' in high good humour.'' 
 
 2 Cf. Eg. MS. 2640, f. 76 (Acton to Hamilton, June 28, 1798). 
 
 ^ Cf. Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 612. Seeing that the suspected and Emma-prompted 
 Harrison omits this altogether, and also that Pettigrew further on correctly 
 alludes to the letter that I have discovered, and shall shortly mention as the one 
 to which Nelson's hitherto disputed letter of June 17 was the immediate answer, 
 I incline to believe that Pettigrew had seen the manuscript. As will appear, 
 there are several of Emma's disputed assertions as to words used which can be 
 now substantiated. 
 
TRIUMPH 209 
 
 accepted, that Nelson never received that from the Queen 
 which his famous letter to Lady Hamilton represents him 
 as ' kissing ' ; while the first suggests a likelihood that this 
 thrilling day did not close before Emma had managed 
 to see Nelson himself at Capri.^ Both these letters are 
 scrawled in evident haste. 
 
 \\TthJune 1798.] 
 ' My dear Admiral, — I write in a hurry as Captain T. 
 Carrol ^ stays on Monarch. God bless you, and send you 
 victorious, and that I may see you bring back Buonaparte 
 with you. Pray send Captain Hardy out to us, for I shall 
 have a fever with anxiety. The Queen desires me to say 
 everything that's kind, and bids me say with her whole 
 heart and soul she wishes you victory. God bless you, my 
 dear Sir. I will not say how glad I shall be to see you. 
 Indeed I cannot describe to you my feelings on your being 
 so near us. — Ever, Ever, dear Sir, Your afifte. and gratefull 
 
 Emma Hamilton.'* 
 
 But now comes a decisive epistle, the missing link, bear- 
 ing in mind Nelson's disputed answer to it, which the 
 critics have racked their brains to transfer to the following 
 May — a date, by the by, historically most inapplicable.* 
 Theory, however, must here yield to this piece of reality on 
 a scrap of notepaper. 
 
 The letter, written very hurriedly, is on the same paper 
 and evidently of the same date as its predecessor : — 
 
 ' Dear Sir, — I send you a letter I have received this 
 moment from the Queen. Kiss it, and send it back by 
 Bowen, as I am bound not to give any of her letters. — Ever 
 your Emma.' ^ 
 
 1 In her letter to Nelson of September 8 of this year she beseeches him to 
 'rejoin them.' Cf. Add. MS. 34,989, ff. 3-6, and see the letter itself in the 
 Appendix. 
 
 ^ According to Byrne, Carrol was on the Syren in 1797-1799. 
 
 ^ Add. MS. 34,989, f. I. Addressed 'Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson,' indorsed 
 • Lady Hamilton, 17th June 1798.' The indorsement leaves no doubt as to the date. 
 
 * On 'May' (as the letter is misdated without question) 17, 1798, the 
 Neapolitan royalties were 'suffering.' On May 17, 1799, they were almost 
 assured of Nelson's fleet as their avengers at Naples, nor was a 'battle' imminent, 
 
 ^ Add. MS. 34,989, f. 3. Two more in this series are so signed. Cf. fast, 
 App., pp. 49S> 500- 
 
 O 
 
2ro EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Captain Bowen of the Transfer had brought Hamilton 
 despatches from Lord St. Vincent just a week before, aod 
 was his guest until the 2nd of August subsequent.'^ 
 
 The fact that Emma begs for the letter's return indicates 
 that it was one of importance, and might compromise the 
 Queen. After the battle of the Nile Emma sent Nelson 
 two of the Queen's ordinary letters about him, as a token 
 of gratitude, and without any request for their redelivery.^ 
 
 This missive from the Queen seems to have been one 
 promising Nelson some further document of direct in- 
 structions to the governors of ports in event of future 
 urgency. As will appear in the course of our chronicle, 
 all the probabilities point to such a letter being in Nelson's 
 possession afterwards at Syracuse on July 19-23, as a 
 potent alternative if Acton's orders missed fire, and also 
 as a pledge of instant commands to the governors, should 
 its own efficacy prove unavailing. 
 
 After-evidence points further to the King's entire and 
 lasting ignorance of a transaction behind his back, and in 
 the teeth of his prejudices. If the fleet was watered, he 
 was to remain hoodwinked, and to imagine that Acton's 
 guarded ' order ' in his name had proved efficacious. 
 
 ^ Bowen acted as Lord St. Vincent's intermediary with Hamilton. For the 
 facts in the text are proved by the following manuscripts, Eg. MS. 2640, f. 67, 
 where Acton, on June 10, 1798 (Sunday), thanks Hamilton for ' Bowen's news.' 
 And cf. ibid. 73, where, on June 22, he would seem to have been present at a 
 council ; cf. also ibid. ff. 63, 78. Also cf. for the date of his arrival a week 
 before, Eg. MS. 2638, f. 287, Morrison MS. 317, where on June 16, 1798, 
 Hamilton writes to Nelson that he hopes the despatches sent by Lord St. 
 Vincent by Bowen will reach him (which they did not, as Nelson arrived off 
 Naples sooner than was anticipated) ; and ibid. 328, which mentions Bowen's 
 departure August 2, 1798. On this very June 17 Hamilton tells Lord St. 
 Vincent, ' I look on my having detained Captain Bowen so long as a fortunate 
 circUinstance, as I am by it enabled to give intelligence,' etc. Bowen must not 
 be confused with his better-known brother, who died in the attack of Teneriffe 
 in 1797, and whose ' bag of doubloons ' Nelson forwarded home. He was the 
 Bowen shortly to be promoted at Hamilton's request by Lord St. Vincent, and 
 for whose preferment Nelson was to press the Admiralty in vain during 1801-2. 
 Cf. Add. MS. 34,992, f. 112. Nelson recommended him for the Ocean. In 1801 
 Nelson specially requested Emma to tell him that he was wanted for the Boulogne 
 Flotilla (Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 151). In later days he often visited Merton, and 
 he stayed with the Boltons just before he died. Cf. post, chap. xv. 
 
 2 Cf. Add. MS. 34,989, f. 3, September 8, 1798. The letter will be found 
 in the first new series given in the Appendix to this volume. 
 
Y""^ cv^><J^ "H^vj^ «i,Ar<ovCtL ^^ ^ WvTlX, 
 
TRIUMPH 211 
 
 The immediate reply and pendant to this cheering com- 
 munication was Nelson's familiar and much-debated letter 
 written an hour before he weighed anchor : — 
 
 ' Mv DEAR Lady Hamilton, — / have kissed the Queen's 
 letter. Pray say I hope for the honor of kissing her hand 
 when no fears will intervene, assure her Majesty that no 
 person has her felicity more than myself at heart and that the 
 sufferings of her family will be a Tower of Strength on the 
 day of Battle, fear not the event, God is with us, God Bless 
 you and Sir William, pray say I cannot stay to answer his 
 letter. — Ever Yours faithfully, HORATio NELSON.' ^ 
 
 On this (still visible in the British Museum)^ Emma's 
 after-indorsement runs, ' This letter I received after I had 
 sent the Queen's letter for receiving our ships into their 
 ports, for the Queen had decided to act in opposition to the 
 King, who would not then break with France, and our 
 Fleet must have gone down to Gibraltar to have watered, 
 and the battle of the Nile would not have been fought, for 
 the French fleet would have got back to Toulon.' She is 
 reviewing the whole length of the transaction, the critical 
 issues at Syracuse of next month on Nelson's first return 
 from Egypt, the ultimate victory. She does the same in 
 other parts of her two long memorials. The critics have 
 twisted her statements into post-dating Nelson's momentous 
 visit to the time when he returned from pursuit for supplies 
 to Sicily and resailed equipped to Aboukir Bay.^ Emma's 
 statement of the historical situation at this date in Naples 
 
 ' This letter is misdated in the hurry (as was often the way with Nelson), 
 17th May, 6 p.m. Professor Laughton admits, of course, that on that day he 
 was off Cape Side, so that if applicable to 1798, it must be a slip of the pen for 
 June 17. I have now proved that it is. 
 
 2 Eg. MS. 1614. 
 
 ^ In her ' Addington' memorial of 1803 (Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 131) she 
 puts the matter quite clearly : — ' The fleet itself, I can truly say, could not have 
 got into Sicily, but for what I was happily able to do with the Queen of Naples, 
 and through her secret instructions so obtained/ 
 
 The material wording of the familiar 'PrinceRegent's ' memorial runs : ' It was 
 at this awful period in June 1798, about three days after the French fleet passed 
 by for Malta \this is true']. Sir William and myself were awaken'd at six o'clock 
 in the morning by Captain Trowbridge with a letter from Sir Horatio Nelson, 
 then with his fleet off the bay near to Caprea, requesting that the Ambassador 
 would procure him permission to enter with his fleet into Naples or any of the 
 
212 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 is verified up to the hilt by Acton's correspondence with 
 Hamilton. 
 
 A note has already refuted the assertion that at this 
 moment the royal family were not in distress. To the 
 ample manuscript authorities there included, may be here 
 added the postscript to the draft for Hamilton's known 
 despatch of June 17. 'This Court,' it runs, 'as you may 
 perceive, is in great distress.'^ The word employed cor- 
 responds to Nelson's ' sufferings.' 
 
 I have now been able to prove that this long-questioned 
 Nelson letter was, undoubtedly, the instant answer to 
 Emma's own communication, for the first time here brought 
 to light. The twin letters are at length reunited, and at 
 
 Sicilian ports, to provision, water, etc., as otherwise he must run for Gibraltar, 
 being in urgent want [i.e. if he should be in urgent want], and that, conse- 
 quently, he would be obliged to give over all further pursuit of the French fleet, 
 which he missed at Egypt [i.e. which in the event he actually did miss\, on 
 account of their having put in to Malta.' 
 
 That this is Emma's real meaning is shown by the opening sentence in which 
 she is quite aware that Buonaparte was en route for Malta when that happened 
 which she describes. 
 
 The wording of her King's memorial (here again ignored), which seems 
 never to have heen presented, is more clearly expressed and more ex- 
 plicit: — 'That Your Majesty's Memorialist on a subsequent occasion, by 
 means of the same confidential communication with that great and good 
 woman, the Queen of Naples, had the unspeakable felicity of procuring a 
 secret order for victualling and watering, at the port of Syracuse, the fleet 
 of Your Most Gracious Majesty under the command of Admiral Nelson ; by 
 which means that heroic man, the pride and glory of his King and country, 
 was enabled to proceed the second time to Egypt \observe that she distinctly 
 says the June order enabled him to get his wants supplied afterwards'] with a 
 promptitude and celerity which certainly hastened the glorious battle of the 
 Nile, and occasioned his good and gratefiil heart to admit your humble 
 Memorialist as well as the Queen of Naples to a participation in that important 
 victory.' Her words speak for themselves to every unprejudiced mind. 
 
 The wording of Nelson's codicil is : — 
 
 ' Secondly, the British fleet under my command could never have returned a 
 second time to Egypt had not Lady Hamilton's influence with the Queen of 
 Naples caused letters to be wrote to the Governor of Syracuse, that he was 
 to encourage the fleet to be supplied with every thing, should they put into any 
 port in Sicily. We put into Syracuse, and received every supply; went to 
 Egypt and destroyed the French fleet. Could I have rewarded these services, 
 I would not now call upon my country.' 
 
 This supplies the nature of the 'Queen's letter' — probably a. promise to supply 
 letters in case of the need which happened in July. Surely Nelson was well 
 aware of the worth of Emma's assistance. 
 1 Eg. MS. 263s, f. 267. 
 
TRIUMPH 213 
 
 least a new complexion is placed on the received account. 
 Emma in this crucial instance speaks bare truth. The 
 critics, in this respect anyhow, have erred. From them she 
 now claims, not generosity, but justice. I cannot but feel 
 sure that the most eminent of her living detractors will now 
 make her his tardy amends, and will honour Nelson, whose 
 love for Emma has been begrudged as debasement, by 
 admitting that what he claimed in his last codicil for the 
 woman of his heart was neither ' infatuation ' nor falsehood, 
 and that without her it would hardly have happened. 
 
 Scarcely had Nelson put to sea when he at once re- 
 sumed communication with the Hamiltons. He wishes the 
 Neapolitans to depend upon him. If only supplies are 
 forthcoming when his need presses, his fleet shall be their 
 mainstay. He laments his lack of frigates, but ' thank God,' 
 he adds, ' I am not apt to feel difficulties.' He confides to 
 Lady Hamilton his hope to be ' presented ' to her ' crowned 
 with laurels or cypress.'^ He presses them to exert them- 
 selves in procuring for him masts and stores. He depre- 
 cates the diplomatic quibbles about 'co-operation,' while 
 lagging Austria manoeuvres, and after he himself has come 
 in crisis to their assistance. He points out the peril from 
 Napoleon at Malta, he repeats, ' Malta is the direct road to 
 Sicily.' ^ The two Sicilies are the key of the position. 
 
 And, indeed, the catastrophe of Malta formed the dirge 
 of all this latter end of June. The Queen was distracted at 
 the royal and ministerial delays and punctilios. La Valette 
 was in French hands ' without a shot,' the Maltese knights — 
 ces coquins de Franqais — were dastards, and she could not pity 
 them. She sent her ' dear,faithfur Emma the Austrian ciphers 
 to copy under vows of secrecy : Emma will see how little sin- 
 cerity exists in Vienna. Emma is indispensable. Emma has 
 infused her whole being with Nelson. The Queen bade her 
 shout and sing once more before the assembled throng, 'Hip, 
 hip, hip! ' ' God save the King ! ' and ' God save Nelson ! ' in 
 Miss Cornelia Knight's additional stanza to the National 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 320. These words point, I think, to their having been used 
 by her. Henceforward Nelson constantly uses poetical phrases in his letters, 
 quoting also often from Shakespeare, though without any marks of quotation. 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 321. 
 
214 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Anthem. She harped on Malta, ' an irreparable loss,' and 
 ' gallant Nelson, with his British fleet,' which she strained her 
 mind's eye to follow past Cape Passaro.^ And above all, she 
 publicly recognised Emma's initiative. She reminded her 
 that the British deliverers should have all they want, and she 
 appointed her as deputy to receive the Maltese petitioners 
 for aid.^ 
 
 Nor was Hamilton behindhand. He furnished Nelson 
 with continual advices. He informed him how Napoleon 
 had quitted * Malta garrisoned ; how Garat had insolently 
 demanded supplies, and had been peremptorily refused, 
 How the struggle was fast shaping itself into Anglo-Sicily 
 against France and Spain. He sent him Captain Hope 
 with Irish intelligence. He looked hourly for news of the 
 French Armada's overthrow.* 
 
 Lady Hamilton also continued her correspondence. She 
 thanks him for his letter through Captain Bowen, which she 
 has translated for the Queen, who ' prays for ' his ' honour and 
 safety — victory, she is sure, you will have ' ; she ' sees and 
 feels ' all Nelson's grounds for complaint, — so does Emma, 
 who calls Garat ' an impudent, insolent dog.' ' I see 
 plainly,' she adds with emphasis, ' The Court of Naples must 
 declare war, if they mean to save their country. But alas ! 
 their First Minister [with sarcasm] Gallo is a frivolous, 
 ignorant, self-conceited coxcomb, that thinks of nothing but 
 his fine embroidered coat, ring and snuff-box ; and half 
 Naples thinks him half a Frenchman ; and God knows, if 
 one may judge of what he did in making the peace for the 
 Emperor, he must either be very ignorant, or not attached 
 to his masters or the Cause Commune. The Queen and 
 Acton cannot bear him, and consequently he cannot have 
 much power ; but still a First Minister, although he may be 
 a minister of smoke, yet he has always something, at least 
 enough to do mischief. The Jacobins have all been lately 
 declared innocent, after suffering four years' imprisonment ; 
 and I know, they all deserved to be hanged long ago ; and 
 since Garat has been here, and through his insolent letters 
 to Gallo, these pretty gentlemen, that had planned the death 
 
 ^ Eg. MS. 1615, ff. 9S, 100, 102, 103, 107. 2 Ibid. f. loj. 
 
 ' June 19. " Morrison MS. 323. 
 
TRIUMPH 215 
 
 of their Majesties, are to be let out in society again. In 
 short, I am afraid, all is lost here ; and I am grieved to the 
 heart for our dear, charming Queen, who deserves a better 
 fate. ... I hope you will not quit the Mediterranean without 
 taking us. . . . But yet, I trust in God and you, that we 
 shall destroy those monsters before we go from hence. 
 God bless you, my dear, dear sir.' ^ 
 
 And meanwhile Nelson, in hot pursuit, scoured the 
 Mediterranean — Malta, Candia, Alexandria, Syria — in vain. 
 The commander of both fleet and army, with genius, youth, 
 and Corsican strategy to back him, still baffled the daring 
 ' sea-wolf,' as he always called him. Nelson lived ' in hopes,' 
 he never rested. But ' the Devil's children have the Devil's 
 luck,' as he and Hamilton both assured each other. 
 
 The 19th ^ of July saw him back at Syracuse in recoil 
 for his last spring, and in the very need against which 
 his foresight had forearmed him. He lacked both stores 
 and water. He seemed as far from his goal as when he 
 started. 
 
 Let him speak for himself. Writing from Egypt in 
 retrospect, he told Hamilton : ' . . . I stretched over to the 
 coast of Caramania ; where not speaking a vessel who could 
 give me information, I became distressed for the kingdom 
 of the two Sicilies ; and having gone a round of six 
 hundred leagues, at this season of the year (with a single 
 ship, with an expedition incredible), here I am, as ignorant 
 of the situation of the enemy as I was twenty-seven days 
 ago! '8 
 
 Now was the time for the Queen's ' open sesame,' if both 
 Acton's 'order' and her own 'letter' of promise failed to 
 operate with expedition. That such a letter was in Nelson's 
 pocket will be inferred from the subsequent narrative. 
 
 While Nelson nears the Syracusan harbour bar, once 
 more the modern critics intercept our view, and must for a 
 moment delay our story. They will not do so long, because 
 one of the documents on which their controversy relies will 
 
 ^ 'June 30, 1798.' Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 181. This letter has escaped 
 attention. 
 
 * As r^ards a few of his ships only. He came into port on the 20th. 
 ' July 20, 1798. Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 232 ; Nicholas in. , 46. 
 
216 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 enable us to resume our thread. But two preliminaries 
 must first be mentioned. 
 
 It is most important to distinguish between the official 
 and the private letters of Nelson and Hamilton — the former 
 meant to be shown to others, the latter written for the 
 recipient alone; and, more especially, between these two 
 distinct classes of correspondence, and those other half- 
 private letters intended for Hamilton to show Acton in con- 
 fidence, and yet hinting or suggesting more than the General 
 was meant to gather from them. 
 
 It has also escaped notice that for some time past a 
 private correspondence had regularly passed between Nel- 
 son and the Hamiltons.^ This is clear from a letter (soon to 
 be quoted) from Nelson to Lady Hamilton in the Morrison 
 Collection of July 22, where he inquires after her plans for 
 ' coming down the Mediterranean ' with her husband to help 
 him.^ 
 
 Before repeating his inmost emotions expressed in his 
 letters to the Hamiltons, let us glance at a little farce en- 
 acted with exquisite gravity by the Governor of Syracuse. 
 
 It is founded on a document* addressed by him to Sir 
 William Hamilton. I draw from it, in context with the 
 hidden political undercurrent and the private letters which 
 followed, inferences contrary to Professor Laughton's. And 
 I venture to" think that he himself would never have drawn 
 his own conclusions, had he realised that General Acton, 
 days after handing the informal 'order,' had expressly 
 cautioned Hamilton that, pending the as yet unsigned 
 articles with Austria, all the governors of all Sicilian ports 
 had been specially directed to make a show of resistance, 
 lest the French might be incensed into attack by any open 
 breach of the stipulated Neapolitan neutrality.* Above all, 
 
 ^ Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 235. ' . . . Your letters for me are re- 
 turned to Naples. What a situation am I placed in ! . . . ' These letters are 
 non-extant. They were probably on Nelson's side, through the medium of 
 Captain Hope, mentioned in Hamilton's official letter to Nelson of June 30th. 
 — Morrison MS. 323. 
 
 '^ Morrison MS. 325. * Now in the P.R.O. It is dated July 22, 1798. 
 
 * Morrison MS. 327 (General Acton to Hamilton), August I, 1798. The 
 substance of this necessity was again repeated officially by Hamilton to Grenville 
 in a dry despatch recounting the occurrences. Hamilton to Grenville, August 
 
TRIUMPH 217 
 
 it should be noted that this Governor's letter to the English 
 Ambassador at Naples seems to distinguish between a 
 royal despatch signed by Acton, and a royal letter in Nelson's 
 possession. And it must be repeated that Sicily — well 
 disposed towards Great Britain — was throughout jealous of 
 Naples, and proud of its individual independence. 
 
 The whole scene rises vividly before us. On the morning 
 of Thursday the 19th 'several ships' were seen sailing in 
 slow procession from the east. Gradually fourteen emerged 
 from ' the distance.' As they became more distinct in the 
 freshening east wind, the Governor ordered the castle flag 
 to be hoisted, and the British flag was instantly flown in 
 reply. 
 
 The Governor next sent out his boat with the ' Captain 
 of the Port' and the 'Adjutant of the Town,' civilians 
 charged with compliments and offers. Nelson, however, 
 regardless of these ceremonies, profited by the wind to 
 steer ' straight into the harbour.' The pompous Governor, 
 shocked at such haste, forwarded a second boat with two 
 military functionaries to repeat his compliments, and 
 to acquaint the Admiral with what he had known and 
 resented for weeks — the impediment of ' not more than four 
 ships of war at a time.' But Nelson had anticipated these 
 formal courtesies. His own boat promptly met the Gover- 
 nor's with ' a royal letter ' purporting to contain royal 
 instructions for the admission of the whole squadron. This 
 I take to have been the Queen's private letter, forwarded in 
 pursuance of her promise to Emma, and holding the 
 Governor harmless in disobeying the strict letter of the law. 
 While, therefore, in pursuance of certainty, the entire 
 squadron advanced to cross the bar, the British ' Under- 
 Admiral ' ^ proceeded in the Governor's boat, and was 
 received by him at Government House. There he delivered 
 a further and a separate missive, ' a royal despatch ' written 
 
 4, 1798. Cited from P.R.O. (Sicily, 14) by Professor Laughton, in Colburn's 
 United Service Magazine, May 1889. Moreover, Hamilton's phrase, ' The 
 whole mystery was, they could not throw off the mask,' occurs in his draft 
 for this despatch, sold at Sotheby's on July 8, 1905. 
 
 ' He means Troubridge, whom Nelson in a letter of this year declares to have 
 been instrumental in getting the fleet watered. Cf. Laughton's Despatches, 
 p. 170. 
 
2i8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 in the King's name, and signed by Acton— in fact, the 
 irregular ' order ' obtained on that memorable morning of 
 June 17, and by no means expressly empowering the recep- 
 tion of the whole fleet.^ The Governor, conforming to the 
 prescribed comedy, feigned hesitation ; thereupon a letter 
 from Nelson himself was shown — ' difficult to read,' and 
 justifying the entire squadron's entrance. Hereupon the 
 Governor, ' struck ' by what he must have known, and also 
 by other reflections [the Queen's private order], reminds one 
 of the old song, ' and saying he would ne'er consent, con- 
 sented.' He affected to raise ' friendly protests,' while he 
 enforced the King's directions to save appearances by spread- 
 ing the ships over different regions and at various distances. 
 He even hinted in confidence the ' propriety ' of quitting the 
 port as soon as possible, and of landing none but unarmed 
 sailors, and even these under a promise to return so soon 
 as the city gates are closed at sunset. On the following 
 afternoon Nelson with his ' staff' paid their respects. The 
 Governor grasped him warmly by the hand, but still main- 
 tained his outward 'show of resistance.' There were, he 
 said, royal orders, under present circumstances, forbidding 
 him to return the call on shipboard. And the last sentence 
 of his record perhaps best illustrates the whole comedy by 
 solemnly informing Hamilton that the recital was only 
 addressed to him for the official purpose of being shown to 
 his Sicilian Majesty. Ferdinand was to be kept in the 
 dark. He was ignorant of all that the Queen had dared 
 through Emma's request. He was to believe that the 
 stretch of international civility had been empowered by 
 Acton's document alone, the document signed in his 
 name. 
 
 So much for outward semblance. Nelson's inner feelings 
 at this most critical juncture supplement the story. 
 
 ' The Governor himself describes it as merely enjoining him to ' welcome and 
 assist' the British squadron, not in its entirety, though ' going beyond what is 
 usual, and mentioning many novel and unexpected possibilities by reason of his 
 Majesty's goodwill and friendship towards the English nation.' His meaning is 
 evident from a further sentence : ' . . . And altho' in the royal despatch it was 
 not distinctly stated nor openly implied that the entire squadron was to be 
 admitted, still, etc' Time, however, was all-important. The style of the 
 description of the order's purports, it should also be noted, is thoroughly Acton's. 
 
TRIUMPH 219 
 
 We have reached July the 2ist.i The fleet was not 
 completely stocked and watered till the 23rd. Before 
 that date the whole town rejoiced and fraternised with 
 the British sailors : of sympathy at least there was no con- 
 cealment, and — ^a real Sicilian trait — all the countryfolk 
 immediately raised the price of their provisions. 
 
 On July the 22nd Nelson forwarded two private letters, 
 one to Sir William, the other to Lady Hamilton. 
 
 They are both indignajat and irritable at delay aggra- 
 vated by intense disappointment. It was not only that 
 he was still without news of the French. He had counted 
 on the instant virtue of Acton's order, without the 
 need of recourse to a secret charm. For Hamilton had 
 been told only three weeks before by the General that, 
 in pursuance of it, 'every proper order' for the British 
 squadron ' had been already given in Sicily,' and ' in 
 the way mentioned here with the brave Captain Trou- 
 bridge.'^ Nelson had therefore good reason to hope for 
 prepared co-operation. He had been met by farcical 
 routine; and red-tape, even when most expected, 
 always repelled and ruffled him. Nor so far had the 
 Queen's letter of indemnity to the Governors been followed 
 by the actual 'open sesame' which she had promised as 
 a l,ast resort. For disappointment concerning Acton's order 
 he was prepared, but not for the failure of his hidden 
 talisman. So far the charm had not worked ; a fresh letter 
 from the Queen might still be required. 
 
 ' I h^ve heard so much said,' runs Nelson's first out- 
 burst — which he entrusted to the Governor himself for 
 transit — ' about the King of Naples' orders only to admit 
 three or four of the ships . . . that I am astonished. I 
 understood that private orders at least would have been 
 
 ^ It has been represented that already on the 20th Nelson was watering his 
 ' ships of the line,' compared with which he wrote to Hamilton he ' regarded not 
 all the riches of the world.' His tf^rza/ despatch to Lord St. Vincent of this 
 day, however, says: 'We are watering and getting such refreshment as the place 
 affords.' This I take as implying that the process was very slow, for he 
 immediately adds ' and shall get to sea by the z5th ' (cf. Laughton's Despatches, 
 p. 144). In the event he got to sea two days earlier. He could not, of 
 course, mention the Queen's name. 
 
 '^ Eg. MS. 2640, f. 76, a letter hitherto unpublished. 
 
220 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 given for our free admission. . . . Our treatment is 
 scandalous for a great nation to put up with : and the 
 King's flag is insulted at every friendly port we look at.'^ 
 
 The second — to Lady Hamilton — is almost cool in iron- 
 ical displeasure, a coolness betokening how unexpectedly his 
 cherished hopes had been belied : — 
 
 ' My dear Madam, — I am so hurt at the treatment we 
 received from the power we came to assist and fight for, 
 that I am hardly in a situation to write a letter to an 
 elegant body : * therefore you must on this occasion forgive 
 my want of those attentions which I am ever anxious to 
 shew you. / wish to know your and Sir William's plans 
 for coming down the Mediterranean^ for if we are to be 
 kicked at every port of the Sicilian dominions, the sooner 
 we are gone, the better. Good God ! how sensibly I feel 
 our treatment. I have only to pray that I may find the 
 French and throw all my vengeance on them.' * 
 
 The omission in these lines of any specific mention either 
 of the Queen or her letter, so far from being singular, is 
 exactly what was to be expected. She always stipulated 
 in such matters that her name should never be breathed, 
 nor her position jeopardised with the King, and in this 
 instance Acton also had to be kept in the dark.^ It will be 
 remembered also that Emma's letter inclosing the Queen's 
 promise to Nelson expressly stated that she was 'bound 
 not to give any of her letters,' and, indeed, claimed its 
 instant return. 
 
 But meanwhile, on this very 22nd of July, a sudden 
 change came over Nelson's tone ; still more so, on the 
 following day before he weighed anchor. Melancholy 
 and annoyance gave way to delight. Something must have 
 
 * Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 238. Nicolas, iii. 47. Harrison, vol. ii. p. 255. 
 
 2 The word in other transcripts is usually given ' Lady,' but this comes from 
 the original in the Morrison MS., 325. 
 
 ^ It is patent, as before noticed, that such a plan must have been privately 
 mooted — probably in case of the Queen's missive failing to operate at once. 
 
 * These two letters were forwarded by Sir William Hamilton to Lord Grenville. 
 Cf. Sir W. H. 's indorsement on copies of them sold at Sotheby's in May of this 
 year (1905), v. the catalogue. 
 
 ° Both his earlier and his later communications show a complete ignorance 
 even of the Queen's letter of June 17. For his later communications, cf. 
 Morrison MS. 327. 
 
TRIUMPH 221 
 
 intervened to alter the face of affairs, something with which 
 Nelson's temper accorded, and that something was certainly 
 not any sight of the French fleet.^ 
 
 Shortly after these two epistles to the Hamiltons Nelson 
 further penned his short but memorable ' Arethusa ' letter 
 to them. Both Sir Harris Nicolas, and Professor Laughton 
 following him, have denied the authenticity of this letter 
 on the internal evidence of its style. They say that Nelson 
 could never have used such a classical or poetical phrase as 
 ' surely watering by the fountain of Arethusa.' But in the 
 first place it is not, in Syracuse, poetical or classical, as every 
 traveller is aware. Each Syracusan street-boy to this day 
 calls the spring by the sea, with its rim of Egyptian cotton- 
 plants, ' the fountain of Arethusa.' And in the second, if 
 it were, it would be in accordance with many of Nelson's 
 phrases caught from the Hamiltons. Professor Laughton 
 has, I believe, gone so far as even to doubt that Hamilton at 
 this period could address his friend as ' My dear Nelson.' ^ 
 He is mistaken. Writing to Nelson a few days later, Sir 
 William ends with ' All our present dependence is in you, 
 my dear Nelson, and I am convinced that what is in the 
 power of mortal man, you will do.' * ' Ex uno, disce omnia' 
 
 The ' Arethusa ' letter springs, it is true, from the sus- 
 pected source of the Life of Nelson by the hireling 
 Harrison — that same Harrison who, perhaps, was one 
 of those to embitter the darkening days and fortunes of 
 Lady Hamilton, his benefactress. But it is sanctioned by 
 Pettigrew, who, as a collector par excellence of Nelson 
 autographs, was, on questions of style, an expert of 
 tried judgment; and it will be noticed with interest that 
 'the laurel or cypress' passage (itself both poetical and 
 classical) forms a feature also of his indisputable ' private ' 
 letter to Hamilton * already noticed, and following im- 
 
 ' This change was noticed, without the fuller lights now thrown on it, by the 
 Edinburgh Reviewer of October 1886. 
 
 ^ He takes the ' My dear Sir' of their official correspondence as conclusive. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 322, June 26, 1798. 
 
 * Morrison MS. 320. It is dated ' Vanguard at sea, June 18, 1798.' It 
 concludes : ' Pray present my best respects to Lady Hamilton. Tell her I hope 
 to be presented to her crowned with laurel or cypress. But God is good, 
 and to Him do I commit myself and our cause.' This is another instance 
 of the way in which Nelson's letters explain each other. 
 
222 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 mediately on his authentic answer to Lady Hamilton's 
 newly found note of June 17 : — 
 
 'My DEAR Friends,— Thanks to your exertions, we 
 have victualled and watered : and surely watering at the 
 Fountain of Arethusa we must have victory. We shall 
 sail with the first breeze, and be assured I will return either 
 crowned with laurel, or covered with cypress.' ^ 
 
 The ' first breeze ' did not rise until the day following ; 
 and even if the ' Arethusa ' letter were a fabrication, which I 
 can see no valid reason for supposing,^ we are able to 
 dispense with its witness to Nelson's sudden relief of mood. 
 He was now enabled to start a full two days earlier 
 than he had hoped,^ and on the 23rd, before departing, 
 he wrote yet again to his dear friends in joyful gratitude, 
 and in phrases implying that the long-deferred 'private 
 orders ' * had arrived, though the evidently guarded wording 
 provides, as so often, against its being shown to General 
 Acton.* This letter has never been doubted.® 
 
 ' The fleet is unmoored, and the moment the wind comes 
 off the land shall go out of this delightful harbour, where 
 our present wants have been amply supplied, and where 
 every attention has been paid to us ; but I have been 
 tormented by no private orders being given to the Governor 
 for our admission. I have only to hope that ,1 shall still 
 find the French fleet, and be able to get at them. . . . No 
 frigates ! ' 
 
 Assuredly throughout these quick transitions the under- 
 tone of Emma and the Queen is audible. Nelson knew 
 what had really happened ; his commentators are left to 
 guess the truth from disputed shreds of correspondence. 
 
 Refitted and reheartened, Nelson, who, as ever, had long 
 
 ' Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 127. Harrison, vol. ii. p. 256. He terms it ' 3. secret 
 epistle.' 
 
 ^ It should be marked that the mention of the breeze tallies with that in the 
 letter next cited. ' Cf. ante, p. 219, note I. 
 
 ^ These cannot mean Acton's irregular but already delivered mandate. 
 
 ' That Acton was kept in ignorance is shown by the fact that his own corre- 
 spondence with Hamilton only comments on Nelson's letters of anger and 
 expostulation^ 
 
 8 It has been quoted incessantly, and it appears in the Nelson Letters, 
 vol. ii. p. 238. 
 
TRIUMPH 223 
 
 been rehearsing his plans to his officers, hastened with his 
 fleet to Aboukir Bay. There is no need to recount that 
 memorable struggle of the ist of August, which lasted 
 over twenty-four hours ^ — the daring strategy of a master- 
 pilot, the giant U Orient blazing with colours already struck, 
 and exploded under a sullen sky torn with livid lightning, 
 the terrific thunderstorm interrupting the death-throes of 
 the battle, the complete triumph of an encounter which de- 
 livered England from France, and nerved a revived Europe 
 against her. Villeneuve had been outwitted ; Brueys was 
 dead ; so was Ducheyla. Even Napoleon's papers had been 
 captured. Nelson stands out after the turmoil, once more 
 battered, once again far more zealous for the fame of .his 
 officers than his own, yet furious at the escape of the only 
 two French frigates that avoided practical annihilation. 
 Never was there a supreme naval encounter that exercised 
 such a moral effect, and so defeated both the foe and antici- 
 pation. He was acclaimed the 'saviour' both of Britain 
 and the Continent. 
 
 And his trust in the Hamiltons, his unshakable belief in 
 Emma, were at once evinced by his giving them the earliest 
 intelligence of what set all Europe tingling. Emma's ears 
 and her husband's were the very first to hear it.^ 
 
 The French had vaunted that Buonaparte would erase 
 Britain from the map. In their desperation they still 
 vowed to burn her fleet.^ Their insolence on Garat's lips 
 had resounded in the streets and on the very house-tops of 
 Naples. It was not long before that same Garat was to 
 be curtly dismissed, before not a ' French dog ' dared 'show 
 his face,' before at the opera ' not a French cockade was to 
 be seen' ; * before the Queen, half-mad for joy, addressed an 
 English letter to the British sailors, doubtless with her 
 Emma's aid, sent them casks of wine incognita, and presented 
 
 ' Accounts are given by French eye-witnesses in the volume of intercepted 
 Letters from Egypt, cited in a previous note. Tallien writes that he and 
 others viewed it 'placed on an eminence which overlooked the sea,' p. 181. 
 
 2 Cf. Add. MS. 34,989, f. 4. It was through Captains Hoste and Capel. 
 Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 240. 
 
 3 Cf. the Queen of Naples' letter to Emma, cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. 
 
 P- 159- , . 
 
 * Cf. Captain Hoste's contemporary account m Pettigrew, vol. 1. p. 151. 
 
224 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Hoste with a diamond ring.i before Britain and Naples had 
 struck up a close alliance against the common foe. 
 
 The world was a changed world from that of a week 
 before. History had been made and was making. On 
 Nelson's life, to quote Lord St. Vincent's words, hung the 
 fate of the remaining Governments in Europe, 'whose 
 system has not been deranged by these devils.'^ But for 
 him Britain might have been France, and the Mediterranean 
 a French lake. To the end of time the Nile would rank 
 with Marathon, with Actium, with Blenheim. Nelson had 
 entered the Pantheon of fame, he had embodied his country, 
 he was Great Britain. He belonged to Time no longer. 
 Emma's heart leaped, as she flew exulting with the first 
 breath of victory to the Queen. So early as September the 
 3rd she had heard the triumph of which ministers and 
 potentates were ignorant ; she, the poor Cheshire girl, the 
 ' Lancashire Witch,' whose dawn of life had been smirched 
 and sullied ; she, the ^leve of lecturing and hectoring 
 Greville, the wife of an ambassador whose lethargy she had 
 stirred to purpose ; she, the admired of artists, the Queen's 
 comrade. Was anything impossible to youth and beauty, 
 and energy and charm ? It had proved the same of old 
 with those classical freed women — Epicharis, staunch amid 
 false knights and senators ; and Panthea, perhaps Emma's 
 own prototype, whose giftedness and ' chiselled ' beauty 
 Lucian has extolled. Had she not from the first fed 
 her inordinate fancy with grandiose reveries of achieve- 
 ment ? Had she not burst her leading-strings ? More than 
 all, had not Nelson, already in August, asked her to welcome 
 ' the remains of Horatio ' ? * And now, in this universal 
 moment, she had both part and lot. Was it wonderful 
 that, throbbing in every vein, she swooned * to the ground 
 
 1 For these and ensuing touches, cf. the new series of Emma's letters of 
 1798 to Nelson, transcribed in the Appendix. 
 
 '^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 219. 
 
 ' Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 140. The letter recommended Captain Capel, the 
 bearer of his despatches, and Captain Hoste, ' who to the gentlest manners 
 joins undaunted courage.' He says : 'You and Sir William have spoiled 
 me. ... I trust my mutilations will not cause me to be less welcome. They 
 are the marks of honour.' 
 
 * Her own account in these letters is borne out by Nelson's letter to his wife 
 
TRIUMPH 225 
 
 and bruised her side with Nelson's letter in her hand? 
 We have only to read the series of her correspondence 
 at this date with Nelson, to realise her intoxication of 
 rapture. 
 
 But there was more than this. It often happens that 
 when glowing and inflammable natures, such as hers and 
 Nelson's, have dreamed united visions, the mere fulfilment 
 links them irrevocably together. Mutual hope and mutual 
 faith refuse to be sundered. The hero creates his heroine, 
 the heroine worships her maker, who has transfigured her 
 in her own eyes as well as his. It is the old romance of 
 Pygmalion and Galatea. He places her on a pedestal and 
 in a shrine. Henceforth for Nelson, however misguided in 
 outward 'fact,' Emma stands out adorable as Britannia. 
 ' She and the French fleet ' are his all in all.^ His ecstasies 
 in her honour spring from his firm conviction that but for 
 her that mighty blow might never have been struck, nor 
 Buonaparte crushed. Emma, for him, is England. He 
 returns to her crowned not with ' cypress,' but laurels ever 
 green. And she has plucked some of them for his wreath. 
 He acknowledges that his was the first approach. As he 
 wrote to her not three years later in a passage now first 
 brought to light, ' I want not to conquer any heart, if that 
 which I have conquered is happy in its lot : I am confident. 
 for the Conqueror is become the Conquered! ^ 
 
 And once more, with regard to Emma herself. She had 
 never yet been free in her affections. Her devotion to 
 Greville, her attachment to her husband, had grown up out 
 of loyal gratitude, not from spontaneous choice, and the 
 contrast first presented itself to her, not as an untutored 
 girl, but as a skilled woman of the world. Sir William 
 was now sixty-eight, Nelson just on forty — ' Vdge critique^ 
 as the French term it. She firmly believed that she had 
 helped his heroism to triumph ; he as firmly, that his battle 
 
 on his arrival on the 22nd. ' It was imprudently told Lady Hamilton,' he says, 
 ' in a moment, and the effect was like a shot ; she fell apparently dead, and is 
 not yet perfectly recovered from severe bruises.' Cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. 
 
 P- ISP- 
 
 1 In one of his later letters he says he wanted to 'hug them both.' 
 
 " Add. MS. 34,274 G. (Nelson to Lady Hamilton), 'i'. George off Rostock, 
 
 May 24, 1801,' a new and unpublished letter. 
 
 P 
 
226 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 had been half won through her aid. Both were susceptible.^ 
 Both despised the crowd from which in character and cir- 
 cumstances they stood apart. Emma's morality had been 
 largely one of discretion. Nelson's was one of religion. If 
 Nelson came to persuade himself that she was born to be 
 his wife in the sight of God — and all his after expressions 
 to her prove it— it would not be strange if such a woman, 
 still beautiful, in a sybarite atmosphere where she was held 
 up as a paragon, should throw discretion to the winds of 
 chance. It was after some such manner that these problems 
 of heart and temperament were already shaping them- 
 selves. 
 
 Consult the first among those jubilant letters, a few 
 excerpts from which have been quoted in the second 
 chapter. They eclipse the very transports of the Queen, 
 ' mad with joy,' and hysterically embracing all around her, 
 whose own letter^ of that memorable Monday evening fully 
 bears out Emma's account in these outpourings. She would 
 rather have been a ' powder-monkey in that great Victory 
 than an Emperor out of it.' Her self-elation is all for 
 Nelson. Posterity ought to worship the deliverer in every 
 form and under every title. His statue should be 'of 
 pure gold.' Her song is ' See the Conquering Hero 
 Comes,' her strain is 'Rule Britannia.' Her gifts of 
 voice and rhapsody are dedicated to these. For these 
 she hymns the general joy, while the illuminations of her 
 windows reflect the glow of her bosom. Nelson, Britain 
 
 ' Lord St. Vincent, writing to her in the following October, says : ' Pray do 
 not let your fascinating Neapolitan dames approach too near him, for he is 
 made of flesh and blood, and cannot resist their temptations. ' — Nelson Letters, 
 vol. i. p. 219. 
 
 ^ Ibid. Maria Carolina says that she lives again in her eternal gratitude to 
 Nelson and to Emma. If ever Nelson's portrait be painted, it must be for her 
 room. He is their hero and that of his ' great, brave, magnanimous nation. ' 
 She embraces her children, Emma, all that belongs to her. She longs to see 
 Nelson again and surround him with her family. Emma's endorsement is: 
 ' Reed. Monday evening, Sept. 3, 1798, the happy day we reed, the joyfuU 
 news of the great Victory over the infernal French by the brave, gallant 
 Nelson.' And cf. her letter to Circello, Ambassador in London, cited by 
 Harrison, vol. i. p. 324, in which she repeats the domestic scene, and avows 
 that such is the 'prodigy' of the triumph, that she almost 'questions its reality.' 
 That scene is also reproduced verbatim from our new letters by Nelson him- 
 self in communications to his wife. 
 
TRIUMPH 22; 
 
 in excelsis, down with the execrable Jacobins, a fig for 
 foreign dictation — these are her refrains. Even her 
 ' shawl is in blue with gold anchors all over ' ; her ' earrings 
 all Nelson anchors ' ; she wears a bandeau round her fore- 
 head with the words ' Nelson and Victory.' ^ Her ' head 
 will not permit ' her to tell ' half of the rejoicing.' ' The 
 Neapolitans are mad, and if he was here now he would be 
 killed with kindness.' How can she ' begin ' to her ' dear, 
 dear Sir.' Since the Monday when the tidings had been 
 specially conveyed to her,* she has been ' delirious with joy ' 
 and has ' a fever caused by agitation and pleasure.' She fell 
 fainting and hurt herself at the news. 'God, what a 
 Victory! Never, never has there been anything half so 
 glorious, so complete.' She would ' feel it a glory to die in 
 such a cause.' .' No, I would not like to die till I see and 
 embrace the Victor of the Nile.' The care of the nayy now 
 engrosses her. There is nothing she will not do for any 
 fellow-worker with the prince of men. Captain Hoste, her 
 guest from September i, never forgot her tender kindness.* 
 She begged and procured from Lord St. Vincent Captain 
 Bowen's promotion to the command of L'Aquilon. Directly 
 Nelson had cut short his brief stay of convalescence almost 
 before the plaudits had died away, she sat down to 
 write to the hero's wife,* as she was to do again later in 
 December. She tells her how Nelson is adored by King 
 and Queen and people, ' as if he had been their brother ' ; 
 how delighted they are with the stepson. She sends her 
 Miss Knight's 'ode.' She enumerates with pride the royal 
 presents ; the sultan's aigrette and pelisse, which she 
 'tastes' and 'touches.'^ She resents the inadequacy of his 
 Government's acknowledgment — ' Hang them, /say ! ' 
 
 Both she and Hamilton were soon, in Nelson's words to 
 his wife,^ 'seriously ill, first from anxiety and then from joy.' 
 
 ^ Cf. Captain Hoste's account in the letter cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 151. 
 
 ' This date is further verified by her endorsement on the Queen's long 
 letter of rejoicing. Eg. MS. 1615, f. III. 
 
 ' Cf. his letter cited Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 150, and ante, p. 224. 
 
 * This is the letter reported by Pettigrew as missing (vol. i. p. 150) but 
 now found. Add. MS. 34,989, f. 8. 
 
 = This Nelson was to bequeath to her by a codicil of March 1801. Cf. Mor- 
 rison MS. 548. ° Cf. Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 150. 
 
228 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 But now she is 'preparing his apartments against he 
 comes.' On September 22 the Vanguard anchored in the 
 bay, and he came. 
 
 The King and Queen had prepared a gorgeous ovation. It 
 was midsummer weather, and a cloudless sky. No sooner was 
 Nelson's small contingent descried off the rock of Tiberius 
 at Capri, than the royal yacht, commanded by Caracciolo, 
 draped with emblems and covered with spangled awnings, 
 advanced three leagues out to meet him. On deck the 
 music of Paisiello and of Cimarosa — at last pardoned for 
 composing a republican ode — resounded over the glassy 
 waters, while a whole 'serenata' of smaller craft followed 
 in its wake and swelled the chorus. All the flower of the 
 court, including the Hamiltons, was on board, where stood 
 the King and the melancholy bride of the heir-apparent. 
 Princess Clementina. The Queen, herself unwell, stayed at 
 home and sent her grateful homage through Emma.^ As 
 the procession started from the quay, citizen Garat, foiled 
 and sullen, mewed in his palace with drawn blinds, caught 
 from afar the strains of triumph, and vowed revenge.^ 
 
 As the cortege neared the Vanguard, both the Hamiltons, 
 worn with fatigue and excitement,* and the royal party, 
 greeted him. The picture of their meeting is familiar. It 
 has been painted in Nelson's own words to his wife : — 
 ' Alongside came my honoured friends : the scene in the 
 boat was terribly affecting. Up flew her L,adyship, and 
 exclaiming, " O God ! Is it possible ? " she fell into my arm 
 more dead than alive. Tears, however, soon set matters 
 to rights ; when alongside came the King. The scene 
 was in its way as interesting. He took me by the hand, 
 calling me his " Deliverer and Preserver," with every other 
 expression of kindness. In short, all Naples calls me 
 "Nostra Liberaiore'' My greeting from the lower classes 
 was truly affecting. I hope some day to have the pleasure 
 of introducing you to Lady Hamilton ; she is one of the 
 
 ' Eg. MS. 161S, f. 113. 
 
 2 Dumas' Storia di Borboni, vol. ii. p. 228 ; Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 149. ' 
 
 8 Sir William once more became ill and went to Castellamare to recruit ; 
 
 and Lady Hamilton, who would not give in, was also unwell. Cf. Eg. MS. 
 
 1615, ff. 45. 47- 
 
TRIUMPH 229 
 
 very best women in this world, she is an honour to her sex. 
 Her kindness, with Sir William's to me, is more than I can 
 express. I am in their house, and I may now tell you it 
 required all the kindness of my friends to set me up. Lady 
 Hamilton intends writing to you.^ God bless you ! ' ^ 
 
 Little did Nelson yet reck of the ironies of the future. 
 In this very letter he uses the warmest expressions about 
 his wife that had as yet appeared in any of his letters.* 
 Had he pursued his first intention of proceeding from 
 Egypt to Syracuse, how much, besides Naples, might have 
 been avoided ! Was he even now face to face with a 
 passionate conflict ? 
 
 During the twenty-three days* that Nelson remained 
 ashore, much happened besides rejoicing, and much had to 
 be done. Not only did Nelson's wound (like his battered 
 ships) require instant attention, but, as constantly happened 
 with him, the protracted strain of nervous effort was fol- 
 lowed by a severe fever. Lady Hamilton and her mother 
 tended him ; a brief visit with the Hamiltons to Castella- 
 mare, where Troubridge was refitting the maimed vessels, 
 and a diet of ' asses' milk ' did much to melid his general 
 health.^ Nor was it to him alone that Emma, herself 
 
 • She did twice before October 3, both on the Queen's behalf and her own. 
 Add. MS. 34,989, f. 8 (transcribed in the Appendix). She wrote again im- 
 mediately on their return to England (see post, chap, xi.}, and yet Lady 
 Nelson recorded that she had received but a single letter from Emma. 
 
 ' Cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 150. 
 
 ' Speaking of how the Hamiltons' friendship had touched him, he asks : 
 •What must it be to my dearest wife, my friend, my everything which is 
 most dear to me in this world?' She had nursed him after the loss of his 
 arm at TenerifFe. Immediately after the Nile battle he wrote to her of his 
 pride in being his father's son and her husband. 
 
 ^ Nelson left for Malta on October l6. The Queen's letter to Emma of 
 October 15 (given by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 160) must be misdated. On October 
 l6 Nelson himself wrote a parting note to Emma dated ' Naples, October 16, 
 1798.' 
 
 ■> Cf. Add. MS. 34,989, f. 8; Eg. MS. 1615, «. 63, 117; Pettigrew, vol. i. 
 p. 187 ; Laughton's Despatches, p. 167. — (The Queen's inquiries after Nelson's 
 health.) 
 
 P. 167. — (Nelson's letter to Lord St. Vincent of September 20, in which' he 
 says of his fever, ' For eighteen hours my life was thought to be past hope.') 
 
 P. 173.— (Letter to Duckworth, December 6, 1798. 'My health, at the 
 best indifferent, has not mended lately.') 
 
230 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ailing, ministered. Sir William was exhausted. The 
 Queen was ill and miserable under the troubles gathering 
 both at Malta and in the council-chamber; Captain Ball 
 also needed her care, which he requited with an enthusiastic 
 letter of thanks to ' the best friend and patroness of the 
 British Navy ' ; Troubridge, too, was far from well at Cas- 
 tellamare ; many were in hospital. But Lady Hamilton 
 owned the strength of highly-strung natures — the strength 
 of spurts; and she found time and energy for all her 
 tasks. 
 
 These good offices are here mentioned, and many more 
 remain for mention subsequently, because, in the future, 
 after the fatal dividing line of her triumphal progress to 
 Vienna with the Queen, her husband, and Nelson, they were 
 forgotten. She was to estrange some of her old admirers, 
 who inveighed against her behind her back not only as ill- 
 bred, but as artful. Beckford, for instance, who had hitherto 
 praised her highly, became spiteful in defamation on her 
 second visit to Fonthill in i8oi;^ Miss Knight, her firm 
 ally at this moment, became her declared enemy. Trou- 
 bridge (the baker's son, beloved and promoted by Nelson), 
 who throughout had supported her, grew obstinate in 
 antagonism both to her and him ; while the seemly Elliots 
 were shocked at her loudness and scorn of convenances. 
 Even the Queen's ardour cooled ; and the English official 
 world began to look askance at the trio, and to inveigh 
 against Samson and Delilah. 
 
 Nelson's birthday ^ gave full scope for a colossal demon- 
 stration at the English Embassy. Emma's huge assembly, 
 where royalty and all the cream of society presided, was 
 hardly an enjoyment for the worn conqueror. A ' rostral 
 column ' of the classical pattern, with inscriptions celebrat- 
 
 Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 151. — (Nelson's letter to Lord St. Vincent of Sep- 
 tember 30. ) 
 
 P. 163. — (Lord St. Vincent's letter of thanks to Lady Hamilton for her care 
 of Nelson's reviving health. ) 
 
 I quote these authorities, and could quote more, because Nelson's critical 
 state of health has been doubted. 
 
 ' Cf. Cyrus Redding's Fifty Years of My Life. Lord Ronald Gower's most 
 interesting article on some rare portraits of her in the Anglo-Saxon Review of 
 September 1900, also touches on this point. 
 
 ' September 29. 
 
TRIUMPH 231 
 
 ing his achievements, had been erected in the gay garden 
 festooned with lamps, and alive with music. The artistic 
 Miss Cornelia Knight (with her mother, a refugee from 
 the terrors of war at Rome) added one more ode to 
 the foreign thousands, and made a sketch of the scene.^ 
 The festivity was chequered by Josiah Nisbet, Nelson's 
 scapegrace but petted stepson, who brawled with him in 
 his cups, until Troubridge parted them, and ended the 
 unseemly scuffle. That this arose from his habits, and not 
 of design, is shown by Emma's affectionate references to 
 him in her letter * to his mother only four days afterwards, 
 which will be found in the Appendix.* 
 
 Nelson was dispirited, and disgusted not only with the 
 ' fiddlers ' and loose dames of the court, but with its min- 
 cing petit maitre, Gallo, the foreign minister, all airs and 
 pouncet ; so afraid lest the wind should step between him 
 and his aped gentility, that, solemn over trifles, he persist- 
 ently dallied with the grave issues now at stake. The 
 halting Acton himself proved energetic mainly in profes- 
 sions, * though by the end of October Emma had won him 
 also to their side.^ Not only had the ' Grand Knights ' of 
 Malta, Hompesch the master, and Wittig, showed the 
 white feather at Valetta, and left the French practically 
 masters of the field, but in the Romagna and in Tuscany 
 the enemy were daily gaining ground. Moreover, while the 
 Queen was reassured as to the goodwill of the middle class 
 and the Lazzaroni, she now realised, as may be gathered 
 from her letters, that the various factions of the nobles were 
 — from separate motives — a nest of perfidy. Her husband 
 trounced her as the cause of his woes, and despite his 
 enthusiasm for the ' hero,' he remained in the Anglophobe 
 party's clutches. The finicking Gallo was averse to open 
 
 1 Emma was never jealous of her talent. Sending one of Cornelia's odes in 
 October to Nelson, she says, • It is very well written, but Miss K. is very 
 clever in everything she undertakes.' — Add. MS. 34,989, f. 8. 
 
 2 Add. MS. 34,989, f. 8; and cf. in the November following the reference 
 in ff. 30-31. 
 
 ' The best account of this festivity is by the Neapolitan Michel Torcia, 
 whose manuscript was sold at Sotheby's on May 17, 1905. 
 
 * Nelson to Hamilton, Oct. 27, 1798. Cf. Laughton's Despatches, p. 171. 
 
 * Add. MS. 34,989, ff. 18-24. 'Am tris bien with Acton,' etc. 
 
232 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 hostilities until Austria had engaged in offensive alliance, 
 for the compact (which had been signed in July)^ only 
 promised Austrian aid in the event of Naples itself being 
 attacked. Russia had declared, the Porte was on the verge 
 of declaring, war against the French Republic. The pre- 
 ceding May had seen yet another treaty between both these 
 powers and Naples, binding the latter to furnish twelve 
 ships and four hundred men for the coalition. Yet the 
 Emperor, son-in-law to the Neapolitan Bourbons, still 
 waited, and on him the King of Naples waited also, mucli 
 more concerned with the impending birth of a grandchild 
 who might inherit the throne, than with the portents of 
 affairs. His disposition shunned reality, notwithstanding 
 the fact, however, that he had sanctioned the summons of 
 General Mack from Vienna to command his forces. And, 
 added to all these manifold preoccupations. Lady Spencer, 
 who had acclaimed Nelson's triumph with ' Hurrah, hurrah, 
 hurrah,' the wife of the first Lord of the British Admiralty, 
 was now at Naples, and constantly with the Hamiltons and 
 Nelson. 
 
 From late September to early October Nelson and Emma 
 were in frequent conference. The French had been attempt- 
 ing in Ireland what they had succeeded in doing at 
 Naples : their complots with rebellion threatened all that 
 was established. 
 
 He divined the situation in its European bearings at a 
 glance. She knew every twist and turn of the Neapolitan 
 road, with all its buffoons, adventurers, and highwaymen ; 
 the tact of quick experience was hers. He, the masculine 
 genius, created. She, the feminine, was receptive, interpre- 
 tative. And, whatever may be urged or moralised, the 
 human fact remains that she was a woman after his own 
 heart, and he a man after hers. He was the first unselfish 
 man who had as yet been closely drawn towards her. 
 However unlike in upbringing, in environment, in stand- 
 ing — above all, in things of the spirit — in passionate 
 energy, in courage, in romance, and enthusiasm they were 
 affinities. 
 
 ' July i6. Hamilton's letter announcing it to Eden as 'old ties restored ' may 
 be found in Egerton MS. 2638, f. 149. 
 
TRIUMPH 233 
 
 The result of these consultations is shown by the long 
 draft of a letter outlining a policy,^ which Nelson drew 
 up as a lever in Emma's hands to force the court into 
 decision, and which formed the basis of a shorter letter that 
 has been published.* He emphasised 'the anxiety which 
 you and Sir William have always had for the happiness and 
 welfare of their Sicilian Majesties.' He pointed out that 
 the mass of the Neapolitans were loyally eager to try 
 conclusions with France; that Naples was her natural 
 ' plunder,' but that the ministers were 'lulled into a false 
 security,' and a prey 'to the worst of all policies, that of 
 procrastination.' He dwelt on Garat's insolence, and 
 the readiness of the Neapolitan army to march into the 
 Romagna ' ready to receive them.' He hoped that Mack's 
 imminent arrival would brace ministers into resolution. He 
 welcomed with admiring respect a ' dignified ' letter from 
 the Queen, according with his own favourite quotation 
 from Chatham, 'the boldest measures are the safest.' He 
 presented his manifesto as a ' preparitive ' (sic), and as ' the 
 unalterable opinion of a British Admiral anxious to approve 
 himself a faithful servant to his sovereign by doing every- 
 thing in his power for the happiness and dignity of their 
 Sicilian Majesties.' To Sir William he would write separ- 
 ately.^ He recognised the signs of revolution, and already 
 he sounded the note of warning. He recommended that 
 their 'persons and property' should be ready in case of 
 need for embarkation at the shortest notice. If ' the present 
 ruinous system of procrastination ' persevered, it would be 
 his ' duty ' to provide for the safety not only of the Hamil- 
 tons, but of ' the amiable Queen of these kingdoms and her 
 family.' 
 
 The address of this paper to Emma, the emphasis of the 
 Queen's letter, the promise of a separate letter to Hamilton, 
 show that this document was intended for the Queen's eye 
 
 ' Cf. Appendix, Part 11. A; Add. MS. 34,989, f. 12, Lord Nelson to 
 Lady Hamilton, October 3 (much corrected and interlined), with which should 
 be compared Nelson's letters to Hamilton ' off Malta, Oct. 27,' and to Eden, 
 (at Vienna), Dec. lo. Cf. Laughton's Dispatches, pp. 171, 173. 
 
 ' Laughton's Despatches, p. 167. 
 
 ^ The last three sentences, as well as the first of all, do not find place in the 
 ' letter' to Lady Hamilton printed by Professor Laughton. 
 
234 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 alone, and point to the suggestion of it by Emma herself. 
 We shall see that while Sir William was pushing affairs 
 with the English Government, Emma, during Nelson's 
 absence in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, was practi- 
 cally to be Ambassador at Naples. 
 
 Next day Nelson ordered Ball to Malta with the ex- 
 pressed objects not only of intercepting French com- 
 munications with Egypt, of the island's blockade, and of 
 co-operation with the Turkish and Russian fleets in the 
 Archipelago, but specially of protecting the Sicilian and 
 Neapolitan coasts.^ So furious was he at the King's 
 inaction, that he even told Lord Spencer that ' Naples sees 
 this squadron no more, except the King, who is losing " the 
 glorious moments," should call for help.' ^ By mid-October 
 Nelson himself had set out first for Malta, and, after a brief 
 interval of return, for the deliverance of Leghorn. Before 
 the month's close the King and General Mack had started 
 on their ill-starred campaign ; before the year's end a 
 definitive Anglo-Sicilian alliance had been signed, and 
 Grenville's former attitude reversed. 
 
 The very day of Nelson's departure drew from him the 
 tribute to Lady Hamilton which was in Pettigrew's posses- 
 sion, and a facsimile of which accompanied the first volume 
 of his Memoirs of Lord Nelson? 
 
 ' I honour and respect you,' it ran, ' and my dear friend 
 Sir William Hamilton, and believe me ever your faithful 
 and affectionate Nelson ' — the first letter, as ' his true 
 friend ' Emma recorded on it, written to her ' after his 
 dignity to the peerage.' * 
 
 The girl who, after the bartering Greville trampled upon 
 her aflfections, had been gained into grateful attachment by 
 Hamilton, with the covert resolve of becoming his wife and 
 winning her spurs in the political tournament, had at length 
 carved a career. Greville's neglect of her self-sacrifice had 
 not hardened her, but her tender care of Sir William was 
 fast assuming a new complexion. She had twice saved his 
 
 ' Laughton's Despatches, p. 169. 
 ' Ibid., p. 169, October 9. ' p. 168. 
 
 * The patent of Barony (considered very inadequate in view of Jervis's pre- 
 vious earldom) was not officially granted till November 17. 
 
TRIUMPH 235 
 
 life; she had perpetually urged his activities; she still 
 watched over him. But, under her standards of instinct 
 and experience, she was half gravitating towards the per- 
 suasion that they might warrant her in taking her fate 
 into her own hands. She hated ' half measures ' ; neck or 
 nothing, she would realise herself. Her chief cravings 
 remained as yet unsatisfied. Womanlike, she had yearned 
 for true sympathy. Here was one willing and eager to 
 listen. She had long been in love with glory. Here was a 
 hero who personified it. She had sighed for adventures in 
 the grand style. Here was opportunity. She wavered on 
 the verge of a new temptation. She felt as though her 
 wandering soul had at last found its way. Yet, in reality, 
 she still groped in a maze of contending emotions, nor 
 would she stop to inquire by what clue her quick steps 
 were hurrying her: the moment was all in all. She still 
 identified her intense friendship with her husband's. Dis- 
 loyalty still revolted her in its masked approaches ; and yet 
 she struggled, half-consciously, with a ' faith unfaithful ' that 
 was to keep her ' falsely true.' 
 
 Omitting further historical detail, we may turn at once to 
 the part played by Emma with the Queen at Caserta as her 
 hero's vice-gerent during his nine weeks' absence. Her 
 heart was with the ships, and she pined to quit the villeggia- 
 tura for Naples.^ 
 
 It was, in her own words, with Nelson's ' spirit ' that 
 Emma inflamed the Queen, from whom she was now in- 
 separable. The King still looked to Austria, and thought 
 of little else but his daughter-in-law's coming confinement. 
 The Queen, who had hesitated, at last caught the prompt- 
 ness of Nelson's policy. General Mack had arrived, but a 
 thousand official obstacles impeded his preparations. ' He 
 does not go to visit the frontiers,' wrote Emma to Nelson,^ 
 ' but is now working night and day, and then goes for good, 
 and I tell her Majesty, for God's sake, for the country's 
 sake, and for your own sake, send him off as soon as 
 possible, no time to be lost, and I believe he goes after 
 
 1 Cf. Add. MS. 34,989, f. 14. October 20. 
 
236 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to-morrow.' The suppression of the Irish rebellion had 
 removed yet another spoke from the Republican wheel. 
 ' I translate from our papers,' said Emma, ' to inspire her or 
 them, I should say, with some of your spirit and energy. 
 How delighted we both were to speak of you. She loves, 
 respects, and admires you. For myself, I will leave you to 
 guess my feelings. Poor dear Troubridge stayed that 
 night with us to comfort us. What a good dear soul he 
 is. . . . He is to come down soon, and I am to present 
 him. She sees she could not feel happy if she had not an 
 English ship here to send off. . . . How we abused Gallo 
 yesterday. How she hates him. He won't reign long — so 
 much the better, . . , You are wanted at Caserta. All 
 their noddles are not worth yours.' There were affectionate 
 mentions of Tyson and Hardy, with the hope that the 
 ' Italian spoil-stomach sauce of a dirty Neapolitan ' might 
 not hurt the invalid, but that perhaps Nelson's steward 
 provided him 'with John Bull's Roast and Boil.'^ Then 
 followed her enthusiasm over Nelson's honours, and her 
 wrath at the stint of home recognition, which have been 
 echoed already. In the same long letter, containing, 
 as was her wont, the diary of a week, she resumes her 
 political story. She and her Queen had been ecstatic 
 over the Sultan's lavish acknowledgments of Nelson's 
 victory, 
 
 'The Queen says that, after the English she loves the 
 Turks, and she has reason, for, as to Vienna, the ministers 
 deserve to be hanged, and if Naples is saved, no thanks to 
 the Emperor, For he is kindly leaving his father in the 
 lurch. We have been two days desperate on account of the 
 weak and cool acting of the Cabinet of Vienna. Thugut * 
 must be gained ; but the Emperor — oh, but he is a poor 
 sop, a machine in the hands of his corrupted ministers. 
 The Queen is in a rage. . . . Sunday last, two couriers, 
 one from London, one from Vienna; the first with the 
 lovely news of a fleet to remain in the Mediterranean, and 
 a treaty made of the most flattering kind for Naples. In 
 short, everything amicable . . . and most truly honourable, 
 
 ' Add. MS. 34,989, f. 14. 
 
 ' The negotiator of the Campofortnio Treaty in 1797. 
 
TRIUMPH 237 
 
 T'other from their dear son and daughter,^ cold, un- 
 friendly, mistrustful, Frenchified ; and saying plainly, help 
 yourselves. How the dear Maria Carolina cried for joy at 
 the one and rage at the other. But Mack is gone to the 
 army to prepare all to march immediately.'^ And here, 
 too, is the place of that dramatic outburst, cited in the 
 Prelude, where Emma extended her left arm, like Nelson, 
 and 'painted the drooping situation,' stimulating the 
 Queen's decision in face of those hampering obstacles on 
 the part of Gallo and the King, which proved so uncon- 
 scionable a time in dying. ' In short, there was a council, 
 and it was decided to march out and help themselves ; and, 
 sure, their poor fool of a son will not, cannot but come out. 
 He must bring 1 50,000 men in the Venetian State. The 
 French could be shut in between the two armies, Italy 
 cleared, and peace restored. I saw a person from Milan 
 yesterday, who says that a small army would do, for the 
 Milanese have had enough of liberty.' She depicts the 
 horrid state of that capital, the starvation side by side with 
 the rampant licentiousness of the Jacobins 'putting Virtue 
 out of countenance by their . . . libertinage. . . . So, you 
 see, a little would do. Now is the moment, and, indeed, 
 everything is going on as we could wish.' Emma has been 
 hitherto and often painted as the Queen's mouthpiece. 
 She was really Nelson's, and her intuition had grasped his 
 mastership of the political prospect. Was she not right in 
 declaring that she had ' spurred them on ' ? The Queen had 
 been actually heartened into resolving on a regency, a new 
 fact which reveals the political divergences between the royal 
 pair at this period. ' The King is to go in a few days, never 
 to return. The regency ' is to be in the name of the Prince 
 Royal, but the Queen will direct all. Her head is worth a 
 thousand. I have a pain in my head, . . . and must go 
 take an airing. . . . May you live long, long, long for the 
 sake of your country, your King, your family, all Europe, 
 
 1 i.e. the Austrian Emperor and Empress — the Neapolitan Princess. 
 
 2 Add. MS. 34,989, ff- 18-24. 
 
 ' At first the Queen had meaWt to be Regent herself. Add. MS. 34,989, f. 4. 
 This 'regency' the Queen by October 24 planned to be perpetual, and the 
 King was 'not to return.'— Cf. ibid. f. 24. Lady Hamilton to Lady Nelson, 
 October 2, 1798. See Appendix. 
 
238 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Asia, Africa, and America [Emma is on her stilts once 
 more], and for the scourge of France, but particularly for 
 the happiness of Sir William and self, who love you, admire 
 you, and glory in your friendship.' Sir William's new 
 name for Nelson was now ' the friend of our hearts.' And 
 these hearts were certainly stamped with his image : — 
 ' Your statue ought to be made of pure gold and placed in 
 the middle of London. Never, never was there such a 
 battle, and if you are not regarded as you ought and I wish, 
 I will renounce my country and become either a Mameluke 
 or a Turk. The Queen yesterday said to me, the more I 
 think on it, the greater I find it, and I feel such gratitude 
 to the warrior, . . . my respect is such, that I could fall at 
 his honoured feet and kiss them. You that know us both, 
 and how alike we are in many things, that is, I as Emma 
 Hamilton, she as Queen of Naples, imagine us both speak- 
 ing of you. ... I would not be a lukewarm friend for the 
 world. I . . . cannot make friends with all, but the few 
 friends I have, I would die for them. ... I told her Majesty 
 we only wanted Lady Nelson to be the female Tria juncta 
 in uno, for we all love you, and yet all three differently, and 
 yet all equally, if you can make that out.' . . . And Lady 
 Nelson, accordingly, she congratulated twice, both on the 
 Queen's behalf and her own.^ 
 
 Nelson returned for a fortnight in the earlier days of 
 November, more than ever dissatisfied with the Neapolitan 
 succours and the Portuguese co-operation at Malta. There, 
 with strong significance in view of next year's crisis at 
 Naples, he had notified the French, who rejected his over- 
 tures, that he would certainly disregard any capitulation 
 into which the Maltese General might afterwards be forced 
 to enter.^ He learned the decision for definite war, and 
 
 1 Cf. Add. MS. 34,989. f- 8. The letter will be found in the Appendix. 
 
 " Cf. Nelson's manifesto to the French commander at Malta, October 1798 
 [excerpted in Sotheby's catalogue for July 8, 1905] : — ' My objects' are to assist 
 the people of Malta in forcing you to abandon the island. ... If my offers are 
 rejected, or the French ships \i.e. the Guillaume Tell, Diana, 3x16. Justice'lmike 
 their escape, notwithstanding my vigilance, I declare I will not enter or join in 
 any capitulation act.' ' Nor will I ever permit any which may be like the 
 present, much less will I intercede for the lives or forgiveness of those who have 
 betrayed their country. I beg leave to assure you that this is the determination 
 of a British Admiral.' 
 
TRIUMPH 239 
 
 the King's reluctant consent at length to accompany 
 the army to Rome. No sooner had Garat been dismissed, 
 than the French declared war also. Force, then, must repel 
 force, for the Ligurian Republic meant nothing but France 
 in Italy. Throughout, moreover, Nelson's guiding aim was 
 the destruction of Jacobinism, which, indeed, he regarded 
 as anti-Christ. He collected his forces and set out for 
 Leghorn,^ which soon surrendered (although Buonaparte's 
 brother Louis escaped the blockade),* landing once more 
 at Naples in the first week of December, At first Mack 
 and the Neapolitan troops prevailed, and Prince Moli- 
 terno's valour covered the cowardice of his troops. The 
 King entered Rome ; the Queen's mercurial hopes ran 
 high. But her exultation was short-lived. Before the 
 end of the first week in December Carolina wrote to her 
 confidante that she now pitied the King intensely, and 
 ' would be with him.' ' God only knows what evils are 
 in reserve. I am deeply affected by it, and expect every 
 day something more terrible. The good only will be the 
 victims. . . . Mack is in despair, and has reason to be 
 so.' ' The French Berthier proved an abler, though not 
 a braver,* general than the Austrian, but Mack had raw 
 and wretched levies under his command;^ his officers 
 were bribed and their men deserted. Rome was re- 
 taken ; a retreat became unavoidable, and by the second 
 week in December that retreat had already become a rout. 
 From the close of November onwards the Queen grew more 
 and more despondent, though Duckworth's naval success 
 at Minorca, the promise by the Czar Paul of his fleet, and 
 the retirement of the Republicans from Frosinone had 
 cheered her. She was very ill, and fresh home conspiracies 
 were in course of discovery.* 
 
 ' November 22. 
 
 2 Cf. the Queen's despairing letter to Emma, Eg. MS. 1618, f. 28. 
 
 ' Cf. her letter cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 171. 
 
 * The Queen says of him after his disaster : ' Dont le courage, tactivite, sur- 
 passe toute idie.' — Helfert's Fabrizio Ruffo, p. 383. Nelson, however, damned 
 his incompetence. Cf. Memoirs and Letters of Sir IV. Hoste, vol. i. p. 113. 
 
 I" Acton, writing to Hamilton on December 15, 1798, says they were 
 'moUifyed people since ages — no caracter' — curiously phrased and spelled. 
 Eg. MS. 2640, f. IS3- " Cf. Eg. MS. 1619, ff. 5, 7. 
 
240 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Emma still lingered in her neighbourhood at Caserta. 
 Beseeching Nelson not to go ashore at Leghorn, and 
 rejoicing at the rumour, which proved unfounded, that his 
 'dear, venerable father' had been made a bishop, she 
 informed him that the King had issued his manifesto. The 
 army had marched, the Queen had just gone to pray for 
 them in the cathedral. She announced the King's trium- 
 phal entry into Rome from Frascati ; she hoped the best 
 from the battle of Velletri, fought even as she writes. 
 ' Everybody here,' she assured Nelson, ' prays for you. 
 Even the Neapolitans say mass for you, but Sir William 
 and I are so anxious that we neither eat, drink, nor sleep ; 
 and till you are safely landed and come back we shall feel 
 mad.' The secret of Nelson's movements and preparations 
 she will never betray, nor would red-hot torture wrest it 
 from her. ' We send you one of your midshipmen, left here 
 by accident ; . . . pray don't punish him. Oh ! I had forgot 
 I would never ask favours, but you are so good I cannot 
 help it.' And then follows a tell-tale passage : ' We have 
 got Josiah. How glad I was to see him. Lady Knight, 
 Miss Knight, Carrol, and Josiah dined to-day with us, but 
 alas ! your place at table was occupied by Lady K. I 
 could have cried, I felt so low-spirited.' ^ 
 
 Is it a wonder that Nelson was moved ? One can hear 
 how her confidence impressed him. Shortly after his 
 return he frankly avowed, ' My situation in this country has 
 had, doubtless, one rose, but it has been plucked from a 
 bed of thorns.' * This, then, was no waxen camellia, but a 
 rose whose fresh scent contrasted with the hot atmosphere 
 of the court and the prickles of perpetual vexation. 
 
 The reader must judge whether such efforts and appeals, 
 this developing energy and tenderness, were the manoeuvres 
 of craft. It is patent from the correspondence that Emma's 
 interjectional letters, which think aloud, answer epistles 
 from Nelson of even tenor. A comparison, moreover, with 
 her girlish epistles ^ to Greville shows a sameness of quality 
 that will stand the same test. She remains 'the same Emma.' 
 
 1 Add. MS. 34,9891 ff- 28, 30-31, November 24, 25. 
 
 ' To Duckworth, December 6, 1798. Laughton's Despatches, p. 173. 
 
 * One of them exists. Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i, p. 2. 
 
TRIUMPH 241 
 
 Nelson rejoined the Hamiltons at a critical moment. His 
 wise forecast that unless Ferdinand and Maria coveted the 
 fate of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, flight alone could 
 save them, was fast being justified. The nobles, jealous 
 of English influence, were now thoroughly disaffected. 
 Gc^thering reverses incensed a populace that was only too 
 likely to be frenzied should their King prefer escape Sicily- 
 ward to trust in their tried loyalty. As yet Naples had 
 been free from the French, but the likelihood of invasion 
 grew daily; and even in June Neapolitan neutrality had 
 been known to be merely nominal. The proud Queen, as 
 we shall find, would rather have welcomed death when the 
 dreaded moment came than retreat. But Acton, at present 
 in Rome,^ had slowly come to concur with the trio of the 
 Embassy. 
 
 The melodrama of the actual escape, on which new 
 manuscripts cast fresh lights, must be reserved for a 
 separate chapter. ' The devil take most Kings and Queens, 
 I say, for they are shabbier than their subjects ! ' had been 
 Sir Joseph Banks's exclamation to Sir William Hamilton in 
 1795.2 At this present end of 1798 the devil (or Buonaparte) 
 proved especially busy in this particular branch of his 
 business. 
 
 > With the King. Cf. Eg. MS. 2640, f. 151, where he writes thence to 
 Hamilton, congratulating him on Nelson's return from Leghorn. 
 2 Eg. MS. 2641, f. 157. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 FLIGHT 
 
 December 1798 — January 1799 
 
 It is clear all along that Emma chafed against vegetation. 
 Tameness and sameness wearied her, and she longed for 
 historical adventures. She had now lit on a thrilling 
 one indeed. To aid in planning, preparing, deciding and 
 executing a royal escape in the midst of revolution, on 
 the brink of invasion, and at the risk of life, was a task the 
 romance and the danger of which allured her dramatic 
 fancy. That it did not repeat the blunders of Varennes 
 was largely owing to Nelson's foresight and her own inde- 
 fatigable energy. And omens— for they each believed in 
 them — must have appeared to both. Before the battle of 
 the Nile a white bird had perched in his cabin. He and 
 Emma marked the same white bird when the King was 
 restored in the following July ; and Nelson always declared 
 that he saw it again before Copenhagen, though it was 
 missed at Trafalgar. It was his herald of victory. Nor 
 under the auspices of triumph was death also ever absent 
 from the thoughts of the man, who accepted, as a welcome 
 present from a favoured Captain, the coffin made from a 
 mast of the ruined V Orient. 
 
 For flight Emma had not influenced her friend : it was 
 Nelson's project. ' If things take an unfortunate turn here,' 
 she had written to Nelson two months before, 'and the 
 Queen dies at her post, I will remain with her. If she goes, 
 I follow her.' 1 
 
 The second week of December proved to the Queen that 
 
 ' Add. MS. 34,9891 f- 24, Lady H. to Nelson, October 28, 1798. See 
 Appendix. 
 
FLIGHT 243 
 
 events were inexorable, and her selfish*son-in-law cold and 
 unmoved : he shifted with the political barometer. She 
 had despatched her courier, Rosenheim, to Vienna, but he 
 only returned with ill tidings. Vienna would 'give no 
 orders.' In vain she supplicated her daughter, ' may your 
 dear husband be our saviour.' The Emperor flatly refused 
 his aid. His subjects now desired peace, and the Neapoli- 
 tans must 'help themselves.' If Naples were assailed, the 
 Austrian treaty, it is true, would entitle reinforcements from 
 Vienna. But even so, the poorness of their troops, and the 
 grudging inclination of their ruler, left the issue but little 
 mended. The Queen was in despair. The French excuse 
 for war had been the alleged breach of their treaty by the 
 watering of the British fleet. A threatening army of 
 invaders was already known to be on its way ; yet still she 
 hoped against hope, and hesitated over the final plunge. 
 She despatched Gallo to Vienna to beseech her son-in-law 
 once more. She cursed the treaty of Campoformio, to which 
 she attributed the whole sad sequel of disaster. She vowed 
 that her own kinsfolk were leagued together in spite against 
 ' the daughter ' and the grandchildren ' of the great Maria 
 Theresa.' When the news fell like a thunderbolt that 
 Mack's case was desperate, the French troops in occupation 
 of Castel St. Angelo, and her husband about to scurry out 
 of Rome,^ those children could only ' weep and pray.' The 
 fact that the Jacobins— the ' right-minded," as they already 
 styled themselves — welcomed each crowning blow as a help 
 to their cause, heightened the humiliation.^ The Queen, 
 slighted and indignant, betook herself to Nelson and 
 to Emma.* They both pressed anew the urgent necessity 
 of flight ; but at first she disdained it. It was a ' fresh blow 
 to her soul and spirit ' ;* her original plan had been to send 
 off only her children.^ Its bare possibility was difficult to 
 realise ; and, after her husband's ashamed return, the popular 
 ferment seemed to bar its very execution. She dreaded a 
 repetition of Varennes. In the midst of brawl and tumult 
 
 1 December 11. ' Pep^. Memoirs, p. 30. 
 
 3 Cf. for the foregoing Eg. MS. 1623, f. I, and the Queen's letters to her 
 daughter, given in Helfert's /fl^mw Rttffo (1815), pp. 372. 379. 383- 
 ^ Helfert, p. 384. " Cf. Add. MS. 34.989. f- 14. 
 
244 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the King returned, and, faltering, showed himself on his 
 balcony. Lusty shouts of ' You will not go ! We will deal 
 with the Jacobins ! ' burst from the surging crowd. A spy 
 was knifed in the open streets, and the false nobles cast the 
 blame on the Queen. She should be held blood-guilty. In 
 bitter agony ^ she apprised her daughter that death was 
 preferable to such dishonour. She would die every inch a 
 Queen, ' I have renounced this world,' wrote Maria 
 Theresa's true offspring, ' I have renounced my reputation 
 as wife and mother. I am preparing to die, and making 
 ready for an eternity for which I long. This is all that is 
 left to me.' Even when she had been brought to the last 
 gasp of obeying her kind friends and her hard fate, her 
 letters to Vienna sound the tone of one stepping to the 
 scaffold. While the furious mob growled and groaned out- 
 side, her last requests to her daughter were for her husband 
 and children. On the very edge of her secret start, the 
 advices that General Burchardt ^ had marched his thousand 
 men, if not with flying colours, at least in fighting trim, so 
 far as Isoletta, may have once more made her rue her forced 
 surrender. 
 
 But meanwhile the Hamiltons, Nelson, and Acton were 
 in determined and close consultation, with Emma for 
 Nelson's interpreter. The establishment of the Ligurian 
 Republic had for some time boded the certainty of Buona- 
 parte's designs against the two Sicilies. The General had 
 at first written to Sir William with some sang-froid of the 
 ' troublesome and dangerous circumstances ' of the ' crisis,' ^ 
 but within a few days he was a zealous co-operator. Nel- 
 son, above all men, would never have counselled a base 
 desertion. But he knew the real circumstances, the general 
 perfidy, the Austrian weakness, both playing into the hands 
 of the French. Already, to his knowledge,* the aggressor's 
 
 ' On December VJ she writes to Emma, 'Tout cela me fait vivre en agonie.' 
 Eg. MS. 1615, f. 122, and of. the transcript, Eg. MS. 1620, f. 52. On December 
 19 she calls herself ' stupefied by this stroke,' and says that she ' weeps without 
 ceasing.' Its suddenness, she adds, overwhelms her, and will go down with her 
 to the grave. Ibid. f. 126. The spy's name was Ferrari. 
 
 * By Acton and the Queen styled 'Bourkard.' — Laughton's Z)«j^a/«5«, p. 175. 
 ' Eg. MS. 2640, f. 152. 
 
 * Morrison MS. 364, Nelsgn to Hamilton, December 14, 1798. 
 
FLIGHT 245 
 
 footfall was audible, and, after General Mack's fiasco, no 
 resources were left at home. His firm resolve was to await 
 the moment when he might deal a fresh death-blow to 
 Buonaparte, and meanwhile to seize the first opportunity 
 for crushing the Neapolitan Jacobins and reinstating the 
 Neapolitan King. For him the cause symbolised not 
 despotism against freedom, not the progress from law to 
 liberty, but discipline and patriotism against licence and 
 anarchy. He had summoned ships to protect the Vanguard: 
 the Culloden with Troubridge from the north and west 
 coasts of Italy, the Goliath from off Malta, the Alcmene under 
 Captain Hope from Egypt.^ He had already provided for 
 the protection of the principal ports.^ He had foreseen 
 that ' within six months the Neapolitan Republic would be 
 armed, organised, and called forth,' that malingering 
 Austria was herself in extremis? 
 
 They urged the Queen to prepare for the worst; and from 
 December 17 onwards, while their measures were being 
 concerted, Emma superintended the gradual transport from 
 the palace of valuables both private and public. The pro- 
 cess occupied her night and day for nearly a week, and 
 required the strictest secrecy and caution. Some she 
 fetched, some she received, all she stowed. 
 
 Our critics, biassed, may be, by anxiety to impugn Emma's 
 latest memorial, make much of evidence in a few isolated 
 letters,* indicating that the Queen forwarded some of her 
 effects by trusted messengers, and omitting that Emma 
 caused any herself to be carried from the palace to the 
 Embassy. The point is immaterial, but even here criticism 
 has erred perhaps from some lack of full investigation. 
 The very bulk of the many chests and boxes to be removed 
 was to cause a dangerous delay in the eventual voyage. 
 They were conveyed in different ways, some on shipboard 
 (among them the public treasure), others, including jewels 
 and linen, by the hands of the servant Saverio ; others again 
 to be transported by Emma herself. The Queen, in one of 
 
 1 Laughton's Despatches, p. 175. ^ Ibid, p. 362. ' Ibid. p. 173. 
 
 « Especially that concerning the 'jewels of a whole wretched family. '-^Eg. 
 MS. 1616, f. 92. This Pettigrew mistakenly transfers to the following year, 
 vol, i. p. 375- 
 
246 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 her almost hourly notes, expressly hoped that she was not 
 ' indiscreet in sending these,' thereby suggesting that various 
 means of conveyance had been used for some of the rest. 
 In another, too, she excused herself for her 'abuse oi your 
 kindnesses and that of our brave Admiral.' Nelson's official 
 account to Lord St. Vincent stated that ' Lady Hamilton ' 
 from December 14 to 21 'received the jewels, etc.'^ 
 Emma's own recital to Greville, less than a fortnight after 
 the terrors of the journey were past, included as the least of 
 her long fatigues that ' for six nights before the embarkation ' 
 she ' sat up ' at her own house ' receiving all the jewels, 
 money and effects of the royal family, and from thence 
 conveying them on board the Vanguard, living in fear of 
 being torn to pieces by the tumultuous mob, who suspected 
 our departure,' but ' Sir William and I being beloved in the 
 Country saved us.' Sir William himself informed Greville 
 that ' Emma has had a very principal part in this delicate 
 business, as she is, and has been for several years the real 
 and only confidential friend of the Queen of Naples.' ^ 
 
 In the pathos of the Queen's letters to Emma resides their 
 true interest. Maria Carolina's anguish increased as the 
 plot for her preservation thickened ; she clung piteously to 
 the strong arms of Emma and Nelson, who really managed 
 the whole business.* Sobs and tears, paroxysms of scorn 
 and sighs of rage more and more pervade them, as one by 
 one the strongholds of her country yield or are captured. 
 She is ' the most unfortunate of Queens, mothers, women, 
 but Emma's sincerest friend.'* It is to her alone that she 
 ' habitually opens her heart.' ^ Emma's indorsements may 
 serve as an index : — ' My adorable, unfortunate Queen. God 
 bless and protect her and her august family.' ' Dear, dear 
 Queen' — ' Unfortunate Queen.' More than a month earlier 
 she had protested to Nelson her readiness, if need be, to 
 accompany her to the block.® One of these billets tristes of 
 
 ^ Cf. Laughton's Despatches, p. 175. 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 369, Hamilton to Greville, January 6, 1799 ; 370, Lady 
 Hamilton to the same, January 7, 1799- 
 
 ^ 'It was,' wrote Nelson officially to Lord St. Vincent, on December 28, 
 ' carried on with the greatest address by Lady H. and the Queen.' — Laughton's 
 Despatches, p. 1 75 
 
 * Eg. MS. 161S, f. 129. ^ Ibid. 161S, f. 8. « Ibid. 34,989, f. 24. 
 
FLIGHT 247 
 
 the Queen to her friend encloses a little blue-printed pic- 
 ture. It is an elegiac. A wreathed Amorino pipes mourn- 
 fully beside a cypress-shadowed tomb, behind which two 
 Cupids are carelessly dancing: on the tomb is inscribed 
 ' Embarque je vous en prie. M. C.'^ — Emma's melancholy 
 refrain to the would-be martyr. 
 
 Prince Belmonte, now chamberlain, acted as the King's 
 agent and Caracciolo's, in effecting a scheme full of diffi- 
 culty, owing to the great number of the refugees, the 
 ridiculous etiquette of precedences, insisted on even at 
 such an hour, the vast quantity of their united baggage, 
 the avowed designs of the French Directory, the covert 
 conspiracies of false courtiers in which the War Minister 
 himself was implicated, the fierceness of popular tumult 
 and the Jacobin spies who kept a sharp lookout on Nelson, 
 but were ' foiled by Emma's adroitness.'^ 
 
 The plan originally concerted was as follows. The escape 
 was to happen on the night of the 21st. After the last 
 instalments of treasure and detachments of foreigners had 
 been safely and ceremoniously deposited on board their 
 several vessels, Count Thurn (an Austrian Admiral of the 
 Neapolitan navy) would attend outside the secret passage 
 leading from the royal rooms to the ' Molesiglio,' or little 
 quay, to receive Nelson or his nominees. Caracciolo, as 
 head of Marine, had begged hard to convoy the royal party 
 and float the royal standard on his flag-ship, but had been 
 dryly denied ; * and this, perhaps, was the first prick to 
 that treacherous revenge which six months later he was to 
 expiate by his life. 
 
 But on a sudden, at the eleventh hour, the whole was 
 put off till the next evening. The chests in which some of 
 the treasure had been bestowed on the Alcmene were rotten ; 
 at least this was one of the pretexts which Nelson, who 
 had already signed orders for safe conduct and for an 
 emissary to conduct the royalties,* evidently mistrusted. 
 
 1 For the preceding cf. Eg. MS. 1615, flF. 122, 124, 126, 129, 131 ; Eg. 
 MS. 1616, f. 92. 
 
 * Cf. Nelson's own statement to Lord St. Vincent, Laughton's Despatches, 
 p. 175. ° Pep6, Memoirs, p. 32. 
 
 * Commodore Campbell. He was to ' proceed with two armed boats ' to the 
 
248 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 On this eventful day at least six communications passed 
 between Hamilton and Acton (if the inclosures from the 
 palace are included), and Nelson, prompt and impatient, 
 was acutely irritated. In vain Acton expressed his 
 acquiescence. He was ' in hopes that three or four hours 
 will not exasperate more than at present our position.' 
 Nelson remained polite, but suspicious.^ The fact was that 
 both King and ^ueen waited on Providence at the last 
 gasp. The former dreaded to desert his people at the 
 moment of defeat ; the latter feared a step which, if futile, 
 might irreparably alienate her husband, and must render 
 her execrable to the faithful Lazzaroni. 
 
 By means of the old manuscripts the scene rises vividly 
 before us. Within the precincts of the palace, flurry, dissen- 
 sion, wavering perplexity, confusion, a spectral misery.^ 
 In its purlieus, treason. Outside, a seditious loyalty with- 
 holding the King from the Queen. In the council-chamber, 
 Belmonte, serene and punctilious ; Gallo, dainty in danger ; 
 Caracciolo, jealous and sullen ; Acton, slow, doubtful, and 
 stolid. At the English Embassy alone reigned vigilance, 
 resolve, and resourcefulness. Every English merchant (and 
 there were many both here and at Leghorn) looked to Nelson 
 and Hamilton and Emma. Among phantoms these were 
 realities. On them alone counted those poor ' old demoi- 
 selles of France' who had sought asylum in the Neapolitan 
 palace. On them alone hung the destinies of a dynasty 
 threatened at home, forsaken abroad, and faced with the 
 certainty of invasion. They stood for the British fleet, and 
 the British fleet for the salvation of Europe. 
 The ominous morning dawned of the 2ist. 
 All that day General Acton pelted Nelson and Hamilton 
 with contradictory announcements, of which no fewer than 
 eight remain. At first he agrees that the moment has come 
 when ' no time should be lost,' but the inevitable proviso 
 
 small quay abutting on the palace. The safe conduct was for Lady Knight, 
 who was put in charge of Commodore Stone. ' Do not be alarmed, there is in 
 truth no cause for it.' 
 
 ' For the preceding, inter alia, cf. Eg. MS. 2640, ff. 151, 153, 15^, 159, 161 ; 
 Eg. MS. 1623, ff. 4, S, 7 ; Morrison MS. 365, 366. 
 
 ^ On December 21, Acton wrote in his quaint English, 'Every head in the 
 palace is in a strange state of accensidn.' — Eg. MS. 1623, f. 5. 
 
FLIGHT 249 
 
 follows — ' If the wind does not blow too hard.' He next 
 writes that, in such a case, all had best be deferred afresh. 
 The Akmene, too, with the bullion on board — as much as 
 two million and a half sterling — was off Posilippo, and 
 its signals might alarm the angry crowds, clamouring for 
 their King at Santa Lucia, and on the Chiaja. Another 
 billet promises the 'King's desire' as soon forthcoming.^ 
 In another, once more, grave consideration is devoted to 
 the usual retiring hour of the young princes, and to the 
 ' feeding-time ' of the King's grandchild, the babe in arms of 
 the heir-apparent and Princess Clementina, which had been 
 so anxiously awaited in October ; ' a sucking child,' says 
 Acton in a crowning instance of unconscious humour, 
 ' makes a most dreadful spectacle to the eyes of the 
 servant women and in the rest of the family.'* Nelson, 
 pressing for expedition, was beside himself over the 
 precious moments thus being squandered. What Acton 
 remarks in one of these letters, once more in his peculiar 
 English, applies also to his own communications, ' Heavings 
 from every side . . . contradictions from every corner.' 
 
 Nelson, however, would brook no more trifling. Every- 
 thing must be settled by seven o'clock. Count Thurn must 
 be at the appointed rendezvous, the Molesiglio.® His pass- 
 word, unless some unexpected force intervened, was to be 
 the English, ' All goes right and well'; otherwise, 'All is 
 wrongs you may go back.' 
 
 One can imagine the unfortunate Count rehearsing his 
 provoking part that afternoon with an Austrian accent: 
 ' Algoes raight ' — ' Al ees vrong.' 
 
 Acton and Caracciolo drew up the order of embarkation. 
 By half- past eight the royal contingent, convoyed by 
 Nelson and his friends through the secret passage to the 
 little quay, were to have been rowed on board the 
 Vanguard. It comprised besides the King, Queen, the 
 Hereditary Prince with his wife and infant (whose ' zafatta,' 
 
 ' And this in spite of Nelson's receipt from him of a note on the 19th con- 
 firming the King's approval of Nelson's plans. Cf. Laughton's Despatches, 
 p. 175. 
 
 " Eg. MS. 2640, f. 163. 
 
 s At a landing-stage called Vittoria {'La Victoire'). Cf. Eg. MS, 1623, f. 7* 
 
2SO EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 or nurse, was no less a personage than the Duchess of 
 Gravina), the little Prince Albert, to whom Emma was 
 devoted (with his ' zafatta ' also), Prince Leopold, the three 
 remaining princesses, Acton, Princes Castelcicala and 
 Belmonte, Thurn, and the court physician Vincenzo Ruzzi. 
 The second embarkation was to follow two hours later with 
 a great retinue, including, it is interesting for Mendelssohn- 
 admirers to notice, the name of ' Bartoldi.' The rest were 
 to proceed in three several detachments, amounting to 
 nearly four hundred souls, noble and otherwise, among 
 whom Lady Acton and her sons are specified. The two 
 royal spinsters of France were to be conducted with every 
 precaution by land to Portici, whence they might find their 
 way over the border. All friendly Ambassadors were to be 
 notified. Such was the routine.^ It should be especially 
 noticed that from these exact lists, detailing the names of 
 every passenger, the Hamiltons are absent. They were 
 under Nelson's care, and of his party — a point most 
 material to the future narrative substantiating Lady 
 Hamilton's own subsequent story. And it must further 
 be emphasised that these Acton letters, as well as a 
 reference in one of the Queen's, conclusively establish the 
 plan of the secret passage as an historical fact, instead of as 
 any figment or after-inlay of Emma's imagination. 
 
 As night drew on Maria Carolina sat down to indite two 
 letters, the one to her daughter at Vienna, the other to 
 Emma, who would rejoin her so soon in this crisis of her 
 fate. She wrote them amid horrors and in wretchedness. 
 The army could no more be trusted. Even the navy was 
 in revolt. Orders had been given that, after the royal 
 departure, the remaining ships were to be burned lest they 
 should fall into French or revolutionary hands. As she 
 wrote, the tidings came that the miserable Vanni — the 
 creature of her inquisition — had shot himself dead, and she 
 loads herself with reproaches. Massacre continued ; the 
 very French ^migrds were not spared by the Italian 
 Jacobins. Everywhere tumult, disgrace, bloodshed. The 
 crowd, calmed for a moment, still howled at intervals for 
 
 ' Eg. MS. 1623, ff. 8-II. Most of these particulars, but signed in Carac- 
 ciolo's hand, are also given by Pettigrew, vol. i. pp. 181-186. 
 
FLIGHT 251 
 
 their King, whose departure they now suspected. The 
 ' cruel determination ' had been foisted on her. ' Once on 
 board,' the Queen tells the Empress, ' God help us, . . . saved, 
 but ruined and dishonoured.' To Lady Hamilton she 
 repeats the same distracted burden. Discipline has 
 vanished. ' Unbridled ' licence grows hourly. Their ' con- 
 cert with their liberator' is their mainstay. Her last 
 thoughts are for the safety of friends and dependants, 
 whom she confides by name to Emma's charge. To it also 
 she commends herself and hers. It will seem ages till they 
 meet again. ' Eternal gratitude ' is her offering to her 
 friend, and the friend of their rescuer.^ 
 
 The sky was clouded. There was a lull in the strong 
 wind off the shore, but a heavy ground-swell prevailed as 
 the appointed hour approached.^ The royal party anxiously 
 waited in their apartments — the Queen's room with its dark 
 exit, so familiar to the romantic Emma,^ — for the signal 
 which should summon them through the tunnel to the 
 water-side. On the Molesiglio, and at his station near the 
 Arsenal, stood Thurn, muffled and ill at ease. It was the 
 night of a reception given in Nelson's honour by Kelim 
 Effendi,the bearer from the Sultan of his ' plume of triumph.' 
 
 The exact sequence of what now occurred is difficult, but 
 possible, to collect from the three contemporary and, at 
 first sight, conflicting documents that survive. There is the 
 Queen's own brief recital to her daughter.* There is 
 Nelson's dry official despatch to Lord St. Vincent, accentu- 
 ating, however, Emma's conspicuous services.^ There are 
 Emma's own hurried lines ^ to Greville, thirteen days after 
 that awful voyage, which, for three days and nights, 
 deprived her of sleep and strained every faculty of mind 
 and body. 
 
 1 For the foregoing of. Eg. MS. 2640, S. 159, 161, 163, 165 ; Eg. MS. 1623, 
 ff. 5, 7, 8, 10 ; Eg. MS. 1615, f. 131 ; Helfert's Fabrizio Ruffo, pp. 386-387. 
 
 ^ 7.30 by Neapolitan time, as arranged by Acton. According to Nelson's 
 oflScial account to Lord St. Vincent, it was 8.30 — i.e. by English log time. It 
 must therefore have been altered again. 
 
 ^ ' The dark staircase that goes into the Queen's room.' — Morrison MS. 370, 
 Lady Hamilton to Greville, January 7, 1799. 
 
 ^ Helfert, p. 387. ° Laughton's Despatches, p. 177. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 370. 
 
352 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Let us try to ascertain the truth by collation. Nelson's 
 account is brief and doubtless accurate : — 
 
 'On the 2ist, at 8.30 P.M., three barges with myself and 
 Captain Hope landed at a corner of the Arsenal. I went 
 into the palace and brought out the whole royal family, put 
 them into the boats, and at 9.30 [i.e. by English time] they 
 were all safely on board.' 
 
 It is an official statement, which naturally omits the 
 mysteries of the secret corridor, the Count in waiting, the 
 password which Acton in his letters, confirming Emma's 
 after account, had arranged with Nelson.^ 
 
 The Queen's short notice to, the Empress of Austria 
 (hitherto unmarked) makes no mention of Emma's name — 
 the Queen never does in any of her letters to her daughter 
 — but further corroborates the melodrama of the secret 
 staircase winding down to the little quay : — 
 
 ' We descended— aW our family, ten in number,^ with the 
 utmost secrecy, in the dark, without our ladies-in-waiting 
 or other attendants. Nelson was our guide.' 
 
 Now let us listen carefully to Emma's own graphic 
 narrative. The hours named in it do not tally with 
 Nelson's, and after the long strain of the tragic occurrences, 
 culminating in the death of the little Prince Albert, she 
 may well have been confused. They are really irrelevant. 
 The point is the real sequence and substance of events, 
 which, more or less, must have stayed in her immediate 
 remembrance. It will be found that her vivfd words bear a 
 construction different from that which might appear at the 
 first blush, and it should be borne in mind that no possible 
 motive for distorting the facts can be alleged in this friendly 
 communication to her old friend : — 
 
 'On the 2ist at ten at night, Lord Nelson, Sir Wm., 
 Mother and self went out to pay a visit, sent all our 
 servants away, and ordered them in 2 hours to come with 
 the coach, and ordered supper at home. When they were 
 gone, we sett off, walked to our boat, and after two hours 
 got to the Vanguard. Lord N. then went with armed boats 
 to a secret passage adjoining to the pallace, got up the dark 
 
 ' Cf. especially Egerton MS. 2640, f. 159. 
 
 ^ The original number designed had been twelve. — Egerton MS. 1616, f. 92. 
 
FLIGHT 253 
 
 staircase that goes into the Queen's room, and with a dark 
 lantern, cutlasses, pistols, etc., brought off every soul, ten in 
 number, to the Vanguard ^t twelve o'clock. If we had re- 
 mained to the next day, we shou'd have all been imprisoned.' 
 Reading this account loosely, it might be imagined that 
 Emma transposed the true order ; that Nelson, stealing 
 with the Hamiltons away from the reception, first brought 
 them on board, and afterwards returned for the royal 
 fugitives. But the reverse of this admits of proof from her 
 own statement. She, with her family and Nelson, quitted 
 the party at (as she here puts it) ten. It took them two 
 hours to reach the Vanguard. Nelson saved the royalties, 
 who were not on board till ' twelve' It is obvious, there- 
 fore, that (whatever the precise hour) the Hamiltons and 
 Mrs. Cadogan arrived on the Vanguard at the selfsame 
 moment as the King, the Queen, their children, and grand- 
 child. The misimpression arises from the phrasing ' Lord 
 Nelson then went with armed boats,' etc., following the 
 previous statement of their being at their destination ' after 
 two hours.' But this ' then^ as so often in Emma's thinking- 
 aloud letters, is an enclitic merely carrying on disjointed 
 sentences. It is no mark of time at all, but simply refers 
 to what happened after they hastened from the entertain- 
 ment, having ordered everything as if they intended to re- 
 main until its close. Otherwise they must have ' got to ' 
 the Vanguard long before the King and Queen, which, by 
 her own recollection in this letter, they do not. It will be 
 noted from Nelson's recital that the Vanguard could be 
 reached in an hour. 
 
 What happened, then, seems to be this. After their 
 hurried exit, the Hamiltons accompanied Nelson on foot. 
 The Acton correspondence shows that, as has appeared 
 from the pre-arrangements, the Hamiltons must have been 
 of Nelson's private and unspecified party. Together they 
 went to their boat where, before their start, they awaited 
 the separate escape of the royalties. Eventually the two 
 contingents stepped on to the deck of the Vanguard at the 
 same moment and together. But, in the interval, something 
 must have necessitated and occupied their attendance. 
 What was it ? 
 
254 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Here Emma's own account in her 'Prince Regent's 
 Memorial,' more than fourteen years afterwards, perhaps 
 comes to our aid. It has been discredited even as regards 
 the 'secret passage' incident which Acton's letters now 
 reveal as an absolute fact. This is what Emma says : — 
 
 'To shew the caution and secrecy that was necessarily 
 used in thus getting away, I had on the night of our 
 embarkation to attend the party given by the Kilim 
 Effendi, who was sent by the grand seignior to Naples to 
 present Nelson with the Shahlerih or Plume of Triumph. 
 I had to steal from the party, leaving our carriages and 
 equipages waiting at his house, and in about fifteen minutes 
 to be at my post, where it was my task to conduct the 
 Royal Family through the subterranean passage to Nelson's 
 boats, by that moment waiting for us on the shore. The 
 season for this voyage was extremely hazardous, and our 
 miraculous preservation is recorded by the Admiral upon 
 our arrival at Palermo.' i 
 
 I venture, therefore, to suggest the following probability. 
 Count Thurn is keeping watch, in accordance with the pre- 
 concerted plan. Captain Hope and Nelson arrive at about 
 7.30 by Neapolitan time at the Molesiglio. Leaving Captain 
 Hope in charge, Nelson hurries to the reception, as if 
 nothing were in process, and, as designed, meets the 
 Hamiltons and Mrs. Cadogan. Within a quarter of an 
 hour they all sallly forth, walk to the shore, and proceed in 
 Sir William's private boat to the rendezvous. Emma, 
 quitting her mother and husband, hastens by the palace 
 postern to the side of her ' adored Queen.' The signal for 
 the flight has already been made by Count Thurn. Emma 
 accompanies the royal family to the winding and under- 
 ground staircase, up which Nelson climbs with pistols and 
 lanterns to conduct them. They all emerge from the inner 
 to the outer darkness. The royal family are bestowed by 
 Hope and Nelson in their barges. The Hamiltons re-enter 
 their own private boat. In another hour they again meet 
 on board the Vanguard. 
 
 Morrison MS. 1046. In the ' King's Memorial ' the whole episode of the 
 flight is omitted, although Nelson in his despatches emphasises Emma's great 
 services on and before the voyage. 
 
FLIGHT 255 
 
 Emma's temperament alike and circumstances forbid us 
 to suppose that, at such an hour, she would allow herself to 
 stay apart from the Queen. She lived, and had for weeks 
 been living, on tension. The melodrama of the moment, 
 the danger, the descent down the cavernous passage, the' 
 lanterns, pistols, and cutlasses, the armed boats, the safe 
 conduct of her hero, would all appeal to her. It was an 
 experience unlikely to be repeated, and one that she would 
 be most unlikely to forgo. Affection and excitement 
 would both unite in prompting her to persuade Nelson into 
 permitting her to assist in this thrilling scene. And it 
 would be equally unlikely that either she or Nelson would 
 report this episode to England. In any case, the incident 
 was one more of personal adventure than of necessary help. 
 What Nelson does single out for the highest commenda- 
 tion in his despatches, what was published both at home ^ 
 and abroad, and universally acknowledged, what Lord 
 St. Vincent praised with gratitude,^ was her signal service 
 before the voyage and under that awful storm which arose 
 during it, in which, by every authentic account, she enacted 
 the true heroine, exerting her energies for every one except 
 herself, caring for and comforting all, till she was called their 
 'guardian angel.' 'What a scene,' wrote Sir John Macpherson 
 to Hamilton, 'you, your Sicilian King, his Queen, Lady 
 Hamilton, and our noble Nelson have lately gone through ! 
 . . . Lady Hamilton has shown, with honour to you and 
 herself, the merit of your predilection and selection of so 
 good a heart and so fine a mind. She is admired here from 
 the court to the cottage. The King and Prince of Wales 
 often speak of her.' * 
 
 It was not till seven o'clock on the morning of the 
 
 1 Cf. Lady Betty Foster's tribute in her letter to Lady Hamilton of February 
 S, 1799, Morrison MS. 37S : ' Forgive me if I cannot help avaihng myself of the 
 same opportunity to express to you the universal tribute of praise and admiration 
 which is paid to the very great courage and feeling -which, you have shown on 
 the late melancholy occasion.' 
 
 ^ In his letter of January 17, 1799, from Rosia House, Gibraltar, he speaks of 
 her 'magnanimous conduct.' 'The page of history v^ill be greatly enriched by 
 the introduction of this scene in it.' Cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 187. 
 
 2 Cf. the excerpt in Sotheby's catalogue for May 17, i905- Macpherson's 
 letter is dated ' London, Z4th August 1799.' 
 
2S6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 23rd that the Vanguard could weigh anchor. Fresh con- 
 signments of things left behind were awaited. It was still 
 hoped that riot might be pacified and disaffection subdued. 
 Prince Francesco Pignatelli had been commissioned to 
 reign at Naples during the King's absence, and was nomi- 
 nated Deputy-Captain-GeneraP — of anarchy. During this 
 interval of suspense, a deputation of the magistrates came 
 on board and implored the King to remain among his 
 people. He was inflexible, and every effort to move him 
 proved unavailing.^ On the one hand, the Lazzaroni, 
 incensed against the Jacobins despoiling them of their 
 King ; on the other, the French Ambassador, smarting 
 under his formal dismissal procured by Emma's influence, 
 were each precipitating an upheaval itself, engineered by 
 French arms and agitators and used by traitorous nobles, 
 whom both mob and bourgeoisie had grown to detest. 
 While Maria Carolina's name was now execrated at Naples 
 by loyalist and disloyalist alike, her misfortunes called 
 forth sympathy from England, alarmed by the French 
 excesses, and regarding the Jacobin mercilessness as fasten- 
 ing on faith, allegiance, and freedom. 
 
 Not a murmur escaped the lips of the pig-headed King 
 or the hysterical Queen, though inwardly both repined. 
 From the Vanguard, ere it set sail, Maria Carolina wrote 
 yet another and sadder letter to her daughter. Her ' one 
 consolation ' was that all faithful to their house had been 
 saved.* 
 
 After two days' anxious inaction the Vanguard and 
 Sannite, with about twenty sail of vessels, at last left the 
 bay in disturbed weather and under a lowering sky. 
 Among the last visitors was General Mack, at the end 
 of his hopes, his wits, and his health : ' my heart bled for 
 him,' wrote Nelson, ' worn to a shadow.' * The next morn- 
 ing witnessed the worst storm in Nelson's long recollection. 
 
 And here Emma approved herself worthy of her hero's 
 ideal. A splendid sailor, intrepid and energetic, she owned 
 a physique which, like her muscular arms, she perhaps 
 inherited from her blacksmith father. So quick had proved 
 
 ' 'Vicaiio-Capitan-Generale.' ^ Pep^, Memoirs, p. 32. 
 
 3 Helfert, p. 387. * Laughton's Despatches, p, 179. 
 
Lady Hamilton as Serhna in the Boat of Apathy. 
 
 From the oil sketch /or the picture by G. Roviney. 
 
FLIGHT 257 
 
 the eventual decision to fly, such had been the precautions 
 against attracting notice by any show of preparation, so 
 many public provisions had been hurried, that the private 
 had been perforce neglected. Nelson himself thus paints her 
 conduct on this ' trying occasion.' ' They necessarily came 
 on board without a bed. . . . Lady Hamilton provided her 
 own beds, linen, etc., and became their slave ; for except 
 one man, no person belonging to royalty assisted the royal 
 family, nor did her Ladyship enter a bed the whole time 
 they were on board.' ^ Emma's Palermo letter to Greville, 
 which is very characteristic, will best resume the narrative : — 
 ' We arrived on Christmas day at night, after having been 
 near lost, a tempest that Lord Nelson had never seen for 
 thirty years he has been at sea, the like ; all our sails torn 
 to pieces, and all the men ready with their axes to cut 
 away the masts. And poor I to attend and keep up the 
 spirits of the Queen, the Princess Royall, three young 
 princesses, a baby six weeks old, and 2 young princes 
 Leopold and Albert ; the last, six years old, my favourite, 
 taken with convulsion in the midst of the storm, and, at 
 seven in the evening of Christmas day, expired [szc] in my 
 arms,^ not a soul to help me, as the few women her Majesty 
 brought on board ^ were incapable of helping her or the 
 poor royal children. The King and Prince were below in 
 the ward room with Castelcicala, Belmonte, Gravina, Acton, 
 and Sir William, my mother there assisting them, all their 
 attendants being so frighten'd, and on their knees praying. 
 The King says my mother is an angel. I have been for 
 12 nights without once closing my eyes. . . . The gallant 
 Mack is now at Capua, fighting it out to the last, and, 
 I believe, coming with the remains of his vile army into 
 Calabria to protect Sicily, but thank God we have got our 
 brave Lord Nelson. The King and Queen and the Sicilians 
 adore, next to worship him, and so they ought ; for we 
 
 1 Laughton's Despatches, p. 177. 
 
 2 All this is fully borne out by Nelson's despatch. Other contemporary 
 accounts give details of the poor little fellow's illness. For a few hours he 
 rallied ; he never complained, but he refused all nourishment. 
 
 s It should be noted that these, specified in Acton's and Caracciolo's lists, were 
 not, from the Queen's account to the Empress, with the Queen when the royal 
 party issued from the palace passage. 
 
 R 
 
258 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 shou'd not have had this Island but for his glorious victory. 
 He is called here Nostra Liberatore, nostra Salvatare. We 
 have left everything at Naples but the vases and best 
 pictures.^ 3 houses^ elegantly furnished, all our horses 
 and our 6 or 7 carriages, I think is enough for the vile 
 French. For we cou'd not get our things off, not to betray 
 the royal family. And, as we were in council, we were 
 sworn to secrecy. So we are the worst off. All the other 
 ministers have saved all by staying some days after us. 
 Nothing can equal the manner we have been received here ; 
 but dear, dear Naples, we now dare not show our love for 
 that place ; for this country is je[a]lous of the other. We 
 cannot at present proffit of our leave of absence, for we 
 cannot leave the royal family in their distress. Sir William, 
 however, says that in the Spring we shall leave this, as 
 Lord St. Vincent has ordered a ship to carry us down to 
 Gibraltar. God only knows what yet is to become of us. 
 We are worn out. I am with anxiety and fatigue. Sir 
 William [h]as had 3 days a bilious attack, but is now well. 
 . . . The Queen, whom I love better than any person in 
 the world, is very unwell. We weep together, and now that 
 is our onely comfort. Sir William and the King are 
 philosophers ; nothing affects them, thank God, and we are 
 scolded even for shewing proper sensibility. God bless 
 you, my dear Sir. Excuse this scrawl.'* 
 
 At three in the afternoon of that sad Christmas Day, the 
 royal standard was hoisted at the head of the Vanguard 
 in face of Palermo. The tempest-tossed Queen, prostrate 
 with grief at the death of her little son, refused to go on 
 shore. The King entered his barge and was received with 
 loyal acclamations. The Vanguard did not anchor till two 
 o'clock of the following morning. To spare the feelings 
 of the bereaved Queen, Nelson accompanied her and the 
 Princesses privately to the land. Even then she was sur- 
 rounded by half-enemies. Admiral Caracciolo disguised 
 his Jacobin sympathies and was already sailing under false 
 colours. The Neapolitan Captain Bausan, whose skill con- 
 
 ' Afterwards forwarded to England, and in part lost by the Colossus. 
 " The Embassy, Villa Emma at Posilippo, and the Villino at Caserta. 
 ' Morrison MS. 370; January 7, 1799. 
 
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 o . 
 
 ►J % 
 
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 hH 
 
 H 
 
 a< 
 
 < 
 
 S z 
 
 5 
 
 1 < 
 o >• 
 
 m 
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 (- q 
 
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 ? is 
 ft. < 
 
FLIGHT 259 
 
 tributed to the safety of the ships, and who was again to 
 pilot the King next year into pqrt, became, in that very 
 year, himself a suspect and an exile.^ 
 
 Among the furniture abandoned at the English Embassy 
 were a beautiful table and cabinet which the grateful Nelson 
 had ordered from England as mementos for Emma, and 
 whose classical designs of muses and hovering cupids are 
 said to have been painted by Angelica Kauffmann. These 
 still exist, and are in the present possession of Mr. Sander- 
 son, the eminent Edinburgh collector, to whose kindness 
 the writer is indebted for a photograph. It was these, per- 
 haps, that Nelson sought to recover for Emma in 1804, 
 but without success.^ 
 
 The Queen secluded herself in the old palace of Colli. 
 Save Emma and her own circle, she would receive nobody. 
 She was overwhelmed with the double weight of her 
 misfortunes. Her throat, head, and chest were affected ; 
 the physicians were summoned, but her malady lay beyond 
 their cure. Not only had she been sorely bereaved, dis- 
 graced by defeats, and stung by treacheries, but her husband 
 now began to make her a scapegoat. This, forsooth, was the 
 fruit of her Anglo-mania — a revolted kingdom, a maddened 
 though adoring populace, an advancing and arrogant enemy. 
 Every day the Queen frequented the churches for prayer 
 and the convents for meditation. Each evening she poured 
 out her heart to the helpful friend of her choice, whose 
 sympathy lightened a load else insupportable.^ 
 
 With some difficulty the Hamiltons, whose permanent 
 guest Nelson now first became, found a suitable abode not 
 too distant from the palace, and, as they hoped, healthier 
 in situation than most of a then malarious city. But they 
 all suffered from the bad air, the more so in the reaction of 
 the change from their Neapolitan home. On Emma now 
 devolved half the duties of the transferred Embassy. Sir 
 William waxed peevish and querulous. He bemoaned the 
 wreck of the Colossus, which had carried his art treasures 
 
 i Pepe, p. 33. 
 
 2 Through Falconet the banker. Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 19. 
 s Cf. especially Eg. MS. 1615, f. 134; and see the note cited by Pettigrew, 
 vol. i. pp- 187, 188. 
 
26o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 home. Homeward he himself yearned to retire, leaving 
 the Consul Lock as his chargi d'affaires. ' I have been 
 driven,' he told Greville, 'from my comfortable house at 
 Naples to a house here without chimneys, and calculated 
 only for summer. ... As I wax old, it has been hard upon 
 me, having had both bilious and rheumatic complaints. I^ 
 am still most desirous of returning home by the first ship 
 that Lord Nelson sends down to Gibraltar, as I am worn 
 out and want repose.' But he shared his wife's enthusiasm 
 for Nelson, which acted like a tonic on his nerves. ' I love 
 Lord Nelson more and more,' he adds ; ' his activity is 
 wonderfull, and he loves us sincerely.'^ He consoled him- 
 self with the thought that he had done his duty.^ 
 
 By January 24 the ' Parthenopean Republic ' had been 
 proclaimed in a town betrayed, against the will of its 
 people, to a French General. The Tree of Liberty had been 
 planted; the wooden images of the giants, crowned with the 
 red cap of Revolution, had been set up on either side of 
 the palace. Every loiterer on the Chiaja wore the tricolor ; 
 the Toledo itself rang with the Marseillaise. For a time the 
 enemies of Naples played the part of its deliverers. For 
 the Royalists Naples seemed lost to the Neapolitans ; for 
 the Jacobins she appeared the trophy of freedom. 
 
 The successive episodes both before and after this terrible 
 transformation scene are a ' witches' Sabbath.' All of 
 worst and wildest in every class of the population was set 
 loose. 
 
 And the royal flight had been a Pandora's box which 
 had let forth the whole brood of winged mischiefs. If the 
 Queen scathed the rebels as parricide poltroons, they, in 
 their turn, branded her as villain, and the King as coward 
 and selfish deserter, at the very moment when the French 
 had crossed the boundary. But with that invading host 
 most of them were already in collusion ; it was the Lazzaroni 
 alone who had the real right of denouncement. No sooner 
 had Pignatelli published the absconded King's proclama- 
 tion, and placarded the edict appointing him as temporary 
 viceroy, than 'chaos was come again.' Their rough-and- 
 
 • Morrison MS. 381, April S, 1799. "^ Ibid. 384, April 28, 1799, 
 
FLIGHT 261 
 
 tumble macaroni-monarch had vanished ; their loathed 
 French Revolution was in the air. The French troops 
 were on their insolent march cityward. If the Neapolitan 
 Bourbons were indeed Baal, as the Jacobins averred, there 
 were now few but Lazzaroni to bow the knee ; if, the Tree 
 of Liberty, as the loyalists declared it, its votaries might 
 be counted by thousands. But on both sides there was 
 no Elijah — no seer to call down fire from heaven. The 
 flames, so soon to enwrap the stricken city, were those of 
 Mephistopheles. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 
 
 To August 1799 
 
 ' Conspiracies are for aristocrats, not for nations,' is a 
 pregnant apophthegm of Disraeli. Viewed at its full 
 length and from its inner side, the great Jacobin outburst 
 at Naples was more of a conspiracy than a revolution, or 
 even an insurrection. 
 
 To appreciate Nelson's part, and Emma's help, in the 
 much-criticised suppression of the Neapolitan Jacobins 
 during June, it behoves us to track, however briefly, the 
 course of that most interesting and singular movement. 
 This is not the occasion for a minute inquiry ; but four 
 preliminary considerations must be kept in mind. In the 
 first place, this revolt differs from all others in that it was 
 one of the noblesse and bourgeoisie against the whole mass 
 of the people. In the second, its chief leaders, both men 
 and women (and it is doubly engrossing from the fact that 
 women played a great part in it), confessedly took their 
 lives into their hands. They were quite ready to annihilate 
 the objects of their loathing, and, therefore, they had small 
 right to complain when opportunity transferred to them- 
 selves the doom that they had planned for others. They 
 proved fully as much tyrants and tormentors as their 
 sovereign ; and the whole conflict was really one between 
 two absolutisms, democratic and bureaucratic — a struggle 
 between extreme systems exhibiting equal symptoms of 
 the same evil. The ' Civic Guard,' to be erected by the 
 ' Deputies,' persecuted just as Maria Carolina's secret police 
 had persecuted before. Acton's exactions were to be out- 
 done by the French Commissary Faypoult's pillage, and 
 

TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 263 
 
 the French General Championnet's 'indemnities.' As for 
 brutality, it was tripled by the new reign of terror, and 
 when Championnet compassed the conciliation of the brave 
 populace, he contrived even to ' brutalise miracles.' ^ Again, 
 the Neapolitan Jacobins were not only oppressors of all 
 authority, but traitors to the people as well as to the King ; 
 while at last they openly confederated with the invaders of 
 their fatherland and of Europe. It was thus that the force and 
 guile of Napoleon trafficked in the reveries of Rousseau. 
 
 It is true, nevertheless, that many of them were inspired 
 by noble motives and proved conscientious victims. Such 
 as these lend colour to the redeeming aspect of the move- 
 ment as a real step in the progress of law to liberty. Some 
 were lofty idealists, while others, however, dreamed of 
 realising theories impossible even in Cloud-Cuckoo-land.^ 
 Savants and ignoramuses, philanthropists and cosmopoli- 
 tans abounded. But the majority were actuated by very 
 personal motives, and inspired by overweening ambitions. 
 None of them, not the noblest, were originative. All were 
 under the spell of France ; the worst, under that of French 
 gold ; the best, under that of French sentiment. And, 
 before the close, there were very few even among the least 
 practical who did not rue the day when they invited self- 
 interest masquerading as friendship, and opened their gates 
 and their hearts to the busybodying emissaries of the 
 Directory. The very name of Faypoult soon became more 
 odious than the fact of Ferdinand. 
 
 Once more, just as the contemporary Jacobins con- 
 founded licence with freedom, and ascribed to paper consti- 
 tutions the virtues of native patriotism, so the more modern 
 Italians have always, and naturally, viewed in the blood 
 of these martyrs the seed of United Italy. It is a legend 
 ineradicable from history; and, after the same manner, 
 
 ^ Dumas, / Borboni di NapoK, vol. ii. pp. 362-368 ; Souvenirs du Gin&al 
 Macdonald, p. 72 ; Croce, Studii Storici, p. 91 ; Nardini Mimoires, p. 128, 
 and cl.post, p. 267. The phrase quoted of Championnet is used by Victor Hugo 
 in Lts Misirables, where he remarks that this General sprang from the gutter. 
 
 2 One of them — a tailor — propounded a scheme of garden socialism. The 
 city was to be erased. Nobody was to work. All were to be supported by 
 a State without trade or exchequer; and life was to be one long, open-air 
 conversazione. 
 
264 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 William Tell is made by Schiller the prophet of United 
 Germany. Yet, in the main, a legend it remains. The 
 ' Parthenopean Republic ' was a venture purely local, un- 
 illumined by any vision of broadened or strengthened 
 nationality. What was not French in its fantasies, was 
 derived from the models of ancient Rome.^ Nothing was 
 farther from the aspirations of the Neapolitan Jacobins 
 from December 1798 up to June 1799, than the ideal of one 
 confederated commonwealth. Like the Ligurian Republic, 
 the Neapolitan was the creature of France.^ Through 
 France it rose; through France it fell. And it is not a 
 little curious that, some sixty years later, it was to the 
 third Napoleon once more that many in Italy looked up 
 for regeneration. 
 
 ' II merto oppresso, — il nazional mendico, 
 Carco d'onor e gloria ogni straniero ' 
 
 had been Eleonora de Fonseca Pimentel's lament to the 
 King in 1792, By the revival alone of national institutions, 
 expressing national character, could a natural elasticity be 
 restored. A theoretic and anti-national uprising actually 
 deprived Naples of those enlightened schemes by which 
 in her prime Maria Carolina had sought to renovate her 
 people. She had cut the claws of the enraged nobles by 
 abolishing their feudal prerogatives. She had sought to 
 improve the superstitious Lazzaroni by projects of industry 
 and education. She had exalted the applauding students 
 into an aristocracy of talent. But it was as puppets 
 dancing on her own wires that she had benefited them all. 
 And the result showed that their real resentment was 
 against any dependence whatever and any pauperisation. 
 Whether by democracy or by bureaucracy, they refused to 
 be transformed. From the feudal baron to the pagan beggar, 
 each class wished to keep its distinctive flavour, and to 
 live by its instincts. The ' intellectuals ' — a small remnant 
 — were the sole cosmopolitans. They tried to transfigure 
 
 ' As may be seen in their newspaper the Moniiore, edited by Eleonora 
 Pimentel. Cf. B. Croce, Studii Storici sulla Revoluxione, p. 60. 
 
 "^ Cf. A. Franchetti, Revista Storia di Resurgimento Italiano, vil., viil. : — 
 ' La Relazione diplomatica fra la Corte di Napoli e la Francia.' 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 265 
 
 Naples into Utopia, and for that purpose invited a foe that 
 forsook them. Denationalism (or a-nationalism) failed ; 
 Naples remained Naples still. But the miserable alterna- 
 tive proved the grinding sway of an avenging tyrant, 
 bereft by rebellion of his old jollity, and untempered by 
 the earlier intellectualism of his now fanatical wife. 
 
 The Revolution presents the spectacle of characteristic 
 class-instincts in orgy. It was a protest far more against 
 Acton's bureaucratic routine, than against monarchy. Its 
 eruptions were those of its physical surroundings. It was 
 a Vesuvius, with all its attendants of whirlwind, earth- 
 quake, and waterspout. The light of heaven was blotted 
 out from the firmament, molten lava seared the whole social 
 landscape, and the deeps of unbridled instinct shook in 
 the tornado. 
 
 Prince Pignatelli proved himself little but driftwood 
 on the deluge. After conceding the Jacobin demands, 
 he proceeded to gratify the Lazzaroni's. He ended by 
 evading both, and failing even in his attempted barter of 
 his country to Championnet. He opened with the usual 
 paper-constitution. A 'civic guard' was formed, the military 
 and civil functions were divided, a chamber of ' deputies ' ^ 
 was constituted. Nominally, the elective system had been 
 restored. But the first act of the new body was to abolish 
 their viceroy's own provisions. They decreed that hence- 
 forward royal power should devolve on two authorities alone 
 — a chamber of nobles, and themselves, the 'Patriots'; the 
 really popular element was thus excluded, and the real 
 power became vested in a ' Venetian Oligarchy.' Pignatelli 
 was rendered a cipher, and the Lazzaroni, who, strange to 
 relate, proved themselves the sole realities in a limbo of 
 phantoms, were furious at their own incapacitation. Pigna- 
 telli at once burned one hundred and twenty bombardier 
 boats — a work of needless destruction completed by Com- 
 modore Campbell, to Nelson's disgust, some few months 
 later ; Count Thurn — our watchman of a fortnight ago — 
 blew up two vessels and three frigates. Amid this flare 
 and detonation were born the calamity and carnage that 
 
 1 The'Sedile'or'Eletti." 
 
266 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 succeeded. Alarm was the prelude to violence, and violence 
 to panic. Before long, the wretched Pignatelli made 
 abortive advances to the French, and fled to Sicily, where 
 he was imprisoned, but soon released. Save for the 
 Lazzaroni, Naples was without authority or governance, 
 and lay exposed a helpless prey to the common enemy. 
 
 Two striking scenes happened within three weeks, and 
 in that short but crowded period formed the denouements 
 of two separate acts in the drama. Both of them passed 
 under the patronage of St. Januarius, whose sanction, as 
 declared by the Archbishop Zurlo, was always law to 
 the Lazzaroni. They may serve as landmarks before a 
 miniature of what led to them is attempted. And it may 
 be at once said that the recital, based on many Italian 
 authorities,^ accords with that of a contemporary who cannot 
 be accused of partiality to the Lazzaroni. The future General 
 Pep6 was then a stripling of revolutionary enthusiasm, and 
 one of the first recruits in the new and transitory 'civic guard.' 
 
 On the night of January 15 a strange sight might have 
 been viewed in the cathedral. The proud and brave Prince 
 MoHterno, among the few distinguished in the late humiliat- 
 ing campaign, and just chosen by the Lazzaroni as their 
 chief, wended his way, barefooted, with bowed head and in 
 penitential tatters, towards the glimmering altar, and on 
 his knees besought leave of the venerable archbishop to 
 harangue the people. In that procession of St. Januarius 
 this grandee was the humblest and perhaps the saddest. 
 The French general was already encamped before Capua. 
 Moliterno rallied the Lazzaroni and assured them that he 
 would lead them victorious against the foe. Four days after- 
 wards they were betrayed to the patriots. 
 
 Only a week later,^ and yet another and even stranger 
 
 ^ Cf. inter alia Colletta's chronicle, Vincenzo Coco's and Nardini's con- 
 temporary accounts, with other Neapolitan narratives ; Sacchinelli's Saggio, 
 Helfert's Fabrizio Ruffo, Dumas' / Borboni di Napoli, and Benedetto Croce's 
 Eleanora Fonseca di Pimentel. The less valuable treatises on the Queen and 
 Lady Hamilton, both by R. Palumbo and by A. Amabile, should also be consulted, 
 if only for comparison. 
 
 ^ The date is given by Pep^ as January 24 ; but it is clear from Croce's 
 excellent note embodying the contemporary authorities {Studii Storici, 1799, 
 p. 89) that the event occurred on January 22. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 267 
 
 tableau happened in the same spot, for St. Januarius haunts 
 the Neapolitan Revolution. A second solemn procession 
 was formed, but by this time Championnet and his French 
 troops had advanced to Naples. During the morning he 
 had addressed the assembled people in the stately hall of 
 San Lorenzo. His speech had been a string of fairweather 
 promises, not one of which was kept. In the evening he 
 steps cathedralward on one side of the archbishop, the Judas- 
 general Macdonald and the mocking French commissary 
 Abrial, on the other. The prelate holds aloft the sacred relics 
 and the miraculous ewer. Priests, nobles, ' patriots,' and a 
 vast throng of Lazzaroni march in his wake. Suddenly a 
 halt is called. The fate of Naples trembles in the balance. 
 All depends on whether the blood of the saint shall 
 announce by its liquefaction to his believers that Heaven 
 favours the French Republic. Archbishop Zurlo raises the 
 crystal basin. The saint's blood is obdurate, and still 
 monarchical. Macdonald holds a concealed but significant 
 pistol. Championnet whispers, ' Your miracle or your life ! ' 
 The terrorised ecclesiastic announces the prodigy to the 
 crowd. St. Januarius, then, is a democrat. The Laz- 
 zaroni shout in their thousands, 'Long live St. Januarius! 
 long live his republic ! ' The trick is palmed off success- 
 fully on the credulous populace, and Championnet with 
 Macdonald returns chuckling to St. Eimo.^ But miracle or 
 no miracle, the end of this coarse jugglery was civil war. 
 
 The two intervals must now be briefly supplied. 
 
 On January 2 Pignatelli, under the sinister counsel of one 
 Piazza,^ had already negotiated secretly with the enemy, 
 by this time in possession of the chief provincial fortresses, 
 as the ' patriots ' were of the Neapolitan. The Lazzaroni, 
 however, were staunch and unbribable, so that the French 
 commissaries despatched next day by General Championnet 
 were forced to return to Capua. The whole first episode is 
 the triumph of the Lazzaroni. Reinforcements, under General 
 Naselli, reached them from Palermo, and they attacked the 
 
 1 Cf. the many authorities cited by Benedetto Croce in his Siudii Sterici, 
 
 pp. 9I-93- 
 
 a Cf. Ferdinand's instructions to Ruffo as to discriminating between the 
 classes of Jacobin offenders, cited by Dumas, / Borboni di Napoli, vol. v. p. 
 239. — 'Piazza, who robbed Pignatelli of his vicariate.' 
 
268 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 quailing ' civic guard,' composed mainly of ' intellectuals ' 
 and professionals. They seized the 'patriots" arms, the 
 troops and the castles surrendered to them ; they opened 
 the prisons and the galleys. They dismayed the ' patriots,' 
 while the town shuddered under the licence of their 
 patrols. On the whole, however, their moderation at first 
 was extraordinary. Pep6, himself their captive, bears it 
 especial witness in recounting how they disdained the 
 money offered by his relations and released him unharmed. 
 The Lazzaroni adored Prince Moliterno and his colleague 
 in leadership, the Duke of Roccomana.^ They would gladly 
 have died for these, as for the Duke of della Torre and 
 Clemente Filomarino, their associate. But when they dis- 
 covered that the leading magnates were already treating 
 with the national foe and conspiring to yield General 
 Championnet and his French troops admittance, their wrath 
 knew no bounds. It was fanned by the priests, who voci- 
 ferated against the Neapolitan foes of Naples from their 
 pulpits. Even Moliterno and Roccomana were now sus- 
 pected by their mob-followers of Jacobinism. In an access 
 of mad resentment the Lazzaroni fired the Duke della 
 Torre's palace, piled and burned its treasures, and dragged 
 forth both him and the luckless Clemente Filomarino, to be 
 roasted alive on the pyre. These atrocities culminated in 
 the first scene that has just been described. 
 
 The Lazzaroni's suspicions were well founded. On 
 January 19, their hitherto trusted Roccomana himself 
 betrayed them. By complot with the ' patriots ' he entered 
 the fort of St. Elmo, and won over its commandant to his 
 stratagem. The Lazzaroni garrison were sent out of their 
 quarters, ostensibly to buy provisions for the approaching 
 siege. On their return they were suddenly disarmed. The 
 tricolor standard was hoisted as a signal to Championnet, 
 encamped with his legions in the 'Largo della Pigna.' 
 By Pep6's own confession, the Lazzaroni, deserted and 
 defrauded, evinced a 'marvellous intrepidity.' Against 
 desperate odds they stood their ground. Only a fortnight 
 before, they had seen of what poor stuff the ' civic guard ' 
 
 ■• One of the Caracciolos. His brother, Nicolo Caracciolo, was Lazzaroni- 
 Commandant of St. Elmo. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 269 
 
 had been made. But sturdier ' patriots ' than weak-kneed 
 students now garrisoned St. Elmo. Overwhelming numbers 
 soon closed the conflict. 
 
 Meanwhile Championnet had waved his flag of truce in 
 response to the three-coloured ensign, and while the Laz- 
 zaroni hung back tricked and abashed, he entered the city. 
 He at once made ' an affectionate discourse.' Everybody 
 was promised everything: he had come for all their goods. 
 The 'patriots ' loved the people, and to himself both they 
 and the Lazzaroni were brothers more in hearts than in 
 arms. He was there to emancipate them all ; a golden age 
 was at hand. His army was not French but Neapolitan. 
 
 The Lazzaroni, gullible and volatile, believed him and 
 cheered ; mob fury was allayed. ' God save San Gennaro! ' 
 burst from every lip. ' God save San Gennaro ! ' reiterated 
 Championnet and Macdonald. Refore a day had passed 
 they should see a sign from their saint. And then followed 
 the solemn juggle of our second act. Relics were very 
 helpful to the Directory, and for a moment those who had 
 panted to exterminate the French welcomed them as 
 brothers under the celestial portent. The ' Parthenopean 
 Republic ' was proclaimed. The poets burst into song, the 
 pamphleteers into doctrine, the journalists into execration 
 of monarchy and eulogies of Reason and the Millennium. 
 The printing-presses could hardly cope with the demand, 
 and their muse — the tenth muse ' Ephemera ' — was the fair 
 Eleonora Fonseca di Pimentel,^ who had been allowed to re- 
 publicanise unmolested, and was now editress of the new and 
 ebullient Monitore. Its amenities did not compliment the 
 self-exiled court at Palermo. Of Nelson and the Hamiltons 
 as yet there was no abuse. But Ferdinand was called a 
 ' debased despot,' a ' caitiff fugitive,' a ' dense imbecile,' and 
 a ' stupid tyrant,' while, so far, Carolina fared better as ' that 
 Amazon, his wife.' It was not long before the middle-class 
 phase of the movement retaliated on the notables even 
 more violently than on the sovereign. ' Duke ' was derived 
 from coachman (' a ducendo '), 'Count' from lackey ('a comi- 
 tando') ; epithets were actually changing the nature of things. 
 
 1 Even in December of the previous year the Portuguese ambassador at Naples 
 had reported her as 'impudent.' 
 
270 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 But Championnet's deeds were to refute his words. A 
 few days of paper systems ^ were the parenthesis between 
 a spurious peace and a civil war. 
 
 A bad harvest served Championnet as excuse for dis- 
 persing the Lazzaroni to their homesteads ; a bare treasury 
 soon caused him to levy toll. A general insurrection ensued 
 in the provinces, repressed by a fresh ' National Guard ' 
 wearing the cockade and commanded by the once loyalist 
 Count Ruvo. The cloven hoof of French ' emancipa- 
 tion' soon discovered itself. The Directory acquainted 
 Championnet that, since ' right of conquest ' had prevailed, 
 the vanquished must pay for the luxury of defeat. Com- 
 missary-General Faypoult was already on his road from 
 Paris as collector of taxes by special appointment. His 
 orders were to expropriate even the palaces and museums, 
 to loot the very treasures of Pompeii. The General himself 
 kicked at such exactions. He protested — and was recalled 
 to Paris. General Macdonald, who, as creature of the 
 Directory, had doubtless anticipated his own advantage, 
 promptly stepped into his shoes. The Directory forwarded 
 more ' commissaries,' with orders from the ' patriotic 
 associations ' to pillage the provinces and to ' dictate Re- 
 publican laws.' The French troops dared not linger too 
 long at Naples, and eventually their whole garrison only 
 amounted to two thousand five hundred.^ But their brief 
 sojourn was long enough to denude the city. They were 
 billeted in Sir William's houses, among the rest, and did 
 infinite damage to his treasures. Emma — his ' Grecian,' as 
 her husband delighted to call her — rued the vandalism 
 which now terrorised the town. 
 
 The lack of the Parthenopean Republic was an organised 
 army with a capable leader. Calabria and Apulia were at 
 this very moment overrun by Corsican adventurers, one of 
 whom assumed the title of Prince Francis, and pretended 
 that he was the lawful heir to the throne. 
 
 1 'Committees of authorities' were constituted — 'interior,' ' exterior,' and 
 'central.' Departments of Justice, Police, Finance, and Legislature were set 
 up in a twinkling. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 381, Sir W. Hamilton to C. Greville, Palermo, April 8, 
 1799. The 'civic Jacobins ' amounted to 20,000. The Lazzaroni were still 
 undivided in loyalty. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 271 
 
 It was at this juncture that the King designated Cardinal 
 Ruffo his Vicar-General in place of Pignatelli, the absconder, 
 and invested him with supreme military command, although, 
 at the same time, he emphatically bound him not to exceed 
 a suppression of the rising, without previous consultation 
 with his master ; nor was he on any account at any time 
 to treat with the rebels.^ 
 
 It should be particularly noted at this his first intro- 
 duction on to our scene, that neither Lady Hamilton nor 
 Nelson ever believed in his straightforwardness ; * and his 
 duplicity in June was amply to justify their discernment. 
 
 This singular priest-militant, whose rugged hardihood 
 concealed astute subtlety,® and who was at once Legate and 
 Lazzarone, landed on the Calabrian coast to proclaim ' a 
 holy cause.' He was the royal Robin Hood, while his 
 Friar Tuck was the Sicilian brigand, Fra Diavolo. His 
 cardinalate alienated from the ' patriot ' cause many of the 
 priests, who by this time had joined hands with the in- 
 surgents ; for they could never forget how the Queen had 
 once withstood the Pope. The raising of his standard, and 
 the co-operation of the Russian and Turkish frigates from 
 Corfu, soon forced the French into an active provincial cam- 
 paign. The Bourbonites had secured the fastness of Andia. 
 The French stormed and took it. Their maltreatment of 
 young girls had rendered them abominable even in the eyes 
 of their better ' patriot ' allies, one of whom on this 
 occasion. Prince Carafa, heading the ' Neapolitan legion,' 
 chivalrously rescued a girl victim from their brutality. A 
 long sequel of sickening butcheries on both sides followed. 
 
 1 Between April and June Ruifo received constant and binding instructions 
 from both the King and the Queen. He was to use great discrimination ; he 
 was to ' stamp out the noxious herbs which are poisoning the others.' He was 
 on no account to treat with the rebels, and he was to remember the Lazzaroni's 
 proverb, ' Sticks and cakes make good children. ' Cf. the documents quoted by 
 Gutteridge in his excellent Nelson and the Neapolitan facobins, App. pp. 40-45, and 
 especially the Queen's letter to Ruffo of May 23 {Neapolitan Archives, v. 266 ; 
 Dumas, V. 168) : 'The King must, as a Christian and the father of his people, 
 pardon his infamous, wicked and ungrateful subjects, on whom he has bestowed 
 so many benefits, but he must not enter into a bargain or armistice,' etc. 
 
 2 Cf. Add. MS. 34.912, ff. 3, 4. 
 
 ' Nelson called him 'a swelled-up, well-fed priest.' Fabrizio Ruffo was bom 
 in 1744, and lived till 1827. His cardinalate dated only from 1794. 
 
272 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 The French and the ' patriots ' shot down even old women. 
 Ruffo and his savage bandits gave no quarter; yet they 
 were welcomed as deliverers from rapine and murder. One 
 by one the hill-strongholds, that France had taken, were 
 seized by Ruffo for the King. By June the Republic had 
 become limited afresh to Naples, and 'patriot' Naples 
 itself smarted under the greedy despotism of ' commissary ' 
 Abrial, who now reigned in Macdonald's shoes, and 
 chastised them with scorpions where the others had chas- 
 tised them with whips. 
 
 The Royalist counter-stroke, with Ruffo for instrument 
 and a new 'extraordinary' tribunal as executive,^ was long 
 kept a profound secret by the council, but it was divulged 
 to the Jacobins through a remarkable woman — Luisa 
 Molines Sanfelice. She and her cousin-husband had long 
 before been implicated in treason, banished, and at length 
 pardoned. They were now living under the royal aegis in 
 retirement ; but an unhappy passion for an Italianised 
 Englishman, Baccher (Baker), involved the wife once more 
 in sedition. To him she betrayed the King's commission, 
 and he in his turn handed the secret on to Vincenzo Coco, 
 the Jacobin historian and renegade who afterwards attached 
 himself to the Bourbons. ' Cherchez la femme,' indeed, is an 
 adage exemplified throughout a rebellion abounding in 'the 
 rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle' — 
 
 ' Oh wild as the accents of lovers' farewell. 
 Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.' 
 
 In September 1800 this Luisa, well surnamed 'the 
 hapless,' was to be respited by the Queen's compassion on 
 the eve of her death-sentence. The King, however, in 
 defiance both of his wife and of the amnesty which he had 
 then solemnly proclaimed, refused to commute the sentence. 
 
 Except for Ruffo's commission, we have been too long 
 absent from Palermo. 
 
 Nelson's first thoughts were for Egypt, and Malta,^ the 
 
 1 'A few selected and safe public servants 'to try 'the most guilty.' Cf. 
 Gutteridge, pp. I33-3S- 
 
 2 Cf. his letters on this question to Acton quoted by Gutteridge in his JVelson 
 and the Neapolitan Jacobins (App. Nos. VI., x., xil., xxi., xxiv.), fi^om the 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 273 
 
 Neapolitan succours for which continued most unsatisfactory. 
 Now, as a few months later, his endeavour was 'so to 
 divide ' his ' forces, that a//' might ' have security.' ^ To Ball, 
 with characteristic generosity, he entrusted the Maltese 
 opportunities of distinction. He was still uneasy and un- 
 well ; and he was deeply dispirited, after his recent 
 strain, at the home-slight offered him by the appoint- 
 ment of Sidney Smith to a superior command, with 
 Lord Grenville's orders for his obedience, though on this 
 point Lord Spencer soon reassured him. His stepson's 
 ill-behaviour, though he excused it to his wife, proved a fresh 
 source of annoyance. His Fanny, too, began to wonder at 
 his neglect of home affairs. ' If I have the happiness,' he 
 answered, ' of seeing their Sicilian Majesties safe on the 
 throne again, it is probable I shall still be home in the 
 summer. Good Sir William, Lady Hamilton and myself 
 are the mainsprings of the machine which manages what is 
 going on in this country. We are all bound to England, 
 when we can quit our posts with propriety.' ^ The ' we ' 
 and the ' all ' must have set her wondering the more. 
 
 The freedom of Palermo, among other honours, was 
 conferred on him in March, but the unfolding tragedy of 
 Naples added to his general discouragement. He was 
 preoccupied in many directions. The establishment of 
 (in his own phrase) 'the Vesuvian Republic,' Pignatelli's 
 armistice with the French, ' in which the name of the King 
 was not mentioned,' the surrender of Leghorn to the French, 
 boding a Tuscan revolution, incensed him as much as it 
 did the royal family.* Sicily, he thought, would soon be 
 
 State Archives of Naples. Nelson deprecated the interference of Russia. His 
 opinion that, under the then conditions, Malta was chiefly important because 
 the French must never have it, and that Sardinia was a far better strategical 
 station for Britain, is familiar. While vigilant over Malta, and attending to 
 Minorca, his chief care was to prevent the French fleet from reaching any port 
 in the dominion of the two Sicilies. Cf. the new letter to Sir James St. Clair 
 Erskine, of July 23, 1799, excerpted in the Appendix, Part II. E. (l). 
 
 ' Cf. the new and important letter to Sir James St. Clair Erskine of August 
 2, 1799, excerpted in Sotheby's catalogue for July 8, 1905, and given in the 
 Appendix, Part 11. E. (2). ^ Laughton's Despatches, pp. 180-81. 
 
 ' Cf. the Queen's letter to Emma of January 19, beginning, ' I am more dead 
 than alive,' cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 201 ; and Add. MS. 34,710, f. 16, 
 Nelson to their excellencies Sir W. S. and J. Smith, Palermo, April 1799. 
 
 S 
 
274 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 endangered. The French successes at Capua, their in- 
 stallation at Naples, so affected him, that he offered to 
 vindicate the royal honour himself.^ ' I am ready,' he 
 wrote in mid-March, ' to assist in the enterprise. I only 
 wish to die in the cause.' ' Jacobinism,' he repeated, was 
 ' terrorism.' ^ The agreeable surprise of General Sir Charles 
 Stuart's arrival in Sicily with a thousand troops, that 
 secured Messina against invasion, relieved and elated both 
 him and the court. He even believed — for his wishes ever 
 fathered his thoughts — that these might expel the French 
 from Naples. 
 
 France, indeed, was on his nerves and brain. So soon 
 as he learned that the hero of Acre had given passports 
 freeing the remnant of the French fleet off Syria and 
 Egypt, he was beside himself: at any moment a new 
 squadron might effect a junction with the Spanish frigates 
 and bear down on the two Sicilies. By the close of 
 March he had already despatched the truculent and some- 
 times ferocious Troubridge to Procida for the blockade of 
 Naples. Much was hoped, too, from the co-operation of 
 the Russian and Turkish fleets. It was quite possible, 
 even now, that Britain might restore the Neapolitan 
 monarch to his people.^ And in the meantime, with eyes 
 alert to ensure preparedness in every direction, he mediated 
 with the Bey of Tunis and freed Mohammedan slaves. 
 
 Nor below this tide of varying emotions is an under- 
 current lacking of inward conflict. In his own heart a 
 miniature revolution was also in process. The spell of 
 Lady Hamilton was over him, and he struggled against the 
 devious promptings of his heart. To protect Naples and 
 Sicily against France had been the declared policy of his 
 Government ; to exterminate French predominance was 
 his own chief ambition ; he chafed against the survival of 
 a single ship. ' I know,' he was soon to write, ' it is His 
 Majesty's pleasure that I should pay such attention to the 
 safety of His Sicilian Majesty and his kingdom that nothing 
 shall induce me to risk those objects of my special 
 
 ' Pettigrew, vol. i. pp. 220-23. 
 
 ** Cf. Gutteridge, App. Nos. xvii., xxi., March 12 and May 8. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 384, April 28, 1799. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 275 
 
 carc'i Every public motive riveted him to the spot where fas- 
 cination lured and tempted. It is a mistake to imagine that 
 Emma held him from duty ; all his duties were performed, 
 and to her last moment she protested to those most in his 
 confidence, and best able to refute her if she erred, that her 
 influence never tried to detain him.* It was duty* that 
 actuated him — duty, it is true, that jumped with inclination, 
 and fatally fastened him to her side. Such was his health, 
 that he had desired to quit the Mediterranean altogether.* 
 Away from the Mediterranean coasts, he could have steeled 
 himself at any rate to absence, if not to forgetfulness. In the 
 very centre of the seaboard that embodied the true interests 
 of his country, and to which his instructions tied him, he 
 was in hourly neighbourhood of his idol. She interpreted,^ 
 translated, cheered, and companioned him. She contrasted 
 with the soullessness of his wife. She was often his as well 
 as her husband's amanuensis.^ She drank in every word of 
 patriotic fervour, and redoubled it. Her courage spoke to 
 his ; so did her compassion and energy. Together they 
 received the Maltese deputies. Together they listened, in 
 disguise," to the talk of Sicilian taverns. Together they 
 
 * Cf. his letter to Sir James Erskine of July 23, 1799, otherwise excerpted in 
 Appendix, Part 11. E. (2). 
 
 ^ Cf. her remarkable new letter to Dr. Scott of September 7, 1806, trans- 
 cribed in the Appendix, Part 11. C. (3) 6. 
 
 ' How little Nelson at this time was neglecting his duties is shown by his 
 despatches to Lord St. Vincent of May 12. Cf. Laughton, p. 192. ' My 
 reason,' he wrote on May 25, ' for remaining in Sicily, is the covering of the 
 blockade of Naples, and the certainty of preserving Sicily in case of an attack. 
 I intend to continue the Malta blockade unless Ball has not surrendered it,' or 
 ' the poor islanders themselves.' — Laughton's Despatches, p. 195. 
 
 ^ Cf. Hamilton's letter to Greville of January 25, l8cx), Morrison MS. 444. 
 ' Without me Lord Nelson would not stay here, and without Lord Nelson Their 
 Sicilian Majesties would think themselves undone. ' 
 
 ' Cf. Morrison MS. 384, Hamilton to Greville, Palermo, April 28, 1799. 
 * Lord Nelson, for want of language and experiences of this court and country, 
 without Emma and me would be at the greatest loss every moment.' 
 
 ' Cf. Morrison MS. 376, February 9, 1799, Nelson to Ball, where Emma 
 herself adds the postscript, ' I have only time to say, my dear friend, that Sir 
 William and I shall be most happy to see you. Make haist. Do, or else entre 
 nous. Fate will carry me down. I cannot enter now into the false politics of 
 this country. A ora, ever yours.' 
 
 ' It was said that she dressed up as a midshipman for these expeditions, and 
 I am told that a portrait of her in this attire exists. 
 
276 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 also went on errands of mercy.^ From the Queen she 
 carried him perpetual information and praise. Through 
 her and her husband he was able to work on Acton. Every 
 British officer that landed with advices or despatches, every 
 friendly though foreign crew, was welcomed at the table 
 over which Emma presided. No veriest trifle that could 
 assist them ever escaped her. Indeed, her lavish hospi- 
 tality ^ and the noisy heartiness of the coming and going 
 guests oppressed the Ambassador, who sighed on the eve 
 of superannuation for home and quiet, for the excitements 
 of Christie's, and the fisherman's tranquil diplomacy. It 
 was not the toils of the huntress that ensnared Nelson. It 
 was Britain that demanded his vigilance and enchained him 
 here ; while for him, more and more, Britain's ' guardian 
 angel ' was becoming Emma. 
 
 Imploring Sir Alexander Ball in February to return 
 from Malta, she had avowed a foreboding that ' Fate ' might 
 ' carry ' her ' down.' * 
 
 A great shock had been followed by a great fear. The 
 main body of the French army had gone, but the Neapol- 
 itan rebellion, if the French fleet managed to reach and 
 rally it, might still engulf them all. Gallo was again 
 playing the King off against the Queen. Who knew 
 what might happen in this conspiracy of gods and men ? 
 And when she presaged some fatality, may she not also 
 have pondered whither she herself was now drifting? 
 The doom of Paolo and Francesca may well have been 
 within the range of her Italian reading. To the com- 
 plexity of her feelings I shall revert when I come to the 
 events of a month afterwards. Only two years later she 
 and Nelson were thus to poeticise the affection that was 
 now ripening : — 
 
 ' Cf. especially the case of the poor old blind septuagenarian implicated in 
 conspiracy, but pardoned through Emma's influence : see Nelson's letter to 
 Acton, given by Gutteridge among his documents, No. xiv.; and a further 
 instance, where Nelson says ' our hearts bleed,' cf. ibid. xni. 
 
 2 Cf. Lord St. Vincent's letter of thanks to her regarding Lock's aristocratic 
 wife and others, and Lady Betty Foster's, Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 205 ; from 
 Captains Ball and Dixon, and Commodore Coffin, together with others, ibid, 
 pp. 209, 210. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 376, already cited on the preceding page. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 277 
 
 Lord Nelson to his Guardian Angel. 
 
 ' From my best cable tho' I 'm forced to part, 
 I leave my anchor in my Angel's heart. 
 Love, like a pilot, shall the pledge defend, 
 And for a prong his happiest quiver lend.' 
 
 Answer of Lord Nelson's Guardian Angel, 
 
 ' Go where you list, each thought of Emma's soul 
 Shall foUow you from Indus to the Pole : 
 East, West, North, South, our minds shall never part ; 
 Your Angel's loadstone shall be Nelson's heart. 
 
 Farewell/ and o'er the wide, wide sea 
 
 Bright glory's course pursue, 
 And adverse winds to love and me 
 
 Prove fair to fame and you. 
 And when the dreaded hour of battle 's nigh, 
 Your Angel's heart, which trembles at a sigh. 
 By your superior danger bolder grown, 
 Shall dauntless place itself before your own. 
 Happy, thrice happy, should her fond heart prove — 
 A shield to Valour, Constancy, and Love? ' 
 
 But a fresh influence was also, may be, about to steal into 
 her being. To the pinch of adversity and her misgivings 
 for the Queen she loved, was now being added the stress of 
 a passion half realised but hard to resist. She would not 
 have been the emotional woman that she was, if in some 
 shape, however dimly, religion as consoler had not whis- 
 pered in the recesses of her heart. Hitherto among her 
 immediate surroundings only Nelson could have been 
 called really religious. He was a strong Protestant. But 
 as she beheld the Queen comforted by an older ritual 
 and a communion less severe, it may have crossed her 
 mind that the ceremonies which she had mocked as supersti- 
 tions held in them some rare power of healing. Southern 
 religion thrives on its adopted and hybrid forms, as to 
 this day is attested by Sicilian peasants hugging the image 
 of their swarthy saint ; Sicilian reapers chanting their 
 weird litany to the sinking sun ; Sicilian farmers meting 
 out their harvested grain by their image of the rosaried 
 
 • A facsimile of these verses of April 1801 is given by Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 17. 
 
278 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Madonna. There was at this time at Palermo an Abb6 
 Campbell, who had followed the fugitives thitherward.^ 
 Twelve years before, he had been chaplain to the Neapolitan 
 Embassy in London, and is said to have been the priest 
 who secretly united the future George IV. to Mrs. Fitzher- 
 bert. He was a genial soul, in the world but not wholly of 
 it, musical and romantic. He remained constant to Emma 
 throughout her chequered fortunes, and in future years he 
 often crosses her path again and Nelson's.* One may 
 guess that through him first arose those promptings that 
 eventually made Emma a proselyte to the faith that, 
 perhaps above others, openly welcomes the strayed and 
 the fallen. 
 
 Troubridge girded to his work as Jacobin-killer in grim 
 earnest. The Governor of Procida,* its peasants and 
 Ischia's, were loyal to the core. The English sailor was 
 acclaimed by the people as a deliverer from a faction ; and 
 he was not over-squeamish in his task of quelling what 
 Lord Bristol termed to Hamilton 'that gang of thieves, 
 pickpockets, highwaymen, cut-throats and cut-purses called 
 the French Republic' * ' Oh 1 ' wrote Troubridge to Nelson, 
 ' how I long to have a dash at the thieves.' And again, 
 ' The villainy we must combat is great indeed. I have just 
 flogged a rascal for loading bread with sand. The loaf was 
 hung round his neck in sight of the people.' The ' trials ' 
 of rebels he admits to be ' curious,' as the culprits were fre- 
 quently ' not present.' He actually apologised to Nelson, 
 on the score of hot weather, for not sending him a Jacobin's 
 head ; with charming pleasantry he calls the donor ' a jolly 
 fellow.' The ' rascally nobles, tired of standing as common 
 sentinels,' confessed that sheer discomfort had loyalised 
 them.^ Even here Lady Hamilton's energy was conspicuous. 
 Through Nelson she communicated constant advice con- 
 cerning the measures to be taken and the characters of the 
 
 ^ Cf. Emma's letter to Greville of February 1800, Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 200. 
 
 2 Cf. several later letters in the Morrison MS., one of them not long before 
 the close. Nelson also mentions him to Emma when he was once more at 
 Naples in 1803-4. 
 
 ' Don Michel de Curtis. * Morrison MS. 383. 
 
 " Cf. Troubridge's despatch to Nelson of April 25, 1799. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 279 
 
 inhabitants.^ She had actually and with difficulty forwarded 
 the King's instructions to Pignatelli. The bearer, Trou- 
 bridge's servant, was loaded by this pardoned turncoat with 
 irons, and Troubridge naturally exclaimed that when the 
 King's turn came there would be heavy scores to settle.^ He 
 was 'mad' at the infamous conduct of the officers despatched 
 to him by the King. They were doubtless sympathisers 
 with the rebels, and they were court-martialled accordingly.^ 
 But the most important statement of his despatches to 
 Nelson relates to Caracciolo, who had been obsequious and 
 fawning at Palermo, and had therefore been trusted to return 
 home as a reorganiser of the navy. ' I am now satisfied,' 
 declares Troubridge, 'that he is a Jacobin. He came in the 
 gunboat to Castellamare himself and spirited up the Jacobins.' 
 By April 12 Troubridge had reduced the Neapolitan islands. 
 
 Prospects at last looked brighter. Ruffo had nearly sub- 
 dued the provinces, and the Austrians at length,* in formal 
 alliance with Naples, Russia, and the Porte, had rejoiced the 
 Queen by their victory at Padua. It was commemorated 
 by a salute from the British fleet. The Bishop of Derry — 
 now at Augsburg — communicated the news to Emma in 
 an amusing letter, which opens with her own favourite 
 ' Hip, hip, hip, huzza, huzza, huzza ! ' * Ball was now 
 pushing forward the Maltese operations, while Duckworth 
 had been active near the Balearic islands. On every 
 point of the Mediterranean compass Nelson kept his watch- 
 ful eye. But for him the Mediterranean was mainly a 
 theatre for the as yet invisible French frigates. The spectre 
 of that squadron haunted him by night and day ; he han- 
 kered after the moment when he could re-attack it. It was 
 for him what Godolphin was for Charles the Second — never 
 in and never out of the way. 
 
 Early in May, Espoir, a private messenger, brought 
 Nelson the glad tidings that on April 28 the French fleet 
 had at length quitted Brest. He at once concerted plans 
 
 ' Laughton's Despatches, p. 193. Cf. the letters cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. 
 pp. 210-15. 
 
 2 Laughton's Despatches, p. 194. 
 
 3 Nelson agreed. He called the Admiral Yauch ' that hog.' Cf. Gutteridge. 
 * May 19. ^ Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 215. 
 
28o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 with Lord St. Vincent, Troubridge, and Duckworth. It was 
 said to consist at most of nineteen ships and ten frigates or 
 sloops. Its destination was unknown. By May its junction 
 with the ships of Spain had been notified.^ 
 
 Nelson made sure that the two Sicilies were intended, and 
 that France still hoped by one decisive stroke to end at once 
 monarchy and independence. He pressed Lord St. Vincent 
 on no account to remove him from the impending action, 
 wherever it might take place. He feared that St. Vincent's 
 failing health, which necessitated his resignation, might 
 help the French to elude the commander's vigilance. In 
 the end, elude it they did. 
 
 He resolved to cruise off Maritimo as the likeliest 
 point of sight, and on May 12 he was on board the Van- 
 guard. But contrary winds intervened, and kept him 
 waiting for Duckworth's vessels till the 20th, to his keen 
 vexation. His absence heightened the attachment with 
 which he had inspired the Hamiltons. ' I can assure you,' 
 wrote Hamilton amid the festivities that even at such a 
 moment celebrated the birth of a son to the Imperial House 
 of Austria, ' I can assure you that neither Emma nor I knew 
 how much we loved you until this separation, and we are 
 convinced your Lordship feels the same as we do.' ^ And on 
 other occasions Sir William writes to Nelson most intimately 
 and admiringly, dating one of his letters ' near winding-up- 
 watch hour.' * Two of his three remaining letters to Emma, 
 before he started, open a little window both on to the 
 interior of the Hamiltons' minage and of his own heart. On 
 the 1 2th he writes : — 
 
 'My dear Lady Hamilton, — Nobody writes so well. 
 Accept my sincere thanks for your kind letter. Pray, say 
 not you write ill ; for if you do, I will say what your good- 
 ness sometimes told me — "You lie!"* I can read and 
 
 ^ Laughton's Despatches, p. 192. 
 
 2 Hamilton to Acton, May 27, 1799, transcribed in Rose's Diaries and 
 Correspondence, vol. i. p. 224. 
 
 ' Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. ii. pp. 192-96. 
 
 * With this token of their present intimacy should be compared another, though 
 slightly later, stray expression on the lips, this time, of Nelson, to be found in 
 the Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 19 — ' Lady Hamilton put the candlestick on my 
 writing-table.' 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 281 
 
 perfectly understand every word you write. We drank your 
 and Sir William's health. Troubridge, Louis, Hallowell 
 and the new Portuguese captain dined here. I shall soon 
 be at Palermo, for this business must very soon be settled. 
 ... I am pleased with little Mary : ^ kiss her for me. I 
 thank all the house for their regard. God bless you all ! I 
 shall send on shore if fine to-morrow ; for the feluccas are 
 going to leave us, and I am sea-sick. I have got the piece 
 of wood for the tea-chest : it shall soon be sent. Pray, pre- 
 sent my humble duty and gratitude to the Queen.' 
 
 On the 19th — 
 
 ' To tell you how dreary and uncomfortable the Vanguard 
 appears, is only telling you what it is to go from the plea- 
 santest society to a solitary cell, or from the dearest friends 
 to no friends. I am now perfectly the great man — not a 
 creature near me. From my heart I wish myself the little 
 man again ! You and good Sir William have spoiled me 
 for any place but with you. I love Mrs. Cadogan. You 
 cannot conceive what I feel when I call you all to my 
 remembrance, even to Mira,^ do not forget your faithful and 
 affectionate. Nelson.' * 
 
 Indeed, all these days he was in constant correspondence 
 with the Hamiltons.* On May 25, so great was his admira- 
 tion for them, that he drew up his first codicil — a precursor 
 of many to come — in their favour. To Emma he bequeathed 
 ' the nearly round box ' set with diamonds, the gift of the 
 Sultan's mother; to her husband fifty guineas for a 
 memorial ring.* For his risks were now great ; he carried 
 his life in his hands. The French contingent should still be 
 found : his efforts were bent on more ships, that success 
 might be assured when the clash of arms must recur. 
 
 Up to May 28, when he again landed at Palermo, he was 
 still without sight, without result, though not wholly without 
 effect. He resolved to raise the blockade of Malta and 
 concentrate his whole forces. On June 8, as Rear- Admiral 
 of the Red, he had shifted from the Vanguard to the 
 
 ' Probably one of Grafer's daughters ; another was Emma's namesake. Sir 
 William and Emma harboured a tribe of dependants in their house. 
 
 2 A servant. ' Nelson Letters, vol. i. pp. 7-10. 
 
 ^ Cf. Morrison MS. 386-395- " ^^i^. 391. 
 
282 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Foudroyant. By June 12 he heard of Lord St. Vincent's in- 
 tention to return home, and his replacement by Lord Keith, 
 with genuine distress. ' If you are sick,' he wrote to him, 
 ' I will fag for you, and our dear Lady Hamilton will nurse 
 you with the most affectionate attention. Good Sir William 
 will make you laugh with his wit and inexhaustible 
 pleasantry. . . . Come then to your sincere friends.'^ 
 
 Still not a glimpse of the French fleet. But large issues 
 were pending. The very day before the date of this invita- 
 tion to his commander, the Queen herself addressed to him 
 a pleading letter. The state of Naples, the uncertainty as 
 to the enemy's movements, had decided her on a definite 
 plan. An expedition, forestalling the arrival of the Gallic 
 squadron, might strike a bloodless blow. The bloodshed 
 even of her enemies was far, she urged, from her thoughts. 
 The heir-apparent, as representative of his family, would 
 accompany him and chafe the embers of Neapolitan loyalty 
 into a blaze. 'Other duties' obliged her to remain at 
 Palermo. He would earn the ' sincere and profound grati- 
 tude' of his 'devoted friend.'^ At the same time — and 
 this is the key to after events — Ferdinand himself con- 
 ferred on him the fullest powers. In every sense of the 
 word he was to be his plenipotentiary.^ Already a month 
 before, Nelson had despatched Foote with a commission to 
 reduce the mainland, as Troubridge had reduced the islands. 
 Foote, Thurn, and Governor Curtis had already issued their 
 proclamation of a Neapolitan blockade, and had bidden 
 the insurgents take advantage of clemency while there was 
 yet time.* Had they only complied, a chapter of misery 
 would have been avoided ; but, divided as they were, they 
 still trusted to the invisible French fleet. Short shrift was to 
 be granted to rebels and traitors. Only the misguided and 
 the innocent were to be spared. Already Foote reported 
 that thirteen Jacobins had been hung. The Queen poured 
 out her renewed hopes and prayers to Lady Hamilton. 
 
 Emma was all devotion and excitement, yet misgivings 
 
 ' Cited Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 227. 
 
 2 Cited ibid., p. 229, and cf. Eg. MS. 1616, f. 23. 
 
 * Nicolas' Despatches, iii. pp. 491 et seq. Gutteridge, p. 62. 
 
 « Add. MS. 34,911, f. 267. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 283 
 
 blent with her hopes. Who could foretell the issues? 
 After all, the moment must decide. And who could 
 foresee her own part in this great struggle ? Out of 
 a narrow room she had been lifted into the spheres. 
 Even as she pondered, Greville — Greville of the suburban 
 'retreat' — was writing to her husband that the eyes of 
 Europe were now fixed on Italy. He had already been 
 trumpeting her own achievements to the Prince of Wales : 
 ' Many and all ' admired her much ; she had been ' instru- 
 mental in good.' ' Tell Lady Hamilton,' was his message, 
 • with my kindest remembrances, that all her friends love 
 her more than ever, and those who did not know her 
 admire her.'^ Greville, then, had at length learned to 
 know her worth. His ' crystals' would hardly have weighed 
 in the scale if, thirteen years ago, his appraisement had 
 been one of insight. 
 
 Nelson responded to the Queen with all his heart. His 
 zeal quickened with uncertainty. Lady Hamilton was the 
 Queen's friend, and Lady Hamilton's friends were his. 
 Maria Carolina was 'a great woman,' and greatness was 
 his affinity. He thought in dominants — the predominance 
 of his country ; and Naples loyalised would signify France 
 quelled. Ruffo was fast advancing from the provinces 
 against the forsworn city. The Neapolitan Jacobins were 
 on tenterhooks for even an inkling of the French squadron, 
 their deliverer. What Nelson dreaded was that the Franco- 
 Hispanian force might be joined by ships from Toulon. In 
 that event he would be fighting against heavy odds ; and 
 his ' principle,' as he afterwards assured Lord Spencer, ' was 
 to assist in driving the French to the devil, and in restoring 
 peace and happiness to mankind.' ^ 
 
 And still of that veiled flotilla not a token. 
 
 It was reported as bearing on the Italian coast. Nelson 
 had been eager to set off within about a week of the 
 Queen's appeal. That appeal decided him to wait one 
 week longer. Maria Carolina was impatient for ' a second 
 Aboukir Bay,'* and for such a stroke reinforcements were 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 396, Greville to Hamilton, June 8, 1 799. 
 2 Cited by Harrison, vol. ii. p. 135. 
 8 Eg. MS. 1616, f. 29, June 18, 1799. 
 
284 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 needed. On June 12 he and Sir William were still concert- 
 ing theirplans.^ The Queen now used the Hamiltons for her 
 purposes and urged them to fasten her champion's resolve 
 by accompanying him. Emma was ill, worn with inward 
 struggle and suspense; her patroness was perpetually and 
 anxiously inquiring after her health, Sir William was almost 
 prostrate with indisposition. In his language, Emma ' had 
 phantoms in her fertile brain that oppressed her . . . too 
 much Sensibility' ; in Nelson's she was ' fretting ' her ' guts 
 to fiddle-strings.'^ Emma shrank from the turbid scenes 
 that she would be called upon to interpret and to en- 
 counter; she also dimly dreaded the results of constant 
 association with her hero. But her knowledge of men, 
 circumstances, and language would be indispensable on this 
 fateful errand, and already on June 12 she thus, as Queen's 
 advocate, besought Nelson : — 
 
 ' Thursday evening, June 12. 
 
 ' I have been with the Queen this evening. She is very 
 miserable, and says, that although the people of Naples are 
 for them in general, yet things will not be brought to that 
 state of quietness and subordination till the Fleet of Lord 
 Nelson appears off Naples. She therefore begs, intreats, 
 and conjures you, my dear Lord, if it is possible, to arrange 
 matters so as to be able to go to Naples. Sir William is 
 writing for General Acton's answer. For God's sake con- 
 sider it, and do ! We will go with you, if you will come 
 and fetch us. 
 
 ' Sir William is ill ; I am ill : it will do us good. God 
 bless you ! Ever, ever, yours sincerely.' ^ 
 
 The Queen's insistence, Emma's mediation, permeate 
 every line. Just after this manner, some thirteen years 
 earlier, the mimic Muse had echoed Greville in her answer 
 to the invitation that first lured her to Naples. 
 
 ' Cf. a letter of June 12 from the Queen to Emma, cited by Pettigrew, vol. i, 
 p. 231. 
 
 ^ Cf. Gutteridge, pp. 102, 103. — These letters are a few days later, but refer 
 to this week. On June 1 1 the Queen wrote to Emma that she hoped for a 
 second English Mediterranean squadron to blockade Naples ' on all sides,' and 
 bring the insurgents without bloodshed to their ' duty.' — Eg. MS. 1616, f. 23. 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 185. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 285 
 
 Her heart was heavy with forebodings. She would have 
 much to do and perhaps to suffer. She was charged with 
 a triple task : to rehabilitate the Queen, to single out the 
 traitors from the true amongst the notables, to assist Nelson 
 in his 'campaign.'^ She knew that the risk would be 
 great and the nervous strain severe. Privately, as well as 
 publicly, she feared the uncertain upshot. Her phases of 
 mind and mood and memory all joined in bodying forth 
 the future. For thirteen years not a breath of scandal had 
 sullied her name. She had long, indeed, been held up as 
 a pattern of conjugal virtue. Yet Josiah Nisbet, the boy 
 whom both she and his stepfather had generously helped 
 and forgiven, far more and oftener indeed than his own 
 mother, was already tattling to that mother of the Calypso 
 who was detaining Ulysses. Hitherto she could honestly 
 acquit herself of the imputation. So much that was 
 glorious had happened in so few months, that her tender 
 friendship had been absorbed by memories and reveries 
 of glory. And for her, glory meant honour. This is the 
 clue to her nature. To honour she fancied that she, like 
 Nelson, was dedicating existence. And now, even while 
 she justified to herself the chances in relation to her own 
 husband by the thought of a past debt amply repaid, she 
 paused on the threshold of the irreparable, as the pale face of 
 Nelson's unknown wife rose up before her. She had been 
 only stiff and condescending to Emma's warm-hearted 
 advances immediately after the battle of the Nile.^ Was 
 this cold partner jealous then, and spiteful without an overt 
 cause ? Let her covert suspicions dare their worst ; Emma 
 would brave them out. And another and nobler feeling 
 mixed with her agitations. She was quitting her much- 
 loved mother, by whom she had always stood loyally, even 
 when most to her disadvantage ; by whom she was always 
 to stand ; whom, if that French navy fell in with them, she 
 might possibly never see again. ' My mother,' she wrote 
 
 1 Cf. Morrison MS. 411, 417, Emma's letters to Greville of July 19 and 
 August 5 respectively. 
 
 "^ By Nelson's request she had forwarded a cap to Lady Hamilton in a note 
 of bare civility. Her handwriting, it may be added, is remarkably like Lady 
 Byron's. 
 
286 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 when all was over, 'is at Palermo, longing to see her 
 Emma. You can't think how she is loved and respected 
 by all. She has adopted a mode of living that is charming. 
 She has good apartments in our house, always lives with 
 us, dines, etc. etc. Only when she does not like it (for ex- 
 ample at great dinners) she herself refuses, and has always 
 a friend to dine with her ; and the Signora Madre dell' 
 Ambasciatrice is known all over Palermo, the same as she 
 was at Naples. The Queen has been very kind to her in 
 my absence, and went to see her, and told her she ought to 
 be proud of her glorious and energick daughter, that has 
 done so much in these last suffering months.'^ Other 
 chords in her being might be snapped asunder and replaced, 
 but at least this pure note of daughterly devotion would 
 never fail. 
 
 And if Emma was at once happy and tormented, so now 
 was Nelson. He was racked alike by hopes and fears. 
 His love for her was gradually vanquishing his allegiance 
 to his wife, and his heart was fast triumphing over his 
 conscience. He had not yet persuaded himself that his 
 love accorded with the scheme divine, that his formal 
 marriage was no longer consecrated, and that to profane 
 it was not to profane a sacrament. It was barely a year 
 since Captain Hallowell had presented him with the coffin 
 framed out of his Egyptian spoils — a memento mori indeed. 
 Every one remembers the strain of dejection about this date 
 in his home letters, which have been constantly cited from 
 Southey.^ 'There is,' he wrote, 'no true happiness in this life, 
 and in my present state I could quit it with a smile.' He 
 protested the same to his old friend Davison, adding that 
 his sole wish was to ' sink with honour into the grave.' On 
 the one side beckoned the French enemy and Emma, on 
 the other the offended Fanny, his pious father, and the 
 call of God. 
 
 While, however, both the cause of his heart and the voice 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 417, Lady Hamilton to Greville, August Sj i799- Mrs. 
 Cadogan had now her own secretary. Cf. Tyson's letter to Lady H. of March 
 23, 1800, transcribed by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 319. 
 
 "^ Life of Nelson, p. 197 (edition 1901). 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 287 
 
 that it loved were thus pleading with its doubts and 
 anxieties, vexation also spurred him into irretrievable 
 decision. Lord Keith's interfering summons to Minorca 
 had reached him.^ These orders he resented and dis- 
 obeyed, as he had so often disobeyed unwarrantable orders 
 before. Minorca was a bagatelle compared with the big 
 issues now at stake, and Minorca, moreover, was by this 
 time comparatively safe. ' I will take care,' he was soon to 
 write, ' that no superior fleet shall annoy it, but many other 
 countries are entrusted to my care.' ^ Jacobinism, the French 
 fleet — these were the dangers for Britain and for Europe. 
 His reply was that the ' best defence ' was to ' place himself 
 alongside the French.' He appealed from Lord St. 
 Vincent's meddlesome successor to Lord St. Vincent. ' I 
 cannot think myself justified in exposing the world — I 
 may almost say — to be plundered by these miscreants . . . 
 I trust your lordship will not think me wrong ... for 
 agonised indeed was the mind of your lordship's faithful 
 and affectionate servant.' These were no sophistries, and 
 ' wrong ' St. Vincent certainly never held him. It was not 
 long before he learned that Lord Keith himself had sailed 
 in search of the fleet which that blunderer never found. 
 Nelson still believed Naples to be that fleet's objective, 
 and in this conviction many private advices supported him. 
 But more than all, his resolve to vindicate royalty against 
 Jacobinism was strengthened by the fact that at this very 
 moment his own, and Emma's, grave suspicions concerning 
 Cardinal Ruffb's pretended loyalty were being strikingly 
 confirmed by new and startling rumours ; while at the 
 same time another Austrian success at Spezzia had fortified 
 
 ' Lord Keith's letter is dated June 6, Nelson's reply June l6. 
 
 ^ Cf. the excerpt in Sotheby's catalogue of July 8, 1905, from Nelson's 
 letter to Erskine so late as August 2 of 1799. But even on July 23 he had 
 written to the same correspondent that as Admiral Duckworth was sailing that 
 day for Minorca, he trusted that the island would be 'perfectly safe,' and that 
 nothing in his power ' should be wanting to give you naval security, as far as 
 other very important objects will allow.' On July 19 he had actually sent part 
 of his own squadron to Lord Keith. ' If the Dons should get over to your 
 island, I am sure you will give a good account of them, for they are a miserable 
 set of soldiers,' he assured Erskine. Cf. two other excerpts of the above dates 
 in the same catalogue. 
 
288 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 afresh the cause of loyalty. He discerned the moment for 
 reclaiming the hotbed of Jacobinism. His mind was fixed. 
 He would go. 
 
 On June 13, then, he embarked the young Crown Prince 
 in the Foudroyant and hastened off once again, while the 
 Hamiltons apparently remained behind. The King had 
 forbidden the Queen to revisit the scene of disgrace, and 
 reserved his own appearance for the necessity which Ruffo's 
 double-dealing, that he still half-discredited, might entail.^ 
 But on learning definite news near Maritimo that the French 
 fleet in full force had at length got out of Toulon, and was now 
 actually bound for the south coast, Nelson at once tacked, 
 and once more returned to Palermo to gain time for Ball's 
 and Duckworth's further reinforcements. He arrived the 
 next day, and, to the Queen's infinite surprise, landed her 
 son, who was at once taken by her to his father at Colli.^ 
 Though Nelson still feared for Sicily,* he had hoped to 
 have re-departed immediately, but calms and obstacles 
 intervened. Now that he was certain of his mission, he 
 welcomed the company and invaluable aid of the Hamil- 
 tons, whose entreaties had overborne his consideration for 
 their health and safety. Yet even now he would not receive 
 them until he had made a fourth cruise of hurried survey and 
 final preparation to the islands of Maritimo and Ustica. He 
 started, therefore, on June 16, but five mornings afterwards 
 he again heard from Hamilton the momentous certainty that 
 Ruffo had dared to conclude a definite armistice with the 
 Neapolitan rebels;* while he also learned that the Jacobins 
 were bragging that his return to Palermo was due to fear of 
 the French fleet." The perfidy of the Cardinal and the insol- 
 ence of the rebels allowed not a moment to be lost. Forth- 
 
 ^ Eg. MS. 1616, f. 27. — In this note the Queen inquires most affectionately 
 about her health. ' Take care of your dear self,' etc. 
 
 2 Cf. the Queen's letter to Lady H., Eg. MS. 1616, f. 27. 
 
 ' The Queen, writing to Ruffo on June 14, observes, ' The squadron was 
 superb, beautiful, imposing.' She ascribes its unexpected and disappointing 
 return to Nelson's necessity for guarding Sicily also, since ' the French fleet had 
 left Toulon and was heading south of Italy.' 
 
 * Cf. Hamilton's letter to Nelson, Add. MS. 34,912, ff. 3, 4 : 'Your Lord- 
 ship sees that what we suspected of Cardinal Ruffo has proved true,' etc. — 
 Hamilton to Nelson, June 17, 1799. 
 
 ° Nelson to Duckworth, June 21.— Laughton, p. 197. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 289 
 
 with he left his squadron once more and reached Palermo 
 in the afternoon. A council was immediately held. Ruffo, 
 who, despite the despatches heralding Nelson's voyage, 
 had probably counted on his many false starts, received his 
 last peremptory warning ; ^ the Hamiltons, in the full flush 
 of excitement, were conveyed on board the Foudroyant; 
 Nelson, still longing for that unconscionable fleet and 
 reinvested by the King with unlimited powers,^ started 
 at once to cancel the infamous compact. That same even- 
 ing he had rejoined his command off Ustica. By noon on 
 the 22nd the united squadron weighed anchor for Naples^ 
 — 'stealing on,' wrote Hamilton to Acton, 'with light 
 winds,' and 'business will be done.'* 
 
 These dates and details have been minutely followed, as 
 tending to establish that what really decided Nelson's 
 movements was the dearest wish of his heart — the honour 
 and interest of Great Britain. After suppressing the 
 enemies of all authority and order, he still hoped to fall in 
 with the long-hunted French fleet, and to deal a death-blow 
 to the universal enemy.* All along, his convictions and 
 motives must be taken into account before the tribunal of 
 history. It would never have been insinuated that he 
 was a renegade to duty in making Palermo the base of his 
 many operations, and the Neapolitan dynasty the touch- 
 stone of his country's cause, if Lady Hamilton had not been 
 in Sicily ; in Sicily he neither tarried nor dallied. To 
 estimate his conduct, one should inquire if his policy 
 could have been called dereliction supposing her to have 
 been eliminated from its scene. And what applies to him 
 in these matters henceforward applies to Emma, whose 
 whole soul is fast becoming coloured by his. For a space 
 
 1 Cf. the King's letter to Ruffo of June 21. — Dumas, v. p. 256. 
 
 ^ Several original documents concerning these are cited by Mr. Gutteridge, 
 pp. 82-88. I will quote a single sentence only. The King, writing on June 27 
 to Ruifo, says with angry significance, ' You will have conformed to Lord Nelson. 
 Otherwise that would be equivalent to declaring yourself a rebel.' — Eg. MS. 
 2640, f. 278. 
 
 2 Gutteridge, Nos. xxxix-lix. 
 
 * 'Off Ustica 12 o'clock.' Affari Esteri, iii. 624; cited by Gutteridge, 
 No. Ixxv. 
 
 " On June 23 he had concerted a definite line of battle with Duckworth. 
 Cf. Laughton's Despatches, p. 199. 
 
 T 
 
290 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 she must now act a minor, though by no means, as will soon 
 appear, a supernumerary part, as his colleague in the real 
 tragedy that now opens before us. 
 
 Thus at last he, with the Hamiltons, set sail on an errand 
 which has constantly been described as tarnishing his fame. 
 
 Mr. Gutteridge's scholarlike and impartial review of all 
 the intricate facts and documents i has proved that Nelson 
 neither exceeded his powers nor violated his conscience. 
 In championing the royal house of Naples he was as 
 entirely consistent with the declared policy of his country 
 as with his own convictions. His error, if any, was one of 
 judgment. In rebellions clemency is often the best policy, 
 and proscription is always the worst. Happy indeed would 
 it have been for Naples, and for Nelson, if during the next 
 two months the King had not intervened as director, in- 
 quisitor, and hangman, if the Queen's wishes and Emma's 
 had prevailed. 
 
 Before the Foudroyant proceeds further, let us glance at 
 the intervening events in Naples. 
 
 In that citadel of turbulence much had again happened, 
 and was happening to the court's knowledge, ere Nelson 
 weighed anchor at Palermo. Before May even, the suc- 
 cessful blockade of Corfu by the Russians and Turks had 
 largely cleared Rufifo's conquering course. The Austrians 
 and Russians had prepared to drive the French from Upper 
 Italy. In May the feeble General Macdonald had already 
 beaten his retreat to the Po, leaving only a small detachment 
 behind him to garrison the Neapolitan and Capuan castles. 
 Benvenuto had welcomed the loyalists. By early June the 
 Cardinal, close to the city, had succeeded in intercepting all 
 communications by land. Schipani, a royalist officer of dis- 
 tinction, had disembarked his troops at Torre Annunziata. 
 The ■ Republican fleet, commanded by the treacherous 
 Admiral Caracciolo, had sneaked off and avoided a meet- 
 ing ; while that same double-dyed traitor ^ — despatched 
 
 ^ Nelson and the Neapolitan Jacobins, published by the Navy Records Society, 
 1904. 
 
 ^ So early as April 29 Nelson had told Lord Spencer, in a despatch, that the 
 fishermen had cried out to Caracciolo : ' We believe you are loyal and sent by 
 the King. But, much as vee love you, if we find you disloyal, you shall be 
 among the first to fall.' — Cf. Laughton, p. 191. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 291 
 
 not three months ago on a loyal mission by the monarch 
 whom he had flattered — had even fired on his old flagship, 
 the Minerva. 
 
 By the 13th of June — amid the solemn rites of the 
 Lazzaroni's other patron, St. Antonio — Ruffo, with his mis- 
 cellaneous forty thousand, gave battle on the side of Ponte 
 Delia Maddalena, and won. Duke Roccomana, the people's 
 old favourite, was now one of his generals, and the popu- 
 lace, tired of bloodshed and the ' patriots,' rejoiced at the 
 hope of a royal restoration. The young Pep6, a boy- 
 prisoner, has left an account of the terrible scenes that he 
 witnessed. He saw the wretched captives, stripped and 
 streaming with blood, being dragged along to confinement 
 in the public granary by the bridge. He heard the Lazza- 
 roni, 'who used to look so honest, and to melt as their 
 mountebanks recited the woes of " Rinaldo," shrieking and 
 howling.' He watched the clergy whipping the rabble 
 with their words, till they threw stones at the miserable 
 prisoners. Some of them Rufib had to protect from brutal 
 assaults. These were thrown into hospitals, all filth and 
 disorder ; while others feigned insanity to gain even this 
 doubtful privilege. He beheld Vincenzo Ruvo, the ' Cato ' 
 of the ' patriots,' and Jerocades, their ' Father,' bruised and 
 bound ; and he marked, huddled and draggled among their 
 comrades, the ' four poets,' feebly striving to animate their 
 starved spirits by snatches of broken song. He learned 
 that the Castellamare garrison had also succumbed, but, 
 above all, that Ruffo and Micheroux, the shifty ' commis- 
 sioner' of his Russian allies, were at last willing to grant 
 a demand expressed by some of the ' patriots ' for a ' truce ' 
 so as to end this pandemonium,^ and to arrange some 
 terms of ' capitulation ' for the castles still in ' patriot ' 
 occupation. Terms of any kind the Lazzaroni, on their 
 side, vehemently resisted, and they even accused Ruffo of 
 caballing to place his own brother on the throne.^ Nelson's 
 own views of such unsanctioned capitulation had already 
 
 ' Pep^, Memoirs, pp. 65-100. 
 
 2 Cf. Hamilton to Acton, June 21, Eg. MS. 2640, f. 263. Francesco Ruffo, 
 inspector of forces and finance. He was arrested after the reduction of Naples 
 but was, however, reinstated in favour and office as Minister of War. 
 
292 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 been strikingly exemplified by his manifesto at Malta in 
 the previous October: — a point to which special attention 
 should be drawn. Capitulation the French still stoutly 
 rejected. M6jean, commandant of the French garrison in 
 St. Elmo, still defended the dominating fortress, from 
 which Ruffo would now have to dislodge him at the risk 
 of the town's destruction.^ Their single hope was for a 
 glimpse of the French fleet, which was as much the object 
 of their yearning as Nelson's. Counting on this, in their 
 sore straits they had refused every conciliatory overture. 
 Counting on this again, M^jean's aim was to gain time by the 
 threat that he would fire on the town unless Ruffb forbore 
 to attack him. When on June 24 the first sight of Nelson's 
 ships was descried in the distance, the 'patriots' cheered 
 to the echo. They deemed it was St. Louis to the rescue. 
 To their dismay it proved St. George. 
 
 Micheroux's name, Ruffo's truce, and Nelson's arrival must 
 recall us to what Captain Foote of the Seahorse had been 
 doing in the interval. He seems to have been a rather 
 stupid, though a most honourable seaman. His powers 
 had been strictly limited. He, like Troubridge, was a 
 suppressor of rebellion. He was to co-operate with the 
 Russians in the Neapolitan blockade. He must have 
 known almost as well as Ruffo — who had now for the 
 fourth time been warned by his sovereign — that since the 
 insurgents had rejected initial offers, no armistice was to 
 be entered into whatever.^ In the event, Ruffo and the 
 Russians duped him. 
 
 Already, on June 13 and 14, Foote had been assisting 
 Ruffo and his generals in a series of battles on the coast, 
 all of which had proved decisive discomfitures for the 
 
 • In a despatch to Lord Grenville of August 4, Hamilton recorded that 
 Ruffo told him that but for the 'treaty,' Naples would have been 'a heap 
 of stones.' 
 
 2 The Queen had written to him on June 14 that ' there must be no treaty.' 
 With the French commissioners he might treat, but never with ' rebel vassals.' 
 ' The King will pardon them out of kindness, and reduce their punishment, but 
 he will never capitulate or enter into capitulations with guilty rebels, and would 
 not stoop to bargain with such low, contemptible scoundrels.' — Gutteridge, p. 87. 
 Cf. also the Queen's letter to Lady Hamilton, cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 233 ; 
 Hamilton's letter to Acton (Gutteridge, p. 214), and Acton's letters to Hamilton 
 (Eg. MS. 2640, f. 267), and Nelson's to Duckworth (Gutteridge, p. 2i6). 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 293 
 
 rebels. Throughout, Ruffo kept informing Foote of his 
 fears lest the Franco- Hispanian fleet should be on them 
 like a thief in the night. He dreaded the consequences, 
 and it would be far wiser, he assured him, to gain time 
 by some armistice. The Cardinal also dreaded the results 
 of the mob-violence displayed in those awful scenes on 
 the Ponte Maddalena. 'The duty,' he informed Acton 
 on June 21, just before the capitulations were signed, 
 ' of controlling a score of uneducated and subordinate 
 chiefs, all intent on plunder, murder, and violence, is so 
 terrible and complicated, that it is absolutely beyond 
 my powers. ... If the surrender of the two castles is 
 obtained, I hope to restore complete quiet.' ^ He used the 
 imminence of the French fleet (which never appeared) as a 
 bogey to frighten his coadjutors, and the imminence of his 
 own attack on St. Elmo as a lever for persuading the 
 French commandant into assent. All along, by his own 
 self-extenuation,^ his excuse for contravening his strict 
 injunctions was fear, and fear alone. His position in the 
 hour of victory was one of pure panic. Two days before the 
 unauthorised capitulations were declared, Foote had offered 
 an asylum on board the Seahorse to the garrison of the Del 
 Uovo Castle, then about to be stormed. The ' patriots' had 
 answered with an indignant negative : ' We want the indi- 
 visible Republic ; for the Republic we will die ! — Aloignez- 
 vous,citoyens,vite,vite,vite!' On June 18 Ruff'o himself 
 acquainted Foote that St. Elmo must be assailed. ' Capitu- 
 lation,' he added, 'was out of the question.' He had 
 previously told him that the French would never sur- 
 render to an ecclesiastic. And yet, on the very next day, 
 this reynard concocted the 'capitulations,' both with the 
 French M^jean at St. Elmo and with the Neapolitan 
 ' patriots ' of the lower castles, whose discretion, with equal 
 suddenness, had turned the better part of their valour. 
 The separate arrangement with the French he delegated* 
 
 ' Cf. Gutteridge, p. 152. 
 
 2 Cf. Sacchinelli, Memorie storiche sulla vita del Cardinale F. Ruffo, pp. 251 
 et seq. 
 
 ^ Cf. the documents cited from the archives by Gutteridge, pp. 146 et seq. 
 On June 21 Ruffo wrote to Acton that the lower castles were ' on the point of 
 surrendering to the Russians and Chevalier Micheroux' (No. Ixi.). 
 
294 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to Micheroux, commissioner for the Russians, himself a 
 thorough-paced adventurer. 
 
 Into the tortuous though interesting windings of these 
 negotiations, now with M^jean, now with the 'patriot' 
 leaders, concerning the ultimate 'capitulation,' I cannot 
 here enter. They were as various as they were numerous,^ 
 and the clue to them is perhaps found in a desire to include 
 both the French garrison and the 'patriots' under identical 
 terms. Mejean had no particular wish either to be shelled 
 or himself to open fire on the town ; and he awaited the 
 French squadron with confidence. If the 'patriots' could, 
 in the meantime, secure the honourable terms to which a 
 surrendering enemy was entitled, they would be more than 
 satisfied. Moreover, one of the Cardinal's relatives, and 
 Micheroux's own brother, together with many dignitaries, 
 had taken refuge in the lower castles of Uovo and Nuovo — 
 a fact which supplied still another motive ; among these 
 was Caracciolo himself, who, however, fled immediately, and 
 was never included in the eventual terms of capitulation.^ 
 Trickery signalised every step of these diplomacies. Col- 
 lusion was attended by excuse, and excuse begat fresh 
 collusion. Mejean seemed quite ready to sacrifice the 
 'patriots.' The 'patriots' had little thought for Mejean. 
 RufFo, as ' Mr. Facing-both-ways,' wheedled and chicaned 
 them both, in his eagerness for delay and his miscalculated 
 terror over the Franco - Hispanian squadron's approach. 
 The evasions both of the rebel and the loyalist chiefs 
 rivalled the excesses of the Lazzaroni rabble. On the 2ist 
 the various foreign representatives had signed, and, after 
 much hesitation, Mejean ; by the 23rd Captain Foote also, 
 who depended entirely on the representations of RufFo, 
 while Micheroux, signed last, and under protest. 
 
 The document itself was most peculiar, considering the 
 conditions of hostile and insurgent garrisons in the face of 
 a successful conqueror. It was, in fact, a double agree- 
 
 1 Cf. Foote's 'Statement.' — Gutteridge, pp. 243 et seq. 
 
 ^ On June 21 the Queen wrote to Ruffo : ' I deeply regret the flight of 
 Caracciolo, believing that such a pirate on the high seas may be dangerous,' 
 etc. — Gutteridge, No. Ixviii. This most important fact appears from Hamilton's 
 despatch to Lord Grenville of August 4, to which reference has already been 
 made in a note. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 295 
 
 ment — both an 'armistice' and a capitulation.. It should 
 be remembered that it applied not only to the Neapolitan 
 castles, but also to the fortress of Gaeta, while Capua had 
 already set the precedent by formulating its own terms of 
 surrender. And thus, on Ruffo's part, it was a breach of 
 faith with the Austrian Court, as well as with his own. 
 One must feel for the ' patriots ' in the mass, since the fraud 
 was the fraud of a few, and was practised on many of 
 themselves. One must condemn the violence of the mob, 
 for it was general and indiscriminate. But both the 
 duplicity and the brutality were the outcome of the two 
 despotisms which had so long been pitted against each 
 other. In the main one might perhaps apply to both sides 
 Gibbon's sentence about another conflict — ' What does it 
 matter whether dog eats hog, or hog eats dog ? ' Nor 
 should it be forgotten that, as already noticed, Ferdinand 
 himself had no objection to treat with the French, if only 
 they would hand over St. Elmo to the loyalists. What 
 he had strictly and constantly forbidden was any sort 
 of capitulation for the rebels. And lastly it should be 
 emphasised that, since on a previous occasion the rebels 
 had broken a concluded truce, they might well repeat that 
 perfidy. It was only ' straits ' that now constrained them 
 to make one at all. Mutual jealousies and mutual hopes 
 restrained or urged them by turns in thus making common 
 cause with the French garrison.^ 
 
 Roughly speaking, the respective terms, both of the 
 armistice and of the capitulations to which it was an express 
 prelude, were these : 
 
 The armistice provided for a truce of twenty-one days, 
 after the expiry of which, both the French and the ' patriot ' 
 garrisons, if unrelieved, were to be conveyed away at the 
 Kin^s expense''' to Toulon, or places of safety. The words 
 italicised are most material. No wonder that Foote found 
 them ' very favourable to the Republicans,' though he based 
 his consent on the express grounds that Ruffo was Viceroy, 
 and that St. Elmo could not ' with propriety be attacked ' 
 
 ' Acton to Hamilton, June 23, Eg. MS. 2640, f. 265. On June 26 they 
 broke the armistice again. Cf. Diario Napoletano. 
 
 * Cf. Ruffo's letter of June 20 to Foote, transcribed by Gutteridge, No. lix. 
 
296 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 till the uncertainty as to the Toulonese fleet was disposed 
 of.i 
 
 Nelson, however, took a much stronger view of this 
 transaction. All armistices were reciprocal ; if either party 
 were ' relieved ' or succoured within a given time, a status 
 quo must result. This armistice, however, provided, and 
 on the most monstrous conditions, for the interruption of 
 hostilities pending the mere chance of the enemy being 
 relieved. If the French fleet had appeared instead of his, 
 no one could suppose that the rebels would keep their word. 
 If, on the other hand, the King's army were, as it was now 
 being, ' relieved ' by the British squadron, the truce was ipso 
 facto determined. The very presence of Nelson's ships, 
 therefore, annulled this armistice.^ 
 
 So much for the truce. Now for the capitulations. 
 
 On the delivery of the forts, the troops, both French and 
 Neapolitan, were to remain until polaccas were furnished 
 for their safe-conduct. They were then all to march out 
 with the honours of war. Should they prefer it, they were 
 granted the option of remaining 'unmolested' at Naples 
 instead of proceeding by sea. These terms were to comprise 
 all prisoners of war. All hostages were to be freed, but the 
 royalists must allow Micheroux's brother, the Bishop of 
 Avellino, and the Archbishop of Salerno, to remain in 
 St. Elmo and in M^jean's hands, as securities for the due 
 performance of the compact. Every condition was subject 
 to the French M6jean's approval. ' They demand,' wrote 
 the raging Queen, in her indignant comments,* not 'the. 
 approval of their sovereign, but the approval of a small 
 number of Frenchmen. . . . What an absurdity to give 
 hostages as though we were the conquered ! ' * 
 
 This luckless treaty it was, and this alone, that provoked 
 the horrors of royal vengeance, for it converted the rebels 
 of Naples into a foreign enemy. By insisting on amnesty 
 as a right, by leaguing with the common foe, by rejecting 
 
 1 Cf. Ruffo's letter, transcribed by Gutteridge, No. Ix. 
 
 ' 'La.w^tor^s Despatches, pp. 197, 198. * Add. MS. 30,999, f. 84. 
 
 * Cf. besides the evidence already adduced, the Queen's letter to Ruffe of 
 June 21 {Archivio Storico, vol. v. p. S7S, Gutteridge, No. Ixviii.). — 'I am truly 
 grieved that the obstinate Patriots have refused to surrender after proclamations 
 offering clemency,' etc. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 297 
 
 at least three previous offers of clemency/ by demanding 
 their very utmost, they forfeited the least right to a 
 grace which, however, it would have been far better in 
 equity to have accorded. Ruffo, by owning himself unable 
 to govern, by his helplessness to stem the riotous anarchy 
 of vanquishers maddened by the suspicion of a second 
 betrayal to the French, by his oblique manoeuvres, by his 
 open breaches of royal trust, endangered not only himself 
 but the countrymen whom he had so bravely led, and whom 
 even now he professed to benefit. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when Nelson, rounding the 
 Posilippo point with his forty ships, sailed into the bay, 
 drew up his fleet facing the harbour,^ and eyed the white 
 flags flying from the castle towers. The Foudroyant was 
 hailed as an ark after the deluge. The quay was thronged 
 with cheering loyalists. Ruffo, however, looking out from 
 the royal villa, seemed ill at ease. The Russians, too, were 
 by no means pleased, as they had reckoned on reaping the 
 sole credit of a clever pacification. The poor 'patriots' 
 skulked and trembled in their fortresses. By night the 
 whole city was all joy and illuminations, for Naples during 
 the last few years had proved a kaleidoscope of massacre 
 and merry-making. Not a minute was wasted by Nelson. 
 With the help of Hamilton and Emma, as advisers and 
 translators, he drafted his opinion* of these ' nefarious trans- 
 actions,' and forthwith despatched it to Ruffo. The Queen 
 had already counselled the Admiral to demand a ' voluntary 
 surrender' before having recourse to arms.* This he at 
 once proposed in a memorandum to Ruffo, calling first on 
 the French to surrender within twenty-four hours, when 
 they should be safely conducted to France ; but ' as for 
 the rebels and traitors, no power on earth shall stand 
 between the King and them.' The Hamiltons read and 
 explained it to the Cardinal, who as promptly rejected it. 
 
 " Add. MS. 34,944, f. 225. Gutteridge, p. 156. 
 
 2 'An attractive and magnificent spectacle,' says the contemporary Diario 
 Napoletano, cited by Gutteridge, pp. 181 et seq. 
 
 ^ Laughton's Despatches, pp. 197 et seq. ; Diario Napoletano, cited by 
 Gutteridge. 
 
 * Gutteridge (as above). No. Ixviii., and Helfert, p. 578 ; the Queen to the 
 Empress (same date). 
 
298 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Nelson immediately notified his annulment of the armistice 
 (as self-stultifying), of the capitulations (as preposterous), 
 and of both as wholly unauthorised and unbinding. The 
 supple Cardinal had not only exceeded his commission, he 
 had violated his directions and broken his word. Early 
 next morning Ruffo, all 'compliments' and confusion, 
 visited the Foudroyant to. confer with Nelson. During, 
 the whole of this interview the Hamiltons were present, 
 Emma acting as interpretress. The Cardinal insisted on 
 theoretic distinctions between the armistice and capitula- 
 tions. Nelson flatly repudiated such subtleties. Whatever 
 name labelled these iniquitous arrangements, they were 
 rank treason, he said, and must be cancelled. An 
 Admiral, he added, was no match in such matters for a 
 Cardinal.^ 
 
 All that day of June 25, letters, conferences, intrigues, 
 bluff of every description, passed on all sides except 
 Nelson's. From Palermo, Acton, confused by incomplete 
 tidings, wrote no less than four letters. The foreign 
 signatories entered a formal protest against the capi- 
 tulations. Mdjean threatened to bombard the town from 
 St. Elmo ; and he told Micheroux that if hostilities re- 
 commenced, he would not be answerable for consequences. 
 Massa, the ' patriot '-commander, remonstrated both with 
 Ruffo and M^jean, adding that he would not be intimidated ; 
 at the same time he requested M^jean's support should the 
 people issue from the castles. The whole of Naples lay 
 between two fires, that of the French and that of the 
 English. By late evening Ruffo himself besought Nelson 
 for troops, in case M^jean should execute (as he did) 
 his threat of a cannonade.^ And yet by that night the 
 two smaller castles held by the patriots had uncondition- 
 ally '^ surrendered. The royal colours streamed from their 
 turrets. The Deputies (' Eletti '), to whom the Queen 
 
 ^ Nelson to Keith, June 27, 1799; transcribed by Gutteridge from the 
 P.R.O., p. 264. 
 
 '^ Cf. Gutteridge, pp. 218-229 5 Add. MS. 34,944, f. 248 ; Eg. MS. 2640, 
 ff. 269, 271, 287 ; Sacchinelli, fassim. The garrisons had already been 
 counselled to retire ; Add. MS. 24,912, f. 151. 
 
 ' This will be established in the succeeding pages. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 299 
 
 always ascribed the root of the mischief,^ had scurried off.^ 
 Feux de joie blazed in all the streets, and from every 
 window, side by side, waved the British and Neapolitan 
 flags. 
 
 In the meantime neither had Emma's energy been 
 dormant ; she did more than copy, and interpret, and 
 translate the patois. She was a woman of action. Her 
 enthusiasm spread among the common people, who adored 
 her. She conjured with the Queen's name: — 'I had 
 privily seen all the Loyal party, and having the head 
 of the Lazzaronys an old friend, he came in the night of 
 our arrival, and told me he had 90 thousand Lazeronis \sic\ 
 ready, at the holding up of his finger, but only twenty 
 with arms. Lord Nelson, to whom I enterpreted, got a 
 large supply of arms for the rest, and they were deposited 
 with this man. In the mean time the Calabreas \sic\ 
 were comiting murders ; the bombs we sent . . . were re- 
 turned, and the city in confusion. I sent for this Pali, 
 the head of the Lazeroni, and told him, in great confidence, 
 that the King wou'd be soon at Naples, and that all that 
 we required of him was to keep the city quiet for ten days 
 from that moment. We gave him only one hundred of 
 our marine troops. He with these brave men kept all the 
 town in order . . . and he is to have promotion. I have 
 thro' him made " the Queen's party," and the people have 
 prayed for her to come back, and she is now very popular. 
 I send her every night a messenger to Palermo, with all 
 the news and letters, and she gives me the orders the same 
 [way]. I have given audiences to those of her party, and 
 settled matters between the nobility and Her Majesty. 
 She is not to see on her arrival any of her former evil 
 counsellors, nor the women of fashion, alltho' Ladys of the 
 Bedchamber, formerly her friends and companions, who 
 did her dishonour by their desolute \sic\ life. All, all is 
 changed. She has been very unfortunate; but she is a 
 good woman, and has sense enough to profit by her past 
 unhappiness, and will make for the future amende honorable 
 
 ' Cf. the Queen's letter to Lady Hamilton, June 25, transcribed by Pettigrew, 
 vol. i. p. 233 ; Gutteridge, p. 2io. 
 ^ Diario NapoUtano, cited by Gutteridge, p. 184. 
 
300 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 for the past. In short, if I can judge, it may turn out 
 fortunate that the Neapolitans have had a dose of 
 Republicanism, . . . P.S. — It wou'd be a charity to send me 
 some things ; for in saving all for my dear and royal friend, 
 I lost my little all. Never mind.' ^ 
 
 Bravo ! Emma, rash organiser and populariser of the 
 Queen's party, bold equipper and encourager of Pali the 
 Lazzaroni, who, when the King at last came to his own 
 again, brought all his ninety thousand men to welcome him 
 at sea. We shall hearken to Emma again ere long. For 
 the present, the recital of sterner events must be resumed. 
 
 The plot, then, to place Naples at the mercy of the 
 French had been foiled. The question that was to 
 convulse the city on the following day was, On what terms 
 had the castles surrendered? 
 
 It is most important in tracing the difficulties of the 
 next few days, to distinguish between the two separate 
 cases of the armistice with the French in St. Elmo and the 
 capitulations with the 'patriots' in the two lower castles. 
 Some of the rebels were already contriving to escape; 
 many of them soon succeeded in doing so with such boats 
 as lay to hand. Would Nelson be likely to reconsider any 
 of the now cancelled clauses of the patriots' capitulation ? 
 And would he forbear from attacking St. Elmo itself 
 notwithstanding his non-recognition of the armistice? 
 In exacting the unconditional surrender of the rebels 
 he had never wavered,^ despite the shifty shilly-shally- 
 ings of Ruffo. But it will be found that, for the sake 
 of the town's quietude, and pending some authoritative 
 declaration of the King's pleasure (possibly recalling 
 Ruffo *), he did now temporarily desist from a siege. This 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 411. To Greville, Foiidroyant, July 19, 1799. 
 
 ^ On June 25 he wrote to Duckworth that he ' differed wholly from the 
 Cardinal.' 'I say the rebels shan't go to Toulon.' He wants 'to save' the 
 houses of Naples even before the ' sovereign's honour.' On the same day his 
 proclamation will not allow the rebels to 'quit or embark.' They must 
 'surrender to the royal mercy.' Cf. Desp. in., pp. 386, 388; Gutteridge, pp. 
 91, 92. On June 26 he recorded his opinion that the capitulation entered into 
 with the rebels cannot be executed without the King's approval. 
 
 ^ Cf. generally, Hamilton to Grenville, July 14, 1799 ; P.R.O., Sic. Papers, 
 P- 399 ; Gutteridge, p. 309. Then 50 late as June 24 the royalties were not 
 convinced that Ruffo's misfeasance was designed. Cf. the Queen's letter to 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 301 
 
 distinction between two different sets of conditions is most 
 material, since those who have not investigated the docu- 
 ments have assumed and often asserted that on June 26 
 Nelson went back on his plighted promise. What seems, 
 however, to have happened is, that both the time-serving 
 Ruffo and the wily Micheroux so twisted these two separate 
 cases together as to persuade the 'patriots' that the 
 surrender of their castles on the verge of a renewed armistice 
 with the French revived the original terms of their old 
 capitulations.^ 
 
 From a mass of complicated documents the situation 
 can be clearly discerned. Mdjean's one thought was for 
 his own garrison. Capua still held out, and till it fell 
 he disdained to surrender. His threats to bombard the 
 town embarrassed Nelson alike and Ruffo ; and, indeed, 
 they were more than threats, for an intermittent fire from 
 St. Elmo nightly terrified Naples.^ He was a bully, and he 
 thought he could intimidate Nelson into compliance. The 
 ' patriots ' in the castles Uovo and Nuovo, however, only 
 wanted to hold Nelson to their own separate capitulations 
 and thus ensure their own escape.* They sought to induce 
 M^jean to hang the royalist ' hostages ' in St. Elmo, unless 
 the capitulatory clauses were carried out. They feared that 
 Nelson might (as for a space he did) restrict the armistice 
 to St. Elmo alone. The conduct of both French and 
 ' patriots ' during these hours of suspense was purely selfish : 
 both tried to save their own skins. M^jean himself, even 
 while he defied Nelson, was not above the possibility of 
 a bribe. And, amid all these meannesses, Micheroux and 
 Ruffo were the meanest of all. There seems little doubt 
 
 Lady Hamilton, Eg. MS. 1616, f. 34. On June 25, however, she wrote about 
 Ruffo, complaining that he said next to nothing about the treaty, and declaring 
 that Naples must be treated as if a rebel Irish town. Cited Pettigrew, vol. i. 
 p. 233. On the same day the King commends ' his capital to the brave and 
 loyal Lord Nelson,' and adds that Ruffo and Pignatelli are surrounded by 
 scoundrels. Eg. MS. 2640, f. 269. Nelson himself afterwards excused Ruffo 
 to the King. Cf. his letter cited by Gutteridge, p. 287. 
 
 ' In the succeeding passages I venture to supplement and further elucidate 
 Mr. Gutteridge's inferences. 
 
 2 Cf. Hamilton to Acton, cited by Gutteridge, p. 249. 
 
 3 St. Elmo and the two other castles arranged their capitulations apart from 
 each other. Cf. Gutteridge, p. 171- 
 
302 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 that they took advantage of this tangle to mislead General 
 Massa and his patriots into a belief that Nelson had 
 accepted their surrender on the terms of the repudiated 
 capitulation.^ If they were convinced that their escape, 
 as well as their surrender, was unconditional, that they were 
 entitled to safe conduct and the honours of war, then the 
 whole odium of consequences would be cast on the shoulders 
 of the British Admiral, while their misleaders would be 
 held harmless. 
 
 Early on June 26 Hamilton informed Ruffo that Nelson 
 had ' resolved to do nothing that might break the armistice ' ; 
 and this Nelson confirmed with his own hand.^ 
 
 If I have made myself clear, it will be patent that this of 
 itself involved no change of front whatever towards the 
 rebels^ with regard to whom he awaited the further royal 
 instructions. Above all. Nelson desired that Mdjean should 
 not put in force his menace of firing on the wretched town, 
 and so he was ready to give him time — and rope. That this 
 was his real meaning is proved by the succeeding sentences 
 in Nelson's letter of confirmation to Ruffo. He would 
 land, he proceeds, twelve hundred men ' under the present 
 armistice! These troops were to carry out the uncon- 
 ditional surrender of the two smaller castles, formally made 
 on the night preceding. Troubridge and Ball were de- 
 spatched for the purpose ; and, as a matter of fact, they took 
 over the fortresses and occupied them on this very morn- 
 ing.* Troubridge and Ball made short work of the Jacobin 
 insignia. They hewed down the Tree of Liberty and the 
 red-capped giants. Rejoicing pervaded the town. The 
 Cardinal himself came on board the Foudroyant full of 
 
 ' For the preceding, cf. Sacchinelli, p. 255 et seq.; Gutteridge, pp. 230-248; 
 Add. MS. 34,944, ff. 50, 24s, 247 ; 34,95°, f- 7S 5 34.963. f- I04- 
 
 2 Sacchinelli, p. 255 ; Add. MS. 34,944, f. 250 ; 34,963, f. 104. (The date 
 is wrongly given in Nelson's letter-book as June 28. ) 
 
 ^ As is well known, Sacchinelli appended a facsimile of an order by Trou- 
 bridge to the effect that Nelson would not ' oppose the execution of the capitula- 
 tion of the two castles.' This is not in Troubridge's handwriting. It should be 
 compared with Troubridge's real declaration given in my text. 
 
 * In this way may be reconciled with the facts Minichini's statement in his 
 ' Verbale ' that Commandant Aurora ' took over the castles Uovo and Nuovo on 
 the night preceding ' (Sacchinelli, p. 257). They were then surrendered, but the 
 royalist officer only held them till the arrival of Nelson's emissaries. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 303 
 
 smiles and congratulations. Emma shared them. She 
 had been slaving at this complex correspondence/ and 
 Ruffo, safe as he now felt from the King's certain anger, 
 expressed his gratitude to her and her husband.^ Though 
 Nelson was bound by no conditions whatever, he did un- 
 doubtedly declare, at the same time, through Troubridge 
 to Ruffo, that he would not ' oppose the embarkation of 
 the rebels, and of the people composing the garrisons of 
 the castles Uovo and Nuovo.'^ A small quota of polaccas 
 awaited the refugees ; some, we have seen, were already 
 embarking. For the present, Nelson pledged his word that 
 he would not molest them. But he promised no more. 
 That very day Acton was informing Hamilton that the 
 King had decided to come in person, and that the Cardinal 
 was probably at the end of his tether ; * while on the next 
 he wrote rejoicing that the 'shameful capitulation' had 
 been rescinded ; Ruflfo, if he ' wobbled,' would be deposed, 
 and a direct communication from the King must by this 
 time have reached Nelson.^ It had reached him. Nelson 
 at once ordered the Seahorse off to Palermo for the King's 
 service, and he now distinctly warned the rebels that they 
 'must submit to the King's clemency' under .' pain of 
 death.' « 
 
 It was this letter that decided the doom of the miserable 
 patriots who, under these circumstances, had been caught 
 in a death-trap. Had the King's directions been deferred. 
 Nelson would have stayed his hand. As it was, the rebels, 
 instead of seeing the capitulations executed, were executed 
 themselves. Years afterwards Nelson affirmed in a docu- 
 ment dictated to Lady Hamilton : ' I put aside the dis- 
 honourable treaty, and sent the rebels notice of it. There- 
 fore, when the rebels surrendered, they came out of the 
 castles as they ought, without any honours of war, and 
 
 1 She was also in daily correspondence with the Queen. Cf. Eg. MS. 
 2640, f. 274. 
 
 2 Hamilton to Acton, June 27, 1799- Affari Esteri, iii. f. 64. Cited by 
 Gutteridge, p. 249. 
 
 3 Cf. Gutteridge, p. 234. ^ Eg. MS. 2640, f. 273. » Ibid. f. 274. 
 <= Hamilton to Ruffo, June 28, 1799; Rose, vol. i. p. 238; Gutteridge, p. 
 
 268. The same to the same on the same date. Aff. Est. iii. 624 ; Gutteridge, 
 p. 269. 
 
304 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 trusting to the judgment of their sovereign.'^ And the 
 British Government in October 1799 fully endorsed Nelson's 
 policy.^ 
 
 The King's good nature had hitherto been proverbial ; 
 it was the Queen and Acton who had hitherto shared the 
 odium of repression. But Ferdinand was now at length his 
 own master, and his latent cruelty emerged the more savage 
 because it had been long in abeyance, and he had now 
 heavy scores to settle with fawning courtiers and spurious 
 loyalists. No quarter was to be given to these false 
 prophets ; not a man of them was to escape. In the en- 
 suing hecatomb of slaughter the Queen, and even more 
 Emma, stand out as compassionate intercessors : * it is the 
 King who is inexorable. 
 
 In Hamilton's missive to Acton of the following day — 
 June 27 — occurred a significant sentence : — 
 
 ' Captain Troubridge is gone to execute the business, 
 and the rebels on board the feluccas cannot stir without a 
 passport from Lord Nelson.' 
 
 The heartrending scenes that ensued may be gathered 
 from a pile of correspondence between Hamilton and 
 Acton, Nelson and Ruffo (as well as from their despatches 
 to their home Governments), the Queen and Lady Hamil- 
 ton. The letters are too numerous for citation here, but 
 most of them may be found transcribed in Mr. Gutteridge's 
 masterly volume. 
 
 That very night thirteen chained rebels were brought on 
 board. The next day, the passengers awaiting deliverance 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 702, addressed to Mr. Alexander Stephens, February 10, 
 1803. This whole statement in refutation of the Jacobin Miss Williams's ' false 
 representations ' is familiar. It should be added that the people shouted against 
 the Cardinal and in Nelson's favour. Cf. letter transcribed by Gutteridge, 
 p. 271. 
 
 * Lord Spencer wrote : ' I can only repeat that the intentions and motives by 
 which all your measures have been governed, have been as pure and good as 
 their success has been complete.' — Eg. MS. 2240, f. 25. 
 
 ^ Even of the worst, Caracciolo, the Queen writes to Emma on July 2 of 
 ' le malheureux eiforceni Caracciolo. ' ' I know well,' she adds, ' how much your 
 excellent heart must have suffered, and this increases my gratitude.' — Eg. MS. 
 6Slj f- 77- A few days later, hearing of the arrest of Belmonte's brother, which 
 she deplores, she implores Emma not to be led away by her ' benevolent heart,' 
 and to think onlyon the miseries caused by rascals. — /it'd. 1616, f. 42. It was 
 to Emma that the unfortunate turned. Cf. Morrison MS. 401, 403, 409. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 305 
 
 in twelve polaccas found themselves bondsmen in Nelson's 
 ships. Nelson certainly did not underdo his part of aveng- 
 ing angel — the part of what the Queen styled his ' heroic 
 firmness.' He was St. Michael against the seven devils of 
 Jacobinism, and the whole iron vials of retribution were 
 poured forth. He represented a King who had wronged, 
 before in his turn he had been wronged, and who had 
 hoarded his injuries. 
 
 While the crowd on the quays vociferated with joy, it 
 was not long before the dungeons of the fleet re-echoed to 
 the groans and curses of ensnared and intercepted patriots. 
 Emma shuddered as she kept to her cabin and tried to 
 write to her Queen. 
 
 The thirteenth of the thirteen confined in the Foudroyant 
 on that 27th of June, was Caracciolo. He had not been 
 included in any amnesty. On the cession of the castles, he 
 had fled to the mountains, but had been dragged from his 
 lair by a dastardly spy. Pale, ashamed, and trembling, 
 unwashen and unkempt, he stood silent before the stern 
 Nelson and Troubridge. Who could recognise in this 
 quailing figure the proud son of a proud father, the feudal 
 Prince who had learned seamanship in England, the 
 courtier who had been loaded with honours, the admiral 
 who had kissed the royal hands only three months ago, 
 when he parted with loyal protestations of devotion ? 
 
 He had fired on his own flagship. 
 
 That was the sole thought in the breasts of the grim 
 sailors who confronted him. 
 
 Such a catastrophe inspires horror, but of all the victims 
 that were soon to glut the scaffold, the least worthy of 
 commiseration is Caracciolo. Many had been forced by 
 the French into tempting posts on the provisional admini- 
 stration. Such, for example, was the errant but charming 
 Domenico Cirillo, for whom Emma was to plead so 
 warmly. Others, again, had been heroic. Such was 
 Eleonora de Pimentel. 
 
 But Caracciolo, though he set up the plea of duress, had 
 in truth no such excuse. He was powerful, he was trusted, 
 and he had proved a Judas. He has figured as an old man 
 bowed with years and care. He was still in the prime of 
 
 U 
 
3o6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 life.^ He has been pictured as a veteran Casablanca. He 
 was really a rat who left what he supposed was a sinking 
 ship. The sole real extenuation that I can find is that his 
 estates had been ravaged, and that his hapless family was 
 large. But every one's property had been plundered by the 
 French, and not every one had turned traitor. And yet 
 despair should always command pity, and the despair of 
 treachery, perhaps, most of all, for it is the torment of a lost 
 soul. Had Caracciolo lived under Nero, he might have 
 died by himself opening a vein, like Vestinus. But, on the 
 other hand, the great evil of unconstitutional monarchy 
 lies in its proneness to visit crime with crime ; as Tacitus 
 has put it : ' Scelera sceleribus tuenda.' 
 
 The imagination of cherishing Italy and of free England 
 has long enshrined him as the type of Liberty sacrificed in 
 cold blood to Despotism, as innocent and murdered. 
 
 In England this myth mainly originated in the generous 
 eloquence of Charles James Fox,^ who loved freedom, it is 
 true, but loved politics more ; that Fox, be it remembered, 
 who, when in power, once politely told his Catholic sup- 
 porters, in opposition, to go to the devil. More than sixty 
 years later, the attitude of a section towards the case of 
 Governor Eyre and the negroes presents a close analogy 
 to the attitude of the same section towards the case of 
 Nelson and Caracciolo. 
 
 Caracciolo had fired on his own flagship. From the 
 yard-arm of that flagship he must hang. So thought his 
 captors ; so, perchance, thought Caracciolo as his ashy lips 
 refused the relief of words. Nelson had himself requested 
 Ruffo to deliver Caracciolo into his hands instead of send- 
 ing him to be tried at Procida.® He was not rhadamanthine, 
 but he was an English Admiral ; and the English had 
 killed even Admiral Byng, whose crime — if crime it was — 
 was a trifle compared with Caracciolo's. 'To encourage 
 the others,' said Voltaire; 'as an example,' said Nelson. 
 
 1 Forty-eight. 
 
 " Nelson's own indignant refutation of Fox's indictment in the House of 
 Commons during February 1800, may be read in his letter to Davison of 
 May 9. Cf. Laughton's Despatches, p. 239. 
 
 ' Sacchinelli has a story, destitute of any evidence, that the King was for 
 mercy, but that Nelson overbore him. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 307 
 
 The next day Caracciolo was 'tried.' Emma never 
 beheld him. The process was short and sharp. He was 
 condemned. The shivering Emma shut herself up and 
 brooded over the results of her ambition. Caracciolo was 
 guilty before trial, but this summary trial was a farce. It 
 would have been far juster — though the issue was un- 
 doubted^ — if Caracciolo had passed the ordeal of impartial 
 judges. His Neapolitan inquisitors refused him the death 
 of a gentleman, or even a day's reprieve for his poor soul's 
 comfort. In vain Emma is said to have supplicated Nelson 
 for these fitting mercies. Naturally humane, he was here 
 relentless. He was neither lawyer nor priest. He had not 
 been his judge. Caracciolo's own peers had pronounced 
 him guilty of death, and Nelson sentenced him.* 
 
 Caracciolo's flagship was the Minerva, commanded by 
 our old friend Count Thurn, the sentinel of last December. 
 
 On June the 28th, at five of the afternoon, the 
 
 scarecrow of sedition swung, lashed to the Minerva's 
 
 gallows. 
 
 ' So perish all who do the like again.' 
 
 The bay was alive with hundreds of boats crowded with 
 thousands of loyalists. For two full hours * he dangled in 
 sight of a gloating mob, before the rope was cut, and its 
 grisly burden dropped into the sea. As the big southern 
 sun dipped suddenly below the waves which had once 
 witnessed the revel by which Nero had enticed his own 
 mother to destruction, one by one the little lights of boats 
 and quays began to glimmer, the scent of flowers was 
 wafted, the bells of church towers tolled over the ghostly 
 waters. The shore was thronged with eager spectators, 
 gesticulating, applauding, pointing at the mast where 
 Caracciolo had expiated his treason. 
 
 Mdjean had himself broken the truce by assailing the 
 city with his fusillade. Nelson now attacked St. Elmo, 
 
 ^ He admitted being ' one of those who went out to stop his Majesty's troops 
 by sea.' — Sacchinelli, p. 264. 
 
 ^ Count Thurn, in his report, terms it Nelson's sentence. 
 
 3 This appears from several accounts. A draft despatch of Hamilton to Gren- 
 ville gives the time as from five to sunset. The original intention had been 
 that he should swing from daybreak till sunset. 
 
3o8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 while Troubridge, with his troops, invested it by land Its 
 fall was timed to greet the King's arrival. 
 
 The Seahorse brought him, together with Acton and 
 Castelcicala, on the night of the gth to the channel of 
 Procida, where they awaited Nelson. Next morning they 
 stepped together on to the deck of the Foudroyant, As 
 the Admiral and his guests sailed into the gulf before the 
 last shot had reduced the stronghold on the hill, the sea 
 bristled with the barques, the two banks of the Chiaja with 
 the dense array, of his welcomers. At ten o'clock he 
 anchored. The boom of cannon, the noise of batteries, the 
 ' shouts of Generals ' acclaimed the restoration of the King 
 amid the salutes of victory.^ The King had at last come 
 to his own again. But, as Emma wrote, ' II est bon d'etre 
 chez le roi, il est mieux d'etre chez soi.' ^ She had toiled 
 like a Trojan. ' Our dear Lady,' wrote Nelson a week 
 later to her mother, ' La Signora Madre,' ' has her time 
 so much taken up with excuses from rebels, Jacobins, and 
 fools, that she is every day most heartily tired. ... I hope 
 we shall very soon return to see you. Till then, recollect 
 that we are restoring happiness to the Kingdom of Naples 
 and doing good to millions.'^ 'The King,' wrote Emma 
 gravely, pouring out, two days afterwards, her triumphs to 
 Greville, who must have opened wide his eyes as he read, 
 'has bought his experience most dearly, but at last he 
 knows his friends from his enemies, and also knows the 
 defects of his former government, and is determined to 
 remedy them ; . . . his misfortunes have made him steady, 
 and [to] look into himself. The Queen is not yet come. 
 She sent me as her Deputy ; for I am very popular, speak 
 the Neapolitan language, and [am] considered, with Sir 
 William, the friend of the people. The Queen is waiting 
 at Palermo, and she has determined, as there has been a 
 great outcry against her, not to risk coming with the King ; 
 for if he had not succeeded [on] his arrival, and not been 
 well received, she wou'd not bear the blame or be in the 
 way.' ' But ' — and here we catch the true beat of Emma's 
 heart — ' But what a glory to our good King, to our Country, 
 that we — our brave fleet, our great Nelson — have had the 
 
 • Sacchinelli, p. 268. Morrison MS. 417. 
 
 3 Morrison MS. 408, July 17, 1799. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 309 
 
 happiness of restoring the King to his throne, to the 
 Neapolitans their much-loved King, and been the instru- 
 ment of giving a future good and just government to the 
 Neapolitans ! . . . The guilty are punished and the faithful 
 rewarded. I have not been on shore but once. The King 
 gave us leave to go as far as St. Elmo's, to see the effect 
 of the bombs ! I saw at a distance our despoiled house in 
 town, and Villa Emma, that have been plundered. Sir 
 William's new apartment — a bomb burst in it! It made 
 me so low-spirited, I don't desire to go again. 
 
 ' We shall, as soon as the Government is fixed, return to 
 Palermo, and bring back the royal family ; for I foresee 
 not any permanent government till that event takes place. 
 Nor wpu'd it be politick, after all the hospitality the King 
 and Queen received at Palermo, to carry them off in a 
 hurry. So you see there is great management required. 
 I am quite worn out. For I am interpreter to Lord Nelson, 
 the King and Queen ; and altogether fell quite shattered ; 
 but as things go well, that keeps me up. We dine now 
 every day with the King at 12 o'clock. Dinner is over by 
 one. His Majesty goes to sleep, and we sit down to write 
 in this heat ; and on board you may guess what we suffer. 
 My mother is at Palermo, but I have an English lady ^ with 
 me, who is of use to me, in writing, and helping to keep 
 papers and things in order. We have given the King all 
 the upper cabbin, all but one room that we write in and 
 receive the ladies who come to the King. Sir William and 
 I have an apartment below in the ward-room, and as to 
 Lord Nelson, he is here and there and everywhere. I never 
 saw such zeal and activity in any one as in this wonderful 
 man. My dearest Sir William, thank God, is well and of 
 the greatest use now to the King. We hope Capua will 
 fall in a few days, and then we will be able to return to 
 Palermo. On Sunday last we had prayers on board. The 
 King assisted, and was much pleased with the order, 
 decency, and good behaviour of the men, the officers, etc' 
 
 The self-consciousness, the strenuousness, the devotion, 
 the enthusiasm, the egotism, and yet the sympathy — all 
 the old elements are here. She had thirsted for the blood 
 and thunder of her girlhood's romances ; she now beheld 
 
 ■* Miss Cornelia Knight. 
 
310 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 blood and thunder in reality. The ' much-loved ' King had 
 a summary way of finishing off his enemies, and bribery as 
 well as butchery reigned in Naples. The Morrison Collec- 
 tion is full of appeals to Lady Hamilton's kind heart. 
 Many of them are tragic. One welcomes a snatch of 
 humour. A certain Englishman, Matthew Wade, was a 
 great figure in Naples. He it was who advised the 
 garrisons to surrender. Troubles, in these troublous times, 
 had fallen on his household, and I cannot refrain from 
 subjoining a passage in a letter of his about them to 
 Emma. 
 
 ' I beg leave to remind your Ladyship that the Gover- 
 nour's finances is become very low, and I suppose in a 
 short time I will lose my credit, as my house was plundered 
 when I was in prison, under a protest of finding papers and 
 being a Royalist ; and after, by the Calabrace [sic] before 
 my return here, for being a Jacobine. The last was a dirty 
 business, as they robbed my mother-in-law of her shift. 
 She said six, tho' I never knew her and her daughter to 
 have but three, as I well remember they usually disputed 
 who was to put on the clean shift of a Sunday morning. 
 However, I was obliged to buy six shifts in order to live 
 quiet. Pray assure her Majesty and General Acton that I 
 can't hold out much longer. Besides, my family is in- 
 creased. I have got a cat and a horse which has been 
 robbed from me by the Jacobines. I met him with a 
 prince, and took emediately possession of him as my real 
 proprity. ... I am told a conspiracy has been discovered 
 and a sum of money found, in order to let seventeen of the 
 principal Jacobines escape, now confined (and they are 
 marked for execution) in the Castell-Nuovo ; they say the 
 Governor (from whom they have taken the command) is 
 deeply conserned in the business. I am sorry for him, tho' 
 I have no acquaintance with the man, but I am told he is 
 a brave man and a soldier. But there is something in the 
 air of the climate that softens the nerve so much, that I 
 never knew a man — nay, nor a woman of the country — 
 that cou'd resist the temptation of gold.'^ Thus Matthew 
 Wade, humourist and philosopher. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 419, August 10, 1799. 
 
TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 311 
 
 The Vicariate of Naples was now reposed in the Duke 
 of Salandra, who had always been loyal. Nelson appointed 
 Troubridge Commodore of the Naples squadron, and pre- 
 sented him with the broad, red pennant. Nelson himself 
 was soon to be elevated for a time to the chief Mediter- 
 ranean command. The ist of August was celebrated with 
 as much rejoicing as the situation allowed. Nelson relates 
 to his wife, not in ' vanity ' but in ' gratitude,' the King's 
 toast, the royal salute from the Sicilian ships of war, the 
 vessel turned into a Roman galley in the midst of which, 
 among the ' fixed lamps,' stood a repetition of last year's 
 'rostral column,' the illuminations, the magnificent orchestra, 
 the proud cantata — Nelson came, the invincible Nelson, and 
 they were preserved and again made happy.^ Indeed, 
 Leghorn and Capua had both surrendered, as well as 
 Naples. By the 9th of August the Foudroyant with its 
 jubilant inmates had returned to Palermo. 
 
 Emma had again triumphed. But at what a cost to her 
 peace of mind ! A royal reign of terror had unnerved her. 
 She was never to see ' dear, dear Naples ' again. Her 
 husband leaned upon her daily more and more ; and yet 
 the active association of nearly two months, which seemed 
 like two years, had brought her and Nelson closer than 
 ever together as affinities. All along it was the force and 
 vigour of her character far more than her charms and 
 accomplishments that appealed to him, and her unflagging 
 strength of spirit had never displayed itself to greater 
 advantage than during these trials of the last few months. 
 She tended faster and faster towards some irrevocable step, 
 the very shadow of which perturbed while it allured her. 
 A note of discord jars on the whole tune of her triumph. 
 
 On one of the short sea expeditions, so rumour goes, 
 that time had allowed them to join in making, a phantom 
 had startled them. Out of the depths the livid body of 
 Caracciolo, long immersed but still buoyant, had risen from 
 nothingness and fixed them with its sightless gaze.* 
 
 1 Nelson to his wife, August 4, 1799, transcribed by Pettigrew, vol. i. 
 p. 289. 
 ^ This episode has been treated by Fenimore Cooper in his Jack 0' Lantern. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 
 To December 1800 
 
 There is an almost imperceptible turning-point in career, 
 as in age, when the slope of the hill verges downwards. 
 Emma had now reached her summit. Henceforward, in 
 gradual curves, her path descends. 
 
 The royal fite champitre at Palermo in Nelson's honour 
 eclipsed each previous pageant. No splendour seemed 
 adequate to the national gratitude. The Temple of Fame 
 in the palace gardens, its exquisitely modelled group of 
 Nelson led by Sir William to receive his wreath from the 
 hands of Emma as Victory ; ^ the royal reception and em- 
 brace of the trio at its portals, and the laurel-wreaths with 
 which Ferdinand crowned them ; the Egyptian pyramids 
 with their heroic inscriptions ; the Turkish Admiral and his 
 suite in their gorgeous trappings, grave and contemptuous 
 of the homage paid to the fair sex ; the young Prince 
 Leopold in his midshipman's uniform, who, mounting the 
 steps at the pedestal of Nelson's statue, crowned it with a 
 diamond laurel-wreath to the strains of ' See the Conquering 
 Hero ' ; the whole court blazing with jewels emblematic of 
 the allied conquests ; the mimic battle of the Nile in fire- 
 works ; the new cantata of the ' Happy Concord,' and the 
 whole Opera band, with the veteran Senesino^ at their 
 head, bursting at the close into ' Rule Britannia ' and ' God 
 save the King ' ; the weather-beaten Nelson himself moved 
 
 ^ On her robe were embroidered the names of the heroes of the Nile. The 
 group was in wax. 
 
 " Senesino in his youth had been much in England, and is mentioned by 
 Bolingbroke when he satirised the opera more than fifty years before. He must 
 have been over eighty. 
 812 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 313 
 
 to tears — all these formed picturesque features of a memor- 
 able night. Lieutenant Parsons, an eye-witness, thus alludes 
 to it and the tutelary goddess both of the royal house and 
 its two defenders, by sword and pen : — 
 
 ' A fairy scene . . . presided over by the Genius of Taste, 
 whose attitudes were never equalled, and with a suavity of 
 manner and a generous openness of mind and heart, where 
 selfishness, with its unamiable concomitants, pride, envy, 
 and jealousy, would never dwell — I mean Emma, Lady 
 Hamilton. . . . The scene [of the young Prince crowning 
 Nelson] was deeply affecting, and many a countenance 
 that had looked with unconcern on the battle , . . now 
 turned aside, ashamed of their . . . weakness.' ^ Viva 
 Nelson ! Viva Miledi ! Viva Hamilton ! rent the air.^ 
 
 Emma divided the honours with Nelson. A torrent of 
 stanzas gushed from the Sicilian improvisatori ; * even 
 surgeons burst into song.* 
 
 But there were more substantial favours. Nelson re- 
 ceived not only a magnificent sword of honour and caskets 
 of remembrance, together with, a few months later, the 
 newly founded order of merit, but, partly by means of 
 Emma's advocacy, the title and estates of the Duchy of 
 Bronte. These, however, through the mismanagement first 
 of Grafer and afterwards of Gibbs, yielded a poor and most 
 precarious revenue for him, and, as will be proved hereafter, 
 next to none at all for Emma, whose annuity was to be 
 
 ' Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 292. ^ Eg. MS. 1623, f. 27. 
 
 ' Cf. Eg. MS. 1623, f. 72, some of which may be thus rendered : — 
 ' See Lady Hamilton, Britannia's pride. 
 
 Our glory, worthiest of her empire here. 
 Nature has dowered with all gifts sincere, 
 A store that never Flattery can divide. 
 
 Honour and Beauty in communion stand. 
 
 Shrined in a bosom candid, tried, and true ; 
 Its inmost depths reveal a world to view, 
 
 And age to age its wonderment shall hand. 
 
 Ah ! spare ye Fates, nor, cruel, cut the twine 
 
 That holds to life the Nestor of her days. 
 
 Long may he bide to prove our meed of praise ; 
 Oft may his light reflect and double thine ! ' 
 
 The 'Nestor' is, of course, Hamilton, who must have often winced good- 
 naturedly in always taking the back seat. * Cf. ibid, f. 75. 
 
314 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 charged upon it. The title ' Bronte,' with its Greek deriva- 
 tion of thunder, so curiously according with the name of 
 his vessel, caused Nelson afterwards to be continually styled 
 by Emma and his sisters ' Jove ' the thunderer.^ Presents 
 poured in upon him : the Crescent from the Grand Signior, 
 the sword and cane from Zante, commemorating the de- 
 liverance of Greece, the grants from English companies. 
 Nor was Emma without royal recognition. A queenly 
 trousseau awaited her on her arrival, and she received regal 
 jewels, valued, it was said, at six thousand pounds, but 
 which she sold two years afterwards, to Nelson's admira- 
 tion, for her husband's benefit. ' Nestor,' indeed, was be- 
 coming more and more involved in debt, and about this 
 period he borrowed over two thousand pounds from Nelson.^ 
 He was not only worried, but worn. He took offence at 
 trifles, and had quarrelled even with Acton.^ 
 
 Nelson did not dally, though Downing Street pained him 
 by its insinuations. From all these festivities his alertness 
 at once returned to vigilance and service. Not a fortnight 
 passed before — occupied as he was with every sort of multi- 
 farious correspondence— he sent Duckworth to protect the 
 British trade, on the maintenance of which he laid infinite 
 stress, at Lisbon and Oporto, to watch Cadiz, and to keep 
 the Straits open. He minutely directed Ball's operations 
 at Malta, still hampered by every vexatious delay on the 
 Italian side, and by the follies of Nizza, the Portuguese 
 Admiral. Early in September he charged Troubridge 
 and Louis with their mission to Civita Vecchia, which 
 within a month freed Rome from the French,* Directly 
 
 ^ At first, out of compliment to the King, he signed his letters ' Bronte and 
 Nelson,' but he soon recurred to ' Nelson and Bront^.' 
 
 ^ There are several pointed allusions to this debt both in the Nelson 
 Letters and in the accounts of the Merton expenses subjoined to the Morrison 
 Autographs. In all, the eventual debt amounted to some £zyio. About this 
 time its amount was ;^2276. Cf. Morrison MS. 537 and 538, vehere Nelson 
 mentions part of it in one of his many codicils. In a letter of 1801 Nelson 
 asked Emma if he should bequeath to her Sir William's debt to him. It seems 
 never to have been repaid. Ibid. 507. And cf. also Pettigrevf, vol. ii. p. 621. 
 
 * There are many letters between him and Acton of this period about a sup- 
 posed insult. Hamilton opens his with ' Have you, or have you not,' etc. For 
 this episode cf. Eg. MS. 24,640, ff. 386-390. 
 
 * Acton in his letter of congratulation speaks about ' dimostrations flrom the 
 King and Queen.' Add. MS. 34,913. 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 315 
 
 he received this most cheering intelligence, he him- 
 self started in the Foudroyant for Port Mahon, with the 
 one object of concentrating every available force by 
 land and sea on the complete reduction of Malta, which 
 remained ever in his 'thoughts, sleeping or waking.' He 
 did not land at Palermo till October, when he was able 
 to announce to Sidney Smith (uniformly and magnanimously 
 helped, praised, and counselled by him throughout) that 
 Buonaparte had passed Corsica in a bombard steering for 
 France. No crusader ever returned with more humility — 
 contrast his going in L' Orient'. ^ All the same this was 
 ill news, and Nelson was furious also at not receiving troops 
 from Minorca, and at the frauds of the victualling depart- 
 ment.^ He kept a sharp lookout on the Barbary States 
 and pirates. He deplored the inactivity of the Russian 
 squadron at La Valetta, and he resented the Austrian 
 demand for their presence elsewhere; his representations 
 caused a ' cool reception ' to the Archduke's suite when they 
 visited Palermo.^ By Christmas he cursed the stupidity 
 which had allowed Napoleon, hasting back for his strokes 
 at Paris, to elude the allies.* But above all, both he and 
 Emma strained every nerve to extort grain for starving 
 Malta from the King and Queen of Naples chicaning with 
 Acton to retain every bushel for their own necessities. 
 Until, after ' infamous ' delays and falsified promises, the 
 dole was granted which saved thirty thousand of the 
 Maltese loyalists from death,^ he ' cursed the day ' he ' ever 
 served the King of Naples.' ' Such,' he wrote to Trou- 
 bridge, ' is the fever of my brain this minute, that I assure 
 you, on my honour, if the Palermo traitors were here, I 
 
 ^ Laughton's Despatches, p. 218. Oct. 24. Nelson landed at Palermo Oct. 22. 
 
 ^ These, of course, were Lock's misfeasances. Besides the familiar sources 
 for this long affair, cf. Add. MS. 34,915. f- m- 
 
 ^ Cf. Add. MS. 34,915, f. 112. In this letter Emma's first cavaliere ser- 
 vente. Count Dietrichstein, reappears. Emma had called him ' Draydrixton ' 
 in 1786. Acton here calls him ' Dietrixsteen. ' 
 
 * Mr. Compton — one with whom Emma's kindness in the trying days of the 
 revolution always remained — wrote of Napoleon to her : ' He is at Marseilles, 
 and I think his political abilities, his skill in corrupting Generals, etc. , are more 
 to be dreaded than even his military talents.' — Morrison MS., November i, 1799. 
 
 ^ On these matters fresh light is thrown by a new letter from Ball of Decem- 
 ber I, 1799. Add. MS. 34,9i5> ^- 3. >o5- 
 
3i6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 would shoot them first and myself afterwards.' ^ Troubridge 
 was equally emphatic.^ The Maltese deputies lodged 
 under Emma's roof. She was their ' Ambassadress.' It 
 was not long before Emma's services in this matter were 
 publicly recognised by the Czar, as Grand Master of the 
 Maltese Knights. When he bestowed the Grand Cross on 
 Nelson and on Ball, he also bestowed it on Lady Hamilton, 
 with a special request to the King of England for his 
 licence to wear it there, the only occasion, as she was ever 
 proud to relate, that it had ever been conferred upon an 
 Englishwoman.* This order she wore next year at Vienna, 
 and it still figures in a portrait of her taken there, as well 
 as in a drawing of her in 1803 by Sir Thomas Lawrence. 
 She was styled ' Dame Chevaliere of the Order of St. John 
 of Jerusalem,' and from this time forward Ball always 
 addressed her as ' sister.' * 
 
 But the Maltese embroilments were by no means the 
 sole annoyances that distracted Nelson's sensitive nature. 
 
 ' Laughton's Despatches, p. 230. 
 
 2 Cf. Add. MS. 34,915, f. 60, Troubridge to Nelson; and cf. further his 
 letters cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. pp. 339, 343. 
 
 ^ Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 271. The vexed question of vfhether she spent 
 as much as ;^Sooo on this matter scarcely repays investigation. The fact remains 
 that her services were sufficient for imperial recognition, and that the King of 
 England allowed her to wear the order on her return. Her own account in a 
 letter to Greville, hitherto uncited, is this : ' I have rendered some service to 
 the poor Maltese. I got them ten thousand pounds, and sent corn when they 
 were in distress.' — Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 277. Her Prince Regent's 
 Memorial alleges details : ' I received the deputies, open'd their dispatches, and 
 without hesitation I went down to the port to try what could be done. I found 
 lying there several vessels loaded with corn for Ragusa. I immediately pur- 
 chased the cargoes : . . . this service Sir Alexander Ball in his letters to me, 
 as well as to Lord Nelson, plainly states to be the means whereby he was 
 enabled to preserve that important island. I had to borrow a considerable sum 
 on this occasion, which I since repaid, and with my own private money this 
 expended was nothing short of ;f 5000.' — Morrison MS. 1046. The pass^e to 
 which she refers may be Ball's letter to Macaulay of March 22, 1800 (Petti- 
 grew, vol. i. p. 341). Ball writes : ' I am convinced that but for their \i.e. the 
 Hamiltons, his last mention being of Emma] influence with their Sicilian 
 Majesties, the poor Maltese would have been starved.' I think she would 
 hardly invoke and quote a letter from a living witness, if the substance of this 
 claim were not the fact. Hamilton was ill and languid in the extreme at this 
 time, and she could have borrowed the sum from many. Yet the critics have 
 assumed that she, like 'the several vessels,' was ' ^jH!f there.' 
 
 ^ Cf. his letter of congratulation, Morrison MS. 462, February 27, l8cx3. 
 
HOMEWARDgBOUND 317 
 
 He was stung to the quick by the Admiralty's complaints 
 and suspicions. ' As a junior Flag officer,^ . . . without 
 secretaries,^ etc.,' he wrote home, ' I have been thrown into 
 a more extensive correspondence than ever perhaps fell to 
 the lot of any Admiral, and into a political situation, I own, 
 out of my sphere. ... It is a fact that I have never but 
 three times put my feet on the ground since December 1 798, 
 and except to the court, that till after 8 o'clock at night 
 I never relax from my business.' ' Do not,' he breaks out 
 to Lord Spencer, ' let the Admiralty write harshly to me — 
 my generous soul cannot bear it, being conscious that it 
 is entirely unmerited ' ; and, once more, to Commissioner 
 Inglefield, 'You must make allowances for a worn-out, 
 blind, left-handed man.' ^ 
 
 Nor was he least tormented by the growing passion of 
 his heart. His utterances are despondent. The East India 
 Company had voted ten thousand pounds in token of their 
 gratitude. Two thousand pounds of it he bestowed on his 
 relations ; the whole was placed at his wife's disposal.* ' I 
 that never yet had any money to think about, should be 
 surprised if I troubled my head about it,' he told his old 
 intimate and business manager, Davison (the rich con- 
 tractor of St. James's Square), whom, after the Nile battle,* 
 he had appointed agent for his scanty prize-money. ' In 
 my state of health, of what consequence is all the wealth 
 of this world ? I took for granted that the East India 
 Company would pay their noble gift to Lady Nelson ; and 
 whether she lays it out in house or land, is, I assure you, 
 a matter of perfect indifference to me. . . . Oh ! my dear 
 friend, if I have a morsel of bread and cheese in comfort it 
 is all I ask of kind Heaven, until I reach the estate of six 
 foot by two which I am fast approaching.'* It was not 
 long before Maltese successes had quite restored his spirits, 
 and Ball could write to say how happy it made him to think 
 that ' His Grace ' could enjoy exercise in company with the 
 
 1 He did not long so remain, for he was appointed to the chief command of 
 the Mediterranean by Lord Keith almost immediately. 
 
 ^ Tyson, however, as well as Emma, was acting informally in that capacity. 
 Cf. Add. MS. 34,915, f. III. ' AH cited by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 298. 
 
 * Cf. Eg. MS. 2640, f 3. 5 Cf. Eg. MS. 2640, fr. 4 and J. 
 
 ' Eg. MS. 2240, f. II ; and (partially) Laughton's Despatches, p. 214. 
 
3i8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Hamiltons.^ All this is characteristic of a tense organisation 
 by turns on the rack and on the rebound, yet with an evenness 
 of patriotism and purpose immovable beneath its elasticity. 
 
 Emma's fever of enthusiasm showed no abatement. She 
 immediately gave Nelson the pine-appled teapot which has 
 this year been generously presented with other relics to 
 the Greenwich Painted Chamber. His letters to her 
 breathed an affectionate respect. ' May God almighty bless 
 you,' one of them closes, ' and all my friends about you, 
 and believe me amongst the most faithful and affectionate of 
 your friends.' ^ Was she not the ' Victory ' who had crowned 
 him with honour ? He reposed such confidence in the 
 Hamiltons that during his absences he empowered them to 
 open all his letters. 
 
 But already there appeared a seamier side to Emma's 
 heroic gloss. The unreinstated Queen still ailed in health 
 and spirits. She had set her heart on accompanying 
 the King to Naples in his projected visit this November, 
 yet he had flatly refused. She seems to have turned from 
 the pious devotions which after her darling boy's death had 
 engrossed her to the delirium of play. The King loved his 
 quiet rubber,^ but he was no gambler. The Queen gambled 
 furiously — all her moods were extreme ; she was a medley 
 of passions. She had been Emma's lucky star, but all 
 along her evil genius. Emma for the first time was bitten 
 by the mania. Sir William's fortunes were crippled ; she 
 might sometimes be seen nightly with piles of gold beside 
 her on the green baize. Troubridge bluntly remonstrated. 
 His remonstrance, however, he added, did not arise from 
 any 'impertinent interference, but from a wish to warn 
 you of the ideas that are going about,' and to ' the con- 
 struction put on things which may appear to your Ladyship 
 innocent, and I make no doubt done with the best inten- 
 tion. Still, your enemies will, and do, give things a different 
 colouring.' * To his delight, she promised him to play no 
 more. For a while that promise lasted, but I fear for a 
 while only. Women of Emma's buoyancy and volatile salt 
 
 1 Add. MS. 3495, f. SS- ^ Morrison MS. 392. 
 
 ' Lord William Bentinck dwells on this feature in his account of his residence 
 as Ambassador at Palermo in l8o6. ■* Morrison MS. 441. 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 319 
 
 are not easily weaned from the false flutter of such a game. 
 All along her vein had been one of thrill under uncertainty, 
 and her whole course a cast for high stakes. ' I wish not 
 to trust to Dame Fortune too long,' wrote Nelson to her 
 in probable allusion ; ' she is a fickle dame, and I am no 
 courtier.' And reports — many of them untrue and all 
 exaggerated — were beginning to filter into England and 
 affront the regularities of red-tape. Nelson was depicted as 
 Rinaldo in Armida's bower. It was rumoured that, while on 
 shore, he assisted, heavy-eyed, at these revels till the small 
 hours of the morning, though his father at the time was lying 
 seriously unwell, — as a matter of fact he seldom touched a 
 card.^ That Sir William and he had nearly settled differences 
 by duel — a preposterous invention. That she played with 
 Nelson's money to the tune of ;£^5oo a night — a canard 
 easily refuted by his banking account. That the royal 
 presents to her had amounted to a value five times greater 
 than it really was. That the singers whom Emma was 
 constantly befriending and recommending were a byword 
 for their scandalous behaviour. It never crossed her mind 
 that anybody wished her ill. Both the Hamiltons and 
 Nelson had been living in an isolated fool's paradise of 
 popularity, remote from the canons or the realities of 
 England. They hugged the illusion of home popularity. 
 Unpopularity, whether deserved or due to envy or ill-nature, 
 usually comes as a shock and a surprise to those who have 
 provoked it far less than Lady Hamilton. She had long 
 passed the patronage of that English society which only 
 condones in a parvenue what it can patronise. It now 
 resented her intrusion, while it resented more, and with 
 better reason, her perpetual association with Nelson. 
 Indeed, the Admiralty were beginning to pry into her and 
 Nelson's correspondence,^ while the Government had now 
 decided to recall Hamilton. ' You may not know,' Trou- 
 bridge had told her, 'that you have many enemies. I 
 therefore risk your displeasure by telling you. I am much 
 
 ^ The apoctyphal Memoirs of Lady JSamilton (iSit,) give an imaginary con- 
 versation between Troubridge and Nelson, rebuking him for his high play at 
 Palermo. 
 
 ' Cf. inter alia Morrison MS. 452 ; Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 299. 
 
320 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 gratified you have taken it, as / meant it—furely good. 
 You tell me I must write you all my wants. The Queen 
 is the only person who pushes things ; you must excuse me ; 
 I trust nothing there,' he continues with personal soreness, 
 'nor do I, or ever shall ask from the court of Naples any- 
 thing but for their service, and the Just demands I have on 
 them.' His motives leak out in the concluding sentences 
 about Lord Keith : '. . . I should have been a very rich 
 man if I had served George III. instead of the King of 
 Naples. . . . The new Admiral, I suppose, will send us 
 home — the new hands will s^rve them better, as they will 
 soon be all from the north, full of liberality and generosity, 
 as all Scots are with some exceptions' Emma's own account ^ 
 deserves to be cited also. It occurs in a letter to Greville, 
 hitherto unnoticed, is perfectly truthful, and seeks to pro- 
 tect not herself, but her husband and Nelson : — ' We 
 are more united and comfortable than ever, in spite of the 
 infamous Jacobin papers jealous of Lord Nelson's glory and 
 Sir William's and mine. But we do not mind them. Lord 
 N. is a truly vertuous and great man ; and because we have 
 been fagging, and ruining our health, and sacrificing every 
 comfort in the cause of loyalty, our private characters are to 
 be stabbed in the dark. First it was said Sir W. and Lord N. 
 fought ; then that we played and lost. First Sir W. and 
 Lord N. live like brothers ; next Lord N. never plays : and 
 this I give you my word of honour. So I beg you will 
 contradict any of these vile reports. Not that Sir W. and 
 Lord N. mind it ; and I get scolded by the Queen and all 
 of them for having suffered one day's uneasiness.' 
 
 Yet she was by no means the slave of her new excite- 
 ment. She tried. to heal old wounds, she corresponded 
 with diplomatists ; ^ she could not relinquish her part of 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 269, Lady Hamilton to Greville, February 29, 
 1800. For Troubridge's letters, Morrison MS. 441, January 4, 1800 ; PettigreW, 
 vol. i. p. 339 (where it is misdated). It will be found later on that Troubridge, 
 who owed all to Nelson, received a regular pension from the King. For the 
 preceding generally, cf. ibid. pp. 296 et seq., 323 (the Queen's letters to Emma of 
 October), and p. 374 et seq. (those of the early part of the next year); p. 312 
 (Nelson's letter), Morrison MS. 420-437 passim ; Minto Life and Letters, 
 vol. ii. p. 138 (Lady Minto to Lady Malmesbury). 
 
 ' The future Lord Minto wrote her long epistles from Vieiina about affairs 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 321 
 
 female politician, the less so as Hamilton had now settled 
 to return home on the first opportunity, and the Queen was 
 desolated at the mere thought of separation.^ The Duchess 
 of Sorrentino besought her good offices from Vienna, and 
 in urging her suit Emma abused the King so roundly, that 
 in his umbrage he turned violently both on her and the 
 Queen. A heated scene ensued — so heated, indeed, that 
 the monarch demanded Emma's death and threatened to 
 throw her out of the window for her contempt of court.^ 
 
 Nelson's acting chief command expired on January 6, 
 1800. Ill, and with a fresh murmur of ' unkindness,' he 
 put himself under Lord Keith's directions at Leghorn.* 
 The blockade of Malta, which had lasted over a year, the 
 as yet uncaptured remnant of the French squadron from 
 the Nile, the resolve that the French army should not be 
 suffered to quit Egypt — these were the objects, now shared 
 with Emma, of his thoughts and of his dreams. He deter- 
 mined to run the risk of independent action.* To Malta 
 he proceeded instantly, and he was transported with joy 
 when he captured Le Ginireux, though he had yet to wait 
 for the eventual surrender of the single remaining frigate 
 to his officers. ' I feel anxious,' he wrote in February to 
 Emma, during his constant correspondence with the 
 Hamiltons, ' to get up with these ships, and shall be 
 unhappy not to take them myself, for first my greatest 
 happiness is to serve my gracious King and Country, and 
 I am envious only of glory ; for if it be a sin to covet glory, 
 I am the most offending soul alive. But here I am in a 
 heavy sea and thick fog ! — Oh God ! the wind subsided — 
 
 Austrian and domestic : in one of them he says, ' God bless you, my dearest 
 Lady Hamilton ' (it is wonderful how much ' God -blessing ' pervades the period), 
 ' lay me at the proper feet.'— Morrison MS. 436, November 2, 1799. 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 424, 484. In the first Hamilton tells Greville ' the Queen 
 is really so fond of Emma that the parting will be a serious business.' In the 
 second, ' Emma is in despair at the thought of parting from the Queen.' Emma 
 herself says, '. . . lam miserable to leave my dearest friend. She cannot be 
 consoled.' — Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 272. 
 
 '^ Cf. the Duchess's letter and the Queen's transcribed by Pettigrew, vol. i. 
 pp. 300, 377. He became excellent friends, however, with her afterwards, and 
 sent pleasant messages to her so late as 1804. 
 
 ' January 20. * Cf. Laughton's Despatches, p. 234. 
 
 X 
 
322 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 but I trust to Providence I shall have them. Eighteenth, 
 in the evening, I have got her — Le GMreux — thank God ! 
 twelve out of thirteen, only the Guillaume Telle remaining ; 
 I am after the others. I have not suffered the French 
 Admiral to contaminate the Foudroyant by setting his foot 
 in her.'i By the end of March the end of the Maltese 
 blockade was in sight, and Nelson was back again in 
 Palermo.^ His health was so ' precarious,' that he ' dropped 
 with a pain in his heart,' and was 'always in a fever.' 
 Troubridge was deputed to finish the Maltese operations. 
 When Nelson heard of the capture of the Guillaume Telle 
 through Long and Blackwood, his cup of thankfulness ran 
 over, and his despatch to Nepean is a Nunc dimittis? 
 
 'Pray let me know,' wrote Ball from Malta in March, 
 ' what Sir William Hamilton is determined on ; he is the 
 most amiable and accomplished man I know, and his heart 
 is certainly one of the best in the world. I wish he and 
 her Ladyship would pay me a visit ; they are an irreparable 
 loss to me. ... I long to know Lord Nelson's determina- 
 tion.' Ball had not long to wait. Nelson was anxious to 
 settle affairs finally for Great Britain at Malta,* — a settle- 
 ment that eventually transferred it to Britain and greatly 
 exasperated Maria Carolina. Sir William had now been 
 definitely superseded by his unwelcome successor, Paget, 
 although he was allowed to indulge the hope of a future 
 return.^ He resolved to sail on the Foudroyant, accom- 
 panied by his friends and the indispensable poetess, Miss 
 Knight. On April 23 they proceeded from Palermo to 
 Syracuse — the scene of Emma's triumph by the waters of 
 Arethusa. Her birthday was celebrated on board by toasts 
 and songs. On May 3 they again set sail and anchored 
 in St. Paul's Bay before the next evening. 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 456, Nelson to Lady Hamilton, February 18, 1800. This 
 was the passage a copy of which Sir William, in admiration, forwarded to Lord 
 Grenville. All this time, too, Tyson was continually communicating with 
 Emma. Lord Keith irritated Nelson afresh by claiming some of the credit. 
 
 2 On March 16. 
 
 * Laughton's Despatches, p. 237, and cf. his letter to Lady H. of March 4 ; 
 Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 338. 
 
 < La Valetta did not actually surrender to the blockade till the end of August. 
 
 " Cf. Morrison MS. 444. 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 323 
 
 Hitherto only rumour had been busy with Nelson's 
 philanderings. Lord St. Vincent persisted to the last in 
 saying that he and Emma were only a simpering edition of 
 Romeo and Juliet — 'just a silly pair of sentimental fools.' 
 And at this time Sir William seems to have thought the 
 same ; it was all Emma's ' Sensibility/ all Nelson's loyal 
 devotion. He was the idol of them both. But this voyage 
 southward under the large Sicilian stars marks the climax 
 of that fence of passion, the first approaches, the feints, 
 parries, and thrusts of which I have sought to depict. The 
 ' three joined in one,' as they called themselves, had long been 
 unsevered. From the date of the Malta visit, as events prove, 
 the liaison between the two of the trio ceases to be one of 
 hearts merely. The Mediterranean has been the cradle of 
 religion, of commerce, and of empire. On the Mediterranean 
 Nelson had won his spurs and ventured his greatest exploit ; 
 on it had happened the rise of Emma's passion and his own, 
 and it was now to be the theatre of their fall. 
 
 It has been well said that apologies only try to excuse 
 what they fail to explain, and any apology for the bond which 
 ever afterwards united them would be idle. Yet a few 
 reflections should be borne seriously in mind. The firm tie 
 that bound them, they themselves felt eternally binding ; 
 no passing whim had fastened it, nor any madness of a 
 moment. They had plighted a real troth which neither of 
 them ever either broke or repented. Both found and lost 
 themselves in each other. Their love was no sacrifice to 
 lower instincts ; it was a true link of hearts. Nelson would 
 have adored Emma had she not been so beautiful.^ She 
 worshipped him the more for never basking in court or 
 official sunshine. And their passion was lasting as well as 
 deep. Not even calumny has whispered that Emma was 
 ever unfaithful even to Nelson's memory ; and Nelson held 
 their union, though unconsecrated, as wholly sacred and 
 unalterable. If the light of their torch was not from heaven, 
 at least its intensity was undimmed. 
 
 Their worst wrong, however, was to the defied and wounded 
 wife. Cold letters had already reached Nelson, and rankling 
 words may already have been exchanged ; Lady Nelson's 
 
 ^ Cf. the passage quoted post, in chap. xii. 
 
324 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 jealousy was justified, although as yet Nelson never medi- 
 tated repudiation. Emma had no scruple in hardening 
 his heart and her own towards one whom she had offended 
 unseen and unprovoked ; she would suffer none to dispute 
 her dominion. Under her spell. Nelson perverted the whole 
 scale of duty and of circumstance. In his enchanted eyes 
 wedlock became sacrilege, and passion a sacrament; his 
 insulted Fanny seemed the insulter ; his Emma's dishonour, 
 honour. The woman who had failed to nerve or share his 
 genius, turned into an unworthy persecutress and ter- 
 magant ; she who had succeeded, into the pattern of 
 womankind. The mistress of his home was confronted by 
 the mistress of his heart, Vesta by Venus ; nor did he for 
 one moment doubt which was the interloper. Unregener- 
 ateness appeared grace to his warped vision. Nothing but 
 sincerity can extenuate, nothing but sheer human nature 
 can explain these deplorable transposals. The reality for 
 him of this marriage of the spirit without the letter, blinded 
 both of them to all other realities outside it. Emma's few 
 surviving letters to him are those of an idolising wife. One 
 unfamiliar sentence from one of his, written within a year of 
 this period, speaks volumes : ' I worship, nay, adore you, 
 and if you was single, and I found you under a hedge, I 
 would instantly marry you.' ^ 
 
 But the part of Sir William in this strange alliance 
 formed, perhaps, its strangest element. Throughout, even 
 after Greville and the caricatures in the shop windows 
 must have opened his eyes, he deliberately shut them. He 
 never ceased his attachment to Emma or abated his chival- 
 rous fealty to Nelson. Those feelings, incredible as it 
 may sound, were genuinely reciprocated by both of them. 
 He seems almost to have more than accepted that veil 
 of mystification with which the next year was to shroud 
 their intimacy. Indeed, it was Emma's care for Nelson's 
 career, and Nelson's for her good name, that constrained 
 the fiction. That a woman should join a daughter's devo- 
 tion to an old husband with a wife's devotion to the lover 
 of her choice, is a phenomenon in female psychology. 
 Swift towards Stella and Vanessa, Goethe towards Mina 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 539, Nelson to Lady H., March 6, 1800. 
 
//^/ 
 
 -^. 
 
 /^^^ 
 
 C'7n ??z<a> 
 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 325 
 
 and Bettina, are not the only men who have cherished a 
 dual constancy ; but, as a rule, the woman inconstant to one 
 will prove inconstant to many others. 
 
 Miss Knight noticed how low-spirited Emma seemed 
 on the return passage to Palermo.^ Indeed, the familiar 
 stanzas of her composing, ' Come, cheer up, fair Emma ' ^ — 
 a line often repeated in Nelson's later letters — were 
 prompted by this unaccountable melancholy.* Such dispirit- 
 ment could not betoken the mood of an adventuress in- 
 triguing to secure a successor to the fading Hamilton. 
 Yet such was Sir Gilbert Elliot's assertion two years later.* 
 It is curious that the imputers of craft always deny her a 
 spark of cleverness, and they must certainly have thought 
 Nelson much stupider than themselves. Worldlings do 
 not always know the world, still less the world of such a 
 complex heart as Emma's. Her feelings may perhaps be 
 
 ' Cf. Miss Ellis Cornelia Knight's Autobiography (1861). 
 
 ' They are not very good : — 
 
 ' Come, cheer up, fair Emma, forget all thy grief. 
 For thy shipmates are brave and a hero 's their chief. 
 Look round on these trophies, the pride of the Main, 
 They were snatched by their valour from Gallia and Spain. 
 
 Chorus : Hearts of Oak, etc. 
 
 Behold yonder fragment, 'tis sacred to fame, 
 'Mid the waves of old Nile it was saved from the flame : 
 The flame that destroyed all the glories of France 
 When Providence vanquished the friends of blind chance. 
 Chorus: Hearts of Oak, etc' 
 
 The last verse runs : — 
 
 ' Then cheer up, fair Emma, remember thou 'rt free. 
 And ploughing Britannia's old empire — the sea : 
 How many in Albion each sorrow would check. 
 Could they kiss but one plank of this conquering deck. 
 
 Chorus : Hearts of Oak, etc. ' 
 
 ' Nelson, writing to Lady Hamilton in the following year (only three days 
 before Horatia's birth), says : ' When I consider that this day nine months was 
 your birthday, and that although we had a gale of wind, yet I was happy and 
 sang " Come, cheer up, fair Emma," etc., even the thoughts compared with this 
 day make me melancholy.' — Morrison MS. 503, January 26, 1801. 
 
 * Cf. Minto Life and Letters, vol. iii. p. 242. ' She looks ultimately to the 
 chance of marriage,' etc. Lady Nelson at this time was exceedingly unlikely to 
 shuffle off' the coil. 
 
326 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 best imaged by her little poem sent to Nelson at the open- 
 ing of his last year on earth. 
 
 ' I think I have not lost my heart, 
 
 Since I with truth can swear. 
 At every moment of my life, 
 I feel my Nelson there. 
 
 If from thine Emma's breast her heart 
 
 Were stolen or thrown away, 
 Where, where should she my Nelson's love 
 
 Record, each happy day ? 
 
 If from thine Emma's breast her heart 
 
 Were stolen or flown away. 
 Where, where should she engrave, my Love, 
 
 Each tender word you say ? 
 
 Where, where should Emma treasure up 
 
 Her Nelson's smiles and sighs. 
 Where mark with joy each secret look 
 
 Of love from Nelson's eyes ? 
 
 Then do not rob me of my heart. 
 
 Unless you first forsake it ; 
 And then so wretched it would be. 
 
 Despair alone will take it.' ' 
 
 In these lines, surely, there is a ring of 'les larmes dans 
 la voix.' 
 
 In sixteen days the Maltese episode was over, but 
 Palermo was not reached for eleven days more. Nelson 
 had pleaded complete exhaustion as his reason for being 
 unable to continue at present in his subordinate command. 
 Lord Spencer sent him a dry and suspicious answer. 
 Nelson desired to recruit his health at home. He bemoaned 
 the supineness of those who might have prevented the fresh 
 invasion of Italy. Already he had bidden his friend Davison 
 to announce his impending return to Lady Nelson: ' I fancy,' 
 the mutual friend wrote to her, 'that your anxious mind 
 will be relieved by receiving all that you hold sacred and 
 valuable.' ^ She ' alternated between a menace and a sigh.' 
 But she was not to behold him so soon as had been 
 expected, or to test the truth of what had been darkly 
 
 ' Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 127. 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 490, Davison to Lady Nelson, May 9, 1800. 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 327 
 
 hinted. The Hamiltons were to be his companions, and 
 the Queen had for the last three months been preparing a 
 plan for their joint convenience. Now wholly bereft of her 
 power over and the affection of her husband,^ vainly exert- 
 ing herself to induce Lord Granville to retain Hamilton at 
 his post, dreading that England would withdraw her fleet, 
 suspicious, too, that Britain might rob the Sicilies of Malta, 
 she resolved, in her isolation, to visit her relatives at Vienna, 
 after a private and political visit to Leghorn. The three 
 princesses and Prince Leopold were to go with her, and 
 Prince Castelcicala, bound on a special mission to the Court 
 of St. James, was to head the train of a numerous suite. 
 The French were now once more beginning to defeat the 
 Austrians, and she longed to set off before it might be too 
 late. What so natural as that the Tria juncta in uno should 
 accompany her till the inevitable wrench of parting ? 
 
 One of her letters to Emma three months previously 
 reveals at once the state of her own perplexed and perplex- 
 ing mind, her reliance on Emma's counsel, and the cause of 
 Castelcicala's mission. So much depends on the point of 
 view. Throughout, hers had been utterly alien to the 
 average Englishwoman's : — 
 
 ' My dear Lady, — I have been compelled by a painful 
 affair to delay my reply, and I write this, my dear friend, in 
 great pain. . . . Do you remember that on Tuesday evening 
 I asked you if you had received any letter ; you told me 
 no : my eyes filling with tears, I was obliged to leave you 
 I wrote that I was dreadfully depressed. ... I send you 
 the substance of my letter from Circello.^ The official 
 one seems to contain no more, but as this fatal packet from 
 Paget* appears to hinge upon our not being left here with- 
 out a minister during your husband's absence, I think it 
 may yet be remedied. I am in despair. I am excessively 
 angry with Circello for not having more strongly opposed 
 it, and if you, my good, honest, true friends, quit us, let 
 
 ^ Ferdinand was now trimming once more under the rumours afloat of a 
 restoration of monarchy in France. Cf. Morrison MS. 444. 
 
 ^ Ambassador in London. 
 
 * Sir William's so-called temporary successor. He was a stop-gap for Elliot, 
 who in his turn was replaced by Amherst, and he by Bentinck. 
 
328 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 them leave Keith in the Mediterranean. We begin by 
 losing you, our good friends, then our hero Nelson, and 
 finally, the friendship and alliance of England ; for a young 
 man [Circello] liable to misbehave himself through the 
 temptations of wrong-headed men who will induce him to 
 abuse his power, will not be tolerated, and troubles will 
 arise from it. I grieve to cause you uneasiness ; my own is 
 concealed, but bitterly felt. I send you, my good friend, 
 the original from Circello. Do not let Campbell see it, or 
 know that you have seen it, and return it to-morrow morn- 
 ing. . . . Suggest to me what should be done to prevent 
 this misfortune . . . both for the State and for my feelings. 
 . . . / will do whatever you counsel me. . . . Do not afflict 
 yourself Tell the Chevalier I have never felt till now how 
 much I am attached to him, how much I owe him. My 
 eyes swim with tears, and I must finish by begging you to 
 suggest to me what to do, and believe that all my life happy 
 or wretched, wherever it may be, I shall be always your sin- 
 cere, attached, tender, grateful, devoted, sorrowful friend.' ^ 
 None the less, the anniversary of King George's birthday 
 was celebrated with undiminished fervour at Palermo. 
 Every member of the royal family addressed separate 
 letters of compliment to Lady Hamilton. Their Anglo- 
 mania still prevailed. 
 
 Among these valedictions is a letter of less formal in- 
 terest. Lady Betty Foster had commended a prot^g^e — 
 Miss Ashburner — to Emma's protection. She had married 
 a Neapolitan, and, as Eliza Perconte, was now governess to 
 one of the princesses. ' With me,' she says, ' the old Eng- 
 lish proverb, " out of sight, out of mind," will never find a 
 place.' ^ Emma had conciliated all but the Jacobins. Her 
 unceremonious kindness had endeared her to many loving 
 friends among the lowest as well as the highest. The sailors 
 and the common people would have died for her. Her 
 absence made a real void. Lord Bristol was now once more 
 at Naples — it is a pity that the farewell of one so unaccount- 
 able is missing. Prince Belmonte's, however, is not, though it 
 was addressed from Petersburg to Vienna. ' I am so indebted 
 
 ^ Transcribed by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 375. I have ventured to revise some 
 of the translation. ^ Morrison MS. 492. 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 329 
 
 to you,' he writes in English, ' and you deserve so much to 
 be loved, that my gratitude and sincere friendship will last 
 till my tomb. God bless you in your long travels.' ^ 
 
 Farewell was now said not only to Palermo, but to Italy. 
 Nevermore did Emma behold ' the land of the cypress and 
 myrtle,' the land of her hero's laurels, of her husband's 
 adoption, of her own zenith. It often hereafter haunted her 
 dreams. 
 
 She, with her husband, mother, and Miss Knight, accom- 
 panied the Queen and Nelson to Leghorn. They sailed on 
 June 10, and anchored five days later, though Nelson's 
 usual tempest prevented a landing for two days more. This 
 marks the last of the Foudroyant for the chief actors in the 
 memorable scenes of this and the previous year. It had 
 proved a ship of history and of romance. Nelson had 
 pressed the Government to put it at the Queen's disposal 
 as far as Trieste, but it was promptly requisitioned for 
 repairs : Mrs. Grundy, in the person of Queen Charlotte, had 
 intervened. Bitterly disappointed, its barge's crew at once 
 petitioned to be allowed to serve in any ship which 
 their great Admiral might still choose for his homeward 
 journey. The news that on July 1 1 Nelson had struck his 
 flag spread consternation at Palermo. 
 
 For three weeks more they all tarried at Leghorn. 
 Nelson and his party met with a royal welcome, and were 
 conducted in state to the Cathedral with the Queen. All 
 received splendid memorials from Maria Carolina. Emma's 
 was a diamond necklace with ciphers of the royal children's 
 names intertwined with locks of their hair. The Queen, in 
 presenting it, assured her that it was she who had been their 
 means of safety. Nor were they safe at present. The 
 French army was gradually advancing towards Lucca in 
 their immediate neighbourhood. Nelson sent a line of 
 assurance to Acton that till safety was secured and plans 
 were settled, he would not desert the Queen. Emma was 
 still paramount ; nor was it long before, and for the last 
 time, she displayed that ready presence of mind, and power 
 of popularity with crowds that had often astonished Maria 
 Carolina, and contributed so much to Nelson's admiration. 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 496. 
 
330 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 She had armed the Lazzaroni at Naples, she harangued and 
 pacified the insurgents at Leghorn.^ 
 
 On July 17 they started together for Vienna by way of 
 Florence, Ancona, and Trieste. 
 
 This journey, with its after stages of fresh pomp and 
 pageant at Prague, at Dresden, and at Hamburg, was the 
 most ill-advised step that Nelson and the Hamiltons could 
 have taken. Had they proceeded, according to their 
 original plan, by sea, they would never have so irritated 
 the motherland which, after long absence, they were all 
 revisiting. They were, indeed, quite ignorant of the preju- 
 dices which they would be called upon to combat. They 
 deemed themselves children of the world by virtue of their 
 association with great events, great persons, and a great 
 career ; but of our island-world they had grown curiously 
 forgetful. Well, indeed, would it have been for them if they 
 had remembered. They had lived in a hot-house ; they 
 were going into the fog.^ They had long been closely 
 isolated in an inner, as well as an outer, world of their own. 
 Every one, except the detestable Jacobins, had hymned their 
 praises. Nelson's supreme renown had coloured every word 
 and every action. For them the Neapolitan and Sicilian 
 court stood for every court elsewhere. As it had been with 
 the allies of Britain, so would it prove in Britain itself. 
 They hugged their illusions. They were aware, of course, 
 of whispers and comments and suspicions, but these they 
 derided as the makeshifts of envious busybodies.^ Even 
 now Sir William gave out that he would shortly return, a 
 more youthful Ambassador than ever, though he was even 
 
 ' The scene is given by Pettigrew as well as Harrison. 
 
 ' Fogs, both mental and physical, are the expressions of Lord St. Vincent in 
 his letter to Nelson of December 15, i8co, and of Beckford to Emma in one of 
 November 24. Cf. Pettigrew, vol. i. pp. 401, 403. Within a month of his 
 arrival Nelson wrote, ' This place of London but ill suits my disposition. ' 
 
 ^ Sir Gilbert Elliot, writing from Vienna in March 1803, and hoping that 
 Nelson, who was worn to a shadow, would take Malta before returning home, 
 says : ' He does not seem at all conscious of the sort of discredit he has fallen 
 into, or the cause of it, for he writes still not wisely about Lady Hamilton and 
 all that. But it is hard to condemn and use iU a hero, as he is in his own 
 element, for being foolish about a woman who has art enough to make fools of 
 many wiser than an Admiral. . . . Sir William sends home to Lord Grenville 
 the Emperor of Russia's letter . . . [about the Maltese decoration for the 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 331 
 
 more worn out than Nelson. He and Emma were under 
 the wing of the greatest hero on earth, who had only to 
 sound the trumpet of his fame for the ramparts of official 
 Jericho to fall. Emma herself was in her most aggressive 
 mood ; ' Nature ' certainly now outweighed ' Sensibility ' : 
 she would be an Ishmaelite in face of icy English officialism 
 discrediting each of her words and suspecting her every step. 
 She was at length conscious of what, in its very concealment, 
 was about to rivet her for ever to her lover. She would 
 brave it out with nerves of iron and front of brass, for that 
 which other women were incapable of enduring, her strength 
 and courage could achieve. At Vienna the Empress loaded 
 Maria Carolina's intimate with attentions ; with the Ester- 
 hazys she was the observed of all observers. The bitter 
 parting with her Queen but nerved her to greater and louder 
 demonstrations. When hushed diplomacy sneered and 
 sniggered in pointedly remote corners, she raised her fine 
 voice higher than ever to teach John Bull on the Continent 
 a lesson of robustness. At the mere hint that English 
 influence was hoping to dissuade the Saxon Elector from 
 receiving one who was the friend of a Queen and an 
 Empress, she protested, with a laugh, that she would knock 
 him down. In the Saxon capital she braced herself to 
 perform her Attitudes to perfection ; nobody should guess 
 her real condition. She was ill at ease, and to mask it she 
 was all retaliation and defiance. The finical got upon her 
 nerves, and she on theirs. 
 
 And, added to this, the tour itself combined the features 
 of a royal progress and of a travelling show. At Vienna 
 no attentions sufficed to prove the gratitude to Nelson, ay, 
 and to Emma, of the Austrian house. Lady Elliot herself, 
 an old ally, but the wife of an Ambassador who soon made up 
 his mind never to ' countenance ' her, stood her sponsor at 
 the drawing-room. The Bathyanis vied with the Esterhazys. 
 
 Maltese service]. All this is against them, but they do not seem conscious.' — 
 Minto Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 114. On p. 139 he inveighs against them for 
 trying to get the Fottdroyant put at the disposal of the Queen of Naples. ' In 
 his own element ' ! As if Sir Gilbert could have sat down to write in safety 
 unless Nelson had worsted Napoleon ! It never seems to have crossed this 
 prosaic busybody's mind that Emma could fall in love as well as Nelson ; or that 
 the Czar might possibly know his own business. 
 
332 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Emma was constantly with Maria Carolina at Schonbrunn 
 as the tearful hour of separation approached. The Queen's 
 parting letter,^ which begins 'My dear Lady and tender 
 friend,' contains one notable passage : ' May I soon have 
 the consolation of seeing you again at Naples. I repeat 
 what I have already said, that at all times and places, and 
 under all circumstances, Emma, dear Emma, shall be my 
 friend and sister, and this sentiment will remain unchanged. 
 Receive my thanks once more for all you have done, and 
 for the sincere friendship you have shown me. Let me 
 hear from you ; I will manage to let you hear from me.' 
 We shall see how Maria Carolina kept her word. It was 
 said that Emma refused from her the offer of a large annuity. 
 It has, of course, been denied that Emma was ever endued 
 with the grace of refusal. But, quite apart from the natural 
 pride of independence, which characterised her from her 
 girlhood to her grave, it is certain that neither Hamilton 
 nor Nelson would ever have permitted her to be the pen- 
 sioner of a foreign court. 
 
 Banquets and functions abounded, and they were not 
 restricted to the court. Banker Arnstein — ' the Goldsmid,' 
 as Lady Hamilton afterwards called him, ' of Germany ' — 
 showered his splendours upon them. There were endless 
 concerts, operas, entertainments, excursions, visits of cere- 
 mony and of pleasure, shooting parties, water parties, and, 
 it must be owned, parties of cards. One of their fellow- 
 guests at St. Veit, a castle of the Esterhazys', has recorded 
 his hostile impressions. He was the young Lord Fitzharris, 
 a patrician of the genus Greville, and he may have lost his 
 money in this encounter, and, possibly, his temper. 
 
 ' Sunday, grand fireworks. Monday (the Jour de fite), a 
 very good ball. And yesterday, the chasse. Nelson and 
 the Hamiltons were there. We never sat down to supper 
 or dinner less than sixty or seventy persons, in a fine hall 
 superbly illuminated ; in short, the whole in a most princely 
 style. Nelson's health was drunk with a flourish of trum- 
 pets and firing of cannon. Lady Hamilton is, without 
 exception, the most coarse, ill-mannered, disagreeable 
 woman we met with. The Princess with great kindness 
 
 ' Transcribed by Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 399. 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 333 
 
 had got a number of musicians, and the famous Haydn, 
 who is in their service, to play, knowing Lady H. was fond 
 of music. Instead of attending to them, she sat down to 
 the faro table, played Nelson's cards for him, and won 
 between ;^300 and ;£'400.^ . . .' ^ Haydn, it must be thought, 
 was hardly a suitable accompaniment to cards. 
 
 When, after Dresden with its fussy state and solemnity, 
 they embarked on the Elbe for Hamburg, a stock pas- 
 sage in the diaries of a charming woman relates how that 
 other Elliot, who was minister here (there was always 
 an Elliot), was pained to the quick of his refinement 
 by the noise of Emma and her party ; how undignified 
 Nelson's excitability appeared to him ; ^ how Sir William 
 ' bobbed ' on ' his backbone,' with his ribbon flying, round 
 the ballroom, to prove his septuagenarian nimbleness ; how 
 he and his friends withdrew shuddering at the shock of 
 these breaches of taste ; how relieved they were when bated 
 breath was restored, and they were quit of these oddities 
 and vulgarities ; how, when the Nelsonians at last got on 
 board, they looked like a troupe of strolling players ; how 
 Mrs. Cadogan immediately began to cook the Irish stew for 
 which her daughter clamoured, while Emma herself roundly 
 abused the French maid for neglecting her luggage. Most 
 of this is probably true,* but here again the point of view 
 
 ' Was it from Fitzharris ? 
 
 ^ Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury, vol. ii. pp. 222 et seq. This is a 
 hitherto uncited passage. 
 
 * It is here insinuated that he got drunk. His nephew, Mr. Matcham, who 
 remembered Nelson and Lady Hamilton together at Merton, lived to refute this 
 slander in a telling pamphlet. Nelson, he said, was most moderate in his pota- 
 tions, and always, when he met him as a lad, a quiet gentleman in a black suit. 
 In that black suit, too, Mr. John Horsely tells in his Recollections that his father 
 remembered him often going to the Moorfields Church to hear the singing 
 Charity girls, 
 
 * The Elliots good taste did not prevent them from discussing with Lady 
 Hamilton her chances of reception by Queen Charlotte. Mrs. St. George was 
 perhaps biassed by the Elliots (who, however, invited the whole party more 
 than once to dinner) in the long account given in her fom nal. She resented 
 Emma's 'friendship at first sight,' and her enthusiasm over her accompaniments 
 when she sang, though she praises her grace and her voice ; she even accused 
 her of ' avarice ' without any foundation, and she abuses the coarseness of her 
 maid. She is also inconsistent in her account of Hamilton ; and Mrs, Cadogan 
 was 'what one would expect.' Cf. p. 75 et seq. 
 
334 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 needs adjusting. Fastidiousness is as movable, and some- 
 times as unbearable, a term as vulgarity, and no doubt the 
 stiff Elliot would have been equally troubled at a violent 
 sneeze, at any undue emphasis whatever, or infringement of 
 etiquette. He had, it must be owned, good reason for being 
 shocked at Emma's want of manners. But over-nicety has 
 its own pitfalls also. There have been people who eat 
 dry toast with a knife and fork. There are others who shiver 
 at the stir of any unconventional footfall on the pile carpets 
 of ' culture.' At any rate, nobody but Elliot ever reproached 
 Sir William, a paragon of ' taste,' with violating the sem- 
 blances of decorum. However we may regret Emma's 
 unpolished ' coarseness,' at least this is true : blatant and 
 self-assertive or not, she had certainly carried her own life 
 and the lives of others in her hand. She had shown grit. 
 The daughter of the servants' hall had braved crises without 
 blenching. The son of the Foreign Office had never worked 
 but with words, nor ever sacrificed himself except to the 
 comme ilfaut. 
 
 But if Emma, at bay, thus misbehaved, whither were her 
 inmost thoughts wandering? 
 
 She was thinking of how she could carry matters through, 
 of what would become of her poor Sir William. She was 
 thinking of Greville's reception, of Romney and Hayley and 
 Flaxman, and her old friends. And of those new friends 
 which Nelson had promised and described to her ; of his 
 pious and revered father, whose heart must be broken if 
 ever he guessed the truth ; of his favourite brother Maurice, 
 whose poor, blind ' wife,' ^ beloved and befriended by Nelson 
 till she died, was no more his wedded partner than she was 
 Nelson's ; of his eldest brother — the pompous and bishopric- 
 hunting ' Reverend,' a schemer and a gourmand,^ who added 
 the sentimental selfishness of Harold Skimpole to the mock 
 humility of Mr. Pecksniff ; of that brother's cheery, bustling 
 little wife ; of their pet daughter Charlotte, whom the 
 father always styled his ' jewel ' ; of the son already destined 
 for the navy, and long afterwards designated by Nelson to 
 
 ' Mrs. Ford, called ' Mrs. Nelson.' 
 
 ^ In one of his after letters Nelson begs Emma to give him excellent fare — 
 ' these big-wigs love a good dinner. ' 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 335 
 
 marry Horatia ; of his two plain-speaking, plain-living 
 sisters — sickly Mrs. Matcham with her brood of eight, and 
 a husband always absent, ever changing plans and abodes ; 
 of Mrs. Bolton, more prosperous and more ambitious, with 
 the two rather quarrelsome daughters for whom she coveted 
 an entry into the world of ' deportment ' and fashion ; of 
 Davison, the hero's fickle factotum, whom Nelson had 
 already requested to find inexpensive lodgings in London.^ 
 Beckford, the magnificent, had put his house in Gros- 
 venor Square at the disposal of the Hamiltons. It was an 
 offer of self-interest, for he was already manoeuvring to 
 rehabilitate himself by bribing his embarrassed kinsman 
 into procuring him a peerage, and the astute Greville sus- 
 pected his generosity from the first.^ Indeed he wrote to 
 Sir Joseph Banks that he had warned his uncle of ' con- 
 sequences,' and that he ' hoped to put him out of the line 
 of ridicule,' even if he could not ' help him to the comfort 
 and credit to which his character and good qualities entitle 
 him.' 3 
 
 At Vienna Emma had found Nelson yet another factotum 
 in the person of the interpreter Oliver, who during the next 
 five years was so often to be the depositary of their secret 
 correspondence. 
 
 From Dresden the Nelsonians repaired to Altona, from 
 Altona to Hamburg. Their sojourn there was the most 
 interesting of all, though it only lasted ten days,* before the 
 three embarked in the St. George packet-boat for London. 
 There Emma, who had met the young poet Goethe, now met, 
 and was appreciated by, the aged poet Klopstock. There 
 Nelson met, and afterwards munificently befriended, the un- 
 fortunate General Dumouriez. There the Lutheran pastor 
 hastened many miles to implore the signature of the great 
 man for the flyleaf of his Bible. Hamburg was enrap- 
 tured over Emma's ' Attitudes ' and her personality, which 
 
 1 Eg. MS. 2240, f. 32. 2 Cf. Morrison MS. 497. 
 
 ' Cf. excerpt in Sotheby's catalogue for May 17, 1905, Greville to Banks, 
 September 24, 1800. Greville had been much concerned at the Tria juncta 
 in uno coming together from Vienna iiiS. Hamburg, ' with what they call the 
 small reserve of their establishment ' to London. Cf. ibid., Greville to Banks, 
 September i, 1800. ■* October 12-21. 
 
336 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 called forth interesting books by two well-known authors.^ 
 It was the more enraptured when the whole party witnessed 
 a performance at the ' German Theatre.' Both Emma and 
 Nelson exhibited their usual generosity towards the ' poor 
 devils' who applied to them. Another and a different 
 experience may be also mentioned as indicating how really 
 artless they were. A wine merchant of the city hastened 
 to beg the hero's acceptance of his offering — six bottles of 
 the rarest hock, dating from the vintage of 1625. Emma 
 was warmly grateful, and urged Nelson to receive the 
 present. Nelson took it with the thankful compliment 
 that he would drink a bottle of it after each future 
 victory, in 'honour of the donor.' ^ This 'respectable' 
 wine merchant cannot have been so simple a bene- 
 factor as he appeared. Hock one hundred and eighty 
 years old must have been quite undrinkable, and only fit 
 for a museum. 
 
 And Nelson was wondering whether and how his wife 
 would greet his arrival. When, on November 6, they 
 reached Yarmouth, after such a storm that only he could 
 force the pilot to land, that wife was absent from his 
 enthusiastic welcomers. Amid the music, the bunting, the 
 deputations that seized his one hand, the offended Fanny 
 was missing. The carriage was dragged by the cheerers to 
 the Wrestlers' Inn, before which the troops paraded. The 
 whole party marched in state churchward to a service of 
 thanksgiving ; the town was illuminated, his departure was 
 escorted by cavalry; but the wife, no longer of his bosom, 
 stayed in London with the dear old rector, who had hurried 
 up to greet him from Burnham-Thorpe. The two days before 
 the capital huzza'd him, his route was one triumphal proces- 
 sion. His own Ipswich rivalled Yarmouth, and Colchester, 
 Ipswich. But as the acclamations of the countryside rang 
 in their ears, a single thought must have possessed the 
 minds of Nelson and of Emma — the thought of Fanny. 
 Nelson entered London in full uniform, with the three 
 
 ' One by Meyer; another, Skizzen zu einem Gemdlde aus Hamburg, 1801-3, 
 by F. H. Nestler. This information, and more from the contemporary news- 
 papers, I owe to the kindness of Mr. Max Freund. 
 
 2 Harrison, vol. ii. p. 263. 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 337 
 
 stars and the two golden medals on his breast.^ It was 
 Sunday — a day which witnessed many of the crises in his 
 career. They all drove together to Nerot's Hotel in King 
 Street,^ where Greville had already called to welcome his 
 uncle, ailing and anxious about his pension. While Lady 
 Hamilton disguised her tremor,Nelson was left alone with his 
 proud father and the indignant wife, who had believed, and 
 brooded over, every whisper against him — ^even the mali- 
 cious slanders of the Jacobins. Joy could not be expected 
 of her, but a word of pride in the achievements that had 
 immortalised him, and won her the very title which she 
 immoderately prized, she might surely have shown. Not a 
 soft answer escaped her pinched lips. That night must have 
 been one of hot entreaty on the one side, and cold recrimi- 
 nation on the other. Her mind was thoroughly poisoned 
 against him. He at once presented himself at the 
 Admiralty, just as Hamilton, under Greville's tutelage, 
 at once repaired to my Lord Grenville in Cleveland Row. 
 Together the three attended the Lord Mayor's banquet the 
 following night, when the sword of honour was presented, 
 after the citizens of London, like those of Yarmouth, had 
 unhorsed the car of triumph and themselves drawn it along 
 the streets lined with applauding crowds, to the Mansion 
 House. There also Lady Nelson was absent. Whether 
 business or ovation detained him, the spectre abode in its 
 cupboard. For a time their open breach was patched up, 
 but nevertheless the distance between them widened. 
 Nelson was to aggravate it by harping on Emma's virtues 
 and graces till Fanny sickened at her very name. Nor 
 could Emma's early and friendly approaches, in which Sir 
 William joined, have been expected to bridge it over.* 
 
 * Medals were struck to commemorate his return. On one side is the 
 medallion ; on the reverse Britannia crowning his vessel with laurels. The 
 legend round runs : ' Hail, virtuous hero ! Thy victories we acknowledge, and 
 thy God.' And underneath, ' Return to England, November 5, 1800.' 
 
 ^ This is evident from Greville's letter to Hamilton of November 9, 1800, 
 Morrison MS. 497. It has usually been assumed that the Hamiltons drove 
 straight to the house in Grosvenor Square which Beckford had lent them. 
 
 ^ Cf. a remarkable letter from Lady Hamilton to Lady Nelson, sold at 
 Sotheby's in the May of this year (1905). It bears no date, but must refer to a 
 time shortly after their return. The following is the excerpt in the catalogue : 
 
 Y 
 
338 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Emma soon resumed her post as his amanuensis, his 
 companion, his almoner,^ his vade mecum. Nelson again 
 accompanied the Hamiltons on their speedy visit to Font- 
 hill, whose bizarre master desired to compound for a 
 peerage with Sir William. Prints exist of the postchaise 
 with postilions, flambeaux in hand, driving the Nelsonians 
 into the Gothic archway of that fantastic demesne. Nelson 
 may well have thought, 'Que diable allait-il faire dans 
 cette galere ! ' Beckford had addressed his invitation to 
 Emma in terms of extravagant flattery, to his ' Madonna 
 della Gloria.'^ He singled out, too, her performance as 
 Cleopatra for critical and special admiration. Yet so 
 insincere was he, that some forty years afterwards he not 
 only belittled her beauty to Cyrus Redding, but claimed 
 the entire brunt of service to Britain for Hamilton, while 
 his ignorance of facts is shown by the egregious errors in 
 his account* 
 
 Nelson and Emma were always in evidence together. 
 He ordered his wife to appear in public with himself and 
 the Hamiltons at the theatre. Emma's sudden faintness, 
 and Lady Nelson's withdrawal from their box with her, 
 gave the wife the first inkling of a secret worse even 
 than she had suspected. A violent scene is said to have 
 occurred between the two women, and Lady Hamilton used 
 to assert that Nelson wandered about all night in his 
 misery, and presented himself early next morning to 
 implore the comfort and the companionship of his friends. 
 
 — ' I would have done myself the honour of calling on you and Lord Nelson this 
 day, but I am not well nor in spirits. Sir William and myself feel the loss of 
 our good friend, the good Lord Nelson. Permit me in the morning to have 
 the pleasure of seeing you, and hoping, my dear Lady Nelson, the continuance 
 of your friendship, which will be in Sir William and myself for ever lasting to 
 you and your family.' And she closes by Sir William's proffer of any service 
 possible. 
 
 ^ Cf. the very curious application from the ' Kent Road ' to Emma of F. A. 
 Fitz-Murray, ' natural son of the late Prince of Wales.' — Morrison MS. 498, 
 November 17, 1800. He calls Nelson ' the Csesar of the age.' 
 
 2 ■ In our addresses to superior beings it is quite in vain to flatter or dissemble. 
 . . . You must shine steadily. . . . That light alone which beams from your 
 image, ever before my fancy, like a vision of the Madonna della Gloria, keeps 
 my eyes sufficiently open to subscribe myself with tolerable distinctness.' — 
 Beckford to Emma. Cf. Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 405 
 
 ' Cf. Cyrus Redding's Fifty Years of My Life, vol. iii. p. 103. 
 
HOMEWARD BOUND 339 
 
 Emma and Nelson continued all injured innocence. The 
 circumstances of Horatia's birth in the January following 
 were to be carefully veiled even from Horatia herself; nor 
 were they ever proved till some fifty years afterwards, and 
 even then generally disbelieved. Henceforward Nelson 
 and his wife were strangers ; further efforts at reconciliation 
 failed.'- By the March of 1801 he had provided for and 
 repudiated her. ' I have done,' he was to write, ' all in my 
 power for you, and if I died, you will find I have done the 
 same. Therefore, my only wish is to be left to myself, and 
 wishing you every happiness, believe that I am your affec- 
 tionate Nelson and Bronte.' ^ On this ' letter of dismissal ' 
 she endorsed her ' astonishment' That astonishment must 
 surely have been feigned. 
 
 Without question, sympathy is her due. Without ques- 
 tion she had been grievously wronged. But her bearing, 
 both before she had reason to be convinced of the fact and 
 afterwards, was such as to decrease her deserts. She seems 
 to have been more aggrieved than heart-stricken. From 
 this time forth she withdrew completely from every member 
 of his family except the good old father. At Bath, or in 
 London, she sulked and hugged her grievance, her virtue, 
 her money, and her rank. She never ceased to spread 
 rumours about the woman who had injured her, and the 
 husband of whom she had been despoiled. Nelson's 
 brothers and sisters, who accepted Emma, always entitled 
 her ' Tom Tit,' nor would they concede a grain of true love 
 to her disposition. She was jealous in spirit as in intellect. 
 She had never sacrificed much for Nelson's sake. She 
 wanted all that she could exact, and incensed him by 
 desiring even now to rent Shelburne House.* She caused 
 Nelson to feel 'an outcast on shore.'* While she could 
 
 1 Through his brother Maurice. ^ Add. MS. 28,333, f. 3. 
 
 ' Cf. a very interesting letter sold in the Sholto Hare collection from Nelson 
 to Lady H., of January 24, 1801. See Sotheby's catalogue of August 1904. It 
 has also been reprinted in an interesting article which appeared in the JCing 
 (the author of which kindly forwarded it to me) of October 22, 1904. ' If she 
 was to take Shelburne House,' he writes, ' I am not, thank God, forced to live 
 in it.' 
 
 * Add. MS. 34.274, f. G. In the following August he wrote : ' Whatever 
 Sir Thomas Troubridge may say, I have no real friends out of your house.' — Cf. 
 extract in Sotheby's catalogue of August 1904. 
 
340 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 have avenged her cause by suing for a divorce, she pre- 
 ferred to avenge herself by their punishment in being 
 barred from wedlock. After Nelson's death she wrangled, 
 and even litigated, with his successor.^ She disseminated 
 rumours about his will,^ which she had afterwards to con- 
 tradict.* She fades, it is true, but only into the background. 
 She remains wronged and niggardly to the close, and she 
 received her pound of flesh. 
 
 This was Emma's doing, and Nelson's. They were both 
 pitiless, while the other was implacable. Emma could be 
 far tenderer than gentle. She was never a gentlewoman, 
 nor was over-delicacy her foible. Her ' Sensibility ' did not 
 extend to her discarded rival, whose very wardrobe she 
 could handle, at Nelson's bidding, and return. She rode 
 rough-shod over Lady Nelson's discomfiture. ' Tom Tit,' 
 she told Mrs. William Nelson in the next February, ' does 
 not come to town. She offered to go down, but was refused. 
 She only wanted to go to do mischief to all the great 
 Jove's relations. 'Tis now shown, all her ill treatment and 
 h&d heart. Jove has found it out.'* 
 
 It is a sorry, but hardly a sordid spectacle. Rather it 
 is, in a sense, volcanic.^ Here is no barter, no balance of 
 interests or convenience. It is a passionate convulsion, 
 which uprooted the wife. I can but vary the apophthegm 
 already quoted : ' Apologies only try to explain what they 
 cannot undo.' 
 
 1 Add. MS. 34.992. ff. 140, 153. 
 
 2 Cf. the same MS. collection. ^ Cf. Rose's Diaries. 
 
 * Add. MS. 34,989, ff- 38-40. one of the new letters transcribed in the 
 Appendix, Part li- B. 
 
 ' On January 25 following Nelson wrote to her : ' Where friendship is of so 
 strong a cast as ours, it is no easy matter to shake it. Mine is as fixed as 
 Mount Etna, and as warm in the inside as that mountain.' — Pettigrew, vol. i. 
 p. 416. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 FROM PICCADILLY TO ' PARADISE ' MERTON 
 
 1801 
 
 It was not long before the Hamiltons were installed in a 
 new abode, No. 23 Piccadilly, one of the smaller houses 
 fronting the Green Park. Sir William had been querulous 
 over the loss of so many treasures in the Colossus — 
 among them the second version of Romney's ' Bacchante,' 
 which has never to this day reappeared. Most of their 
 furniture had been rifled by French Jacobins. Emma 
 promptly sold enough of her jewels to buy furniture for 
 the new mansion, and these purchases were afterwards 
 legally assigned to her by her husband.^ 
 
 Among the first visitors to their new home were Hayley 
 and Flaxman, whom Emma had eagerly invited. A letter 
 from the latter to the former commemorates an interesting 
 little scene. As they entered. Nelson was just leaving the 
 room. ' Pray stop a little, my Lord,' exclaimed Sir William ; 
 ' I desire you to shake hands with Mr. Flaxman, for he is a 
 man as extraordinary, in his way, as you are in yours. 
 Believe me, he is the sculptor who ought to make your 
 monument.' 'Is he?' replied Nelson, seizing his hand 
 with alacrity; 'then I heartily wish he may.'^ And 
 eventually he did. 
 
 This year was to link her and Nelson for ever. It was 
 
 ' The deed was in trust to Davison on February 4, 1801. Morrison MS. 
 506. The original assignment was sold at Sotheby's in July 1905. 
 
 2 Cf. the two letters from Lady Hamilton to Flaxman (promising to call on his 
 wife), and from Flaxman to Hayley (recalling the incident), of 1800 and 1805 
 respectively, sold in May 1905 at Sotheby's, and excerpted from the catalogue 
 in the Appendix, Part 11. C. (11) and (12). Flaxman also executed a bust which 
 Nelson's family declared to be the sole speaking likeness of the hero. 
 
 311 
 
342 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the year of Horatia's birth, of the Copenhagen victory, of 
 the preliminaries to the acquirement of Merton. 
 
 ' Sooner shall Britain's sons resign 
 
 The empire of the sea ; 
 Than Henry shall renounce his faith 
 And plighted vows to thee J 
 
 And waves on waves shall cease to roll, 
 
 And tides forget to flow, 
 Ere thy true Henry's constant love 
 
 Or ebb or change shall know.' ' — 
 
 ' I want but one true heart ; there can be but one love, 
 although many real well-wishers,' is his prose version in a 
 hitherto unpublished letter.^ 
 
 These were the refrains of all this year, and, indeed, of the 
 little span allotted to Nelson before he was no more seen. 
 
 Emma had an ordeal to pass through with a light step 
 and a bright face. She had forfeited the comfort of that 
 sense of innocence which she had welcomed ten years 
 before. She awaited Nelson's child, and none but her 
 mother and Nelson were to know it. She was to seem as 
 if nothing chequered her dance of gaiety. Old friends 
 flocked around her, Greville was a constant caller, curious 
 about her, vigilant over his uncle. Her old supporter, Louis 
 Dutens, was also in attendance. She must have visited the 
 stricken Romney, who pined for the sight of her ; ^ Hayley 
 and Flaxman we have seen in her company. There was 
 Mrs. Denis, too, her singing friend at Naples, and the 
 hardly used Mrs. Billington. And — for she was always 
 loyal to them — she delighted in beholding or hearing from 
 her humble kindred again : the Connors, the Reynoldses,* 
 
 ' Nelson's verses enclosed in his letter to Emma of February ii, 1801 ; 
 Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 30. " Add. MS. 34,274 G. 
 
 ^ Romney sent, by her request, an old portrait of her for her mother. On 
 December 13, 1800, when in declining health, he wrote to Hayley: 'The 
 pleasure I should receive from a sight of the amiable Lady Hamilton would 
 be as salutary as great, yet I fear, except I should enjoy more strength and 
 better spirits, I shall never be able to see London s^ain.' — Hayley's Life, 
 pp. 208, 297. Romney was now at Hampstead. It was probably about this 
 time that he drew and painted Nelson. 
 
 * At Sotheby's last year was sold a letter addressed by her to ' Mr. Reynolds,' 
 apparently in this very January. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 343 
 
 the Moores of Liverpool ; ^ and that daughter, long ago 
 wrenched from her by Greville, Emma 'Carew.' And 
 there were Bohemian refugees from Naples, the Banti 
 among their number, who in after days were less than 
 grateful to their impetuous patroness. New friends also 
 pressed for her acquaintance. There was Nelson's ' smart ' 
 relative Mrs, Walpole, a fribble of fashion in the Prince 
 of Wales's set, Mrs. Udney and a Mrs. Nisbet, with their 
 frivolous on-hangers. But, more acceptable than these, 
 were Nelson's country sisters and sister-in-law, who loved 
 her at first sight and never relinquished their friendship. 
 With her soul of attitudes, she must have felt herself in a 
 double mood — heroic under strain, and laughtersome at 
 care. The artistic and musical world raved of her afresh ; 
 they might well now have celebrated her both as ' La 
 Penserosa ' and ' L'Allegra.' 
 
 It was about this time that Walter Savage Landor sang 
 of her — 
 
 ' Gone are the Sirens from their sunny shore. 
 The Muses afterwards were heard no more, 
 But of the Graces there remains but one — 
 Gods name her Emma, mortals, Hamilton.' 
 
 And perhaps too he remembered her when he wrote of Dido — 
 
 ' Ill-starred Elisa, hence arose 
 Thy faithless joys, thy steadfast woes.' 
 
 Of old she had been praised for her tarantella.^ Nothing 
 more beautiful could be imagined, was Lady Malmesbury's 
 verdict more than five years earlier. How was Emma now 
 to trip it through heavy trial, and hide an aching heart with 
 smiles and songs ? Misguided love lent her strength, and 
 its misguidance found out the way. She was ready to 
 sacrifice everything, and to forsake all for one whose 
 absence must mean her own and her country's glory. Sir 
 William, out of the saddle, was practically in hospital ; 
 Nelson, practically in hospital, longed for the saddle once 
 more. 
 
 The Northern Coalition threatened a now isolated 
 
 ' Cf. Mrs. Cadogan's letter, Morrison MS. 563. 
 ^ Cf. Minto Life and Letters, vol. i. p. loi. 
 
344 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Britain with a stroke more formidable than the Southern 
 had done formerly. Napoleon was exultant. Sir William, 
 who really worshipped Nelson, and for whom Emma cared 
 to the last,^ found himself none the less rather thankful 
 that Nelson was off in search of fresh triumphs, and, 
 with him, the disturbing clamour of hero-worship. He 
 longed for his little fishing expeditions and picture hunts ; 
 he was anxious about his pension,^ his late wife's property 
 as well as the tatters of his own. So, committing with a 
 sigh the racket of life to his demonstrative Emma, he 
 resigned himself to the worldly wisdom of his calculating 
 and still bachelor nephew, Greville, whose ruling motive 
 had always been interest. Zeal was not in Greville's 
 nature, but something like it coloured his coldness when- 
 ever chattels were concerned. He was studiously respect- 
 ful to Nelson. He was amiably attentive to his 'aunt.' 
 All the same, he was already tincturing Hamilton's mind 
 with an alien cynicism ; he and Sir William were gradually 
 forming a little northern coalition of their own. While he 
 exerted himself in assiduously forwarding Sir William's 
 claim on the generosity of the Government, he took good 
 care to discourage any expenditure that might anticipate 
 a chance so doubtful. 
 
 Nelson was in a fever of impatience and suspense, for 
 Emma, for his country — his two obsessions — for all but 
 himself. He was ever a creaking door, but his health, 
 though in his eagerness for action he protested it re- 
 stored, was now beyond measure miserable. His eye 
 grew inflamed, his heart constantly palpitated, his cough 
 seemed the premonitor of consumption. And vexations, 
 public as well as private, troubled him. The authorities, 
 whether in the guise of Cato, or of Paul Pry, or of Tar- 
 tuffe, hampered his every step, while the curs of office 
 snapped about his heels. Added to this, he had been 
 forced into a lawsuit — an ' amicable squabble ' he terms it 
 — with his admired and admiring Lord St. Vincent, who 
 laid claim to the prize-money of victories won during his 
 
 ' Cf. Nelson's letter after his death in the Appendix, Part ii. D. (4) (a). 
 " He wanted a real, not a nominal, ;^20oo a year from Lord Grenville, and 
 ;£'8ooo compensation. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 345 
 
 absence. St. Vincent had retired into civil service, and 
 was now the mainspring of the Admiralty, in which the 
 new Sir Thomas Troubridge, who owed his rise entirely 
 to Nelson,^ had also found the snuggest of berths. Both 
 the men who had taught Nelson, and the men that he 
 had taught, were setting up as his critics and often his 
 spies. His coming expedition was to be a thirteenth 
 labour of Hercules. Yet the tribe of cavillers could only 
 insinuate (for aloud they dared not speak) of his dalliance 
 with Omphale. At least they might have remembered 
 that Nelson had saved them and his country, and that if 
 his impulsiveness gave himself away to their self-satisfied 
 ingratitude, he was at this moment called to give himself 
 up on the altar of duty. On Hardy, and Louis, and the 
 two Parkers, and Berry and Carrol, he could still count ; 
 like all chivalrous leaders, he had his round table, and this 
 was his pride and consolation. But it was also his solace 
 to remain magnanimous, and even now he sent the most 
 generous congratulations on his adversary's birthday,^ 
 which were warmly and honourably reciprocated. He had 
 hoped for supreme command, but Sir Hyde Parker was 
 preferred : Nelson was only Vice- Admiral of the Blue. 
 Scarcely had he been in London a fortnight when, with 
 his brother William, he repaired to his flagship at Ports- 
 mouth, to superintend the equipment of the fleet. He had 
 already taken his seat in the House of Lords,® though he 
 had still to complain that his honours had not yet been 
 gazetted.* He had accompanied the Hamiltons on their 
 Wiltshire excursion. He had nominated Hardy his cap- 
 
 ^ '. . . He ought to have recollected,' wrote Nelson on the Amazon next 
 October, ' that I got him the medal of the Nile. Who upheld him when he 
 would have sunk under grief and mortification ? Who placed him in such a 
 situation that he got by my public letterl, Titles, the Colonelcy of Marines, 
 Diamond Boxes, looo ounces in money for no expenses that I know of? Who 
 got him ;^500 a year from the King of Naples ? And however much he may 
 abuse him, his pension will be regularly paid. Who brought his character into 
 notice? . . . Nelson, that Nelson that he now lords it over. So much for 
 gratitude!' Cf. Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 217. 
 
 ^ Laughton's Despatches, p. 244. ' November 20, 1800. 
 
 * It was in playful allusion to this that on February 6 he wrote to Lady 
 Hamilton, ' Your letters are to me gazettes, for as yet I have not fixed upon any.' 
 — Morrison MS. 509. 
 
346 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 tain. On January 13 he quitted Emma, it might be for the 
 last time, and with Emma he left both his new hopes and 
 old ties. His wife, who had beaten her retreat to Brighton, 
 he had now irrevocably renounced ; his mind was ' as fixed 
 as fate,'^ and of none does the adage ' Vestigia nulla 
 retrorsum ' hold good more than of Nelson ; it was not long 
 before he wrote significantly, alluding to her West Indian 
 extraction, 'Buonaparte's wife is of Martinique.'^ Lady 
 Nelson had made no advance, not the slightest attempt to 
 provide him for the voyage. ' Anxiety for friends left,' he 
 informed his ' wife before heaven ' the day after he set out, 
 ' and various workings of my imagination, gave me one of 
 those severe pains of the heart that all the windows were 
 obliged to be put down, the carriage stopped, and the 
 perspiration was so strong that I never was wetter, and 
 yet dead with cold.'* And some days afterwards: 'Keep 
 up your spirits, all will end well. The dearest of friends 
 must part, and we only part, I trust, to meet again.' * 
 
 By mid- January he had hoisted his flag on the San Josef. 
 In March he was commanding the St. George^ the vessel 
 which, he wrote with exaltation, ' will stamp an additional 
 ray of glory on England's fame, if Nelson survives ; and 
 that Almighty Providence, who has hitherto protected me 
 in all dangers, and covered my head in the day of battle, 
 will still, if it be His pleasure, support and assist me.' ^ 
 
 Emma had earned her lover's fresh admiration by steel- 
 ing herself to undergo a test that would have prostrated 
 even those who would most have recoiled from it. She 
 and Nelson had resolved to hide from Sir William what 
 was shortly to happen. But Emma would take no refuge 
 in absence from home ; she would stand firm and face guilt 
 and danger under her own roof-tree. Though this trial 
 might cost her life, she would be up and doing directly it 
 was over. If for a few days she kept to her room with 
 one of those attacks which had been habitual at Naples, 
 
 ' Cf. his letter to Davison, Eg. MS. 2240, f. 73.— 'I expect to be left to 
 myself. ' i 
 
 " Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 43. 
 
 3 Pettigrevir, vol. i. p, 409. * Morrison MS. 503. 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 32. To Lady Hamilton. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 347 
 
 who but her mother and herself need be the worse or 
 the wiser ? 
 
 The sudden blow of their parting under such circum- 
 stances had been exceptionally severe. It recalls the 
 famous line of F6nelon : 
 
 ' Calypso ne pouvait pas se consoler du depart d'UIysse.' 
 In their mutual anxiety they framed a plan of corre- 
 spondence, in which Emma and Nelson were to masquerade 
 as the befrienders of a Mr. Thomson, one of his officers, 
 distracted with anxiety about the impending confinement 
 of his wife, who was bidden to entrust herself and the child to 
 the loving guardianship and ' kind heart ' of Lady Hamilton. 
 These secret letters were all addressed to ' Mrs. Thomson,' 
 while Nelson's ordinary letters were addressed as usual to 
 Lady Hamilton. Without some such dissimulation they 
 could have very rarely corresponded, for their communica- 
 tions were constantly opened ; and, even so, Hamilton's 
 curiosity must have been often piqued by his wife's receipt of 
 so many communications in Nelson's hand to this unknown 
 friend. But they did manage to exchange fragments even 
 more intimate than the interpolations in the body of these 
 extraordinary ' Thomson ' letters. Not all these, nor all of 
 such as he possessed, were given by Pettigrew in his con- 
 clusive proof of Horatia's real origin.^ The Morrison 
 Collection presents many of Pettigrew's documents in their 
 entirety, and adds others confirming them ; so also do the 
 less ample Nelson Letters, and others from private sources, 
 which may serve for a supplement. 
 
 Emma's agitated feelings must be guessed from Nelson's 
 answers, for, as he assured her afterwards, he deliberately 
 burned all her own ' kind, dear letters,' read and fingered 
 over and over again ; any day his life might be laid down, 
 and he feared lest they might pass into hostile hands. 
 From one of hers, however, written at Merton a year later 
 in commemoration of the victory he was now about to win, 
 something of their tenor may be gathered : — 
 
 'Our dear glorious friend, immortal and great Nelson, 
 
 ' Vol. ii. pp. 638-656. The subject has never been better handled than here, 
 and all subsequent discoveries bear out Pettigrew's evidence and arguments. 
 
348 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 what shall I say to you on this day ? My heart and feeling 
 are so overpowered that I cannot give vent to my full soul 
 to tell you, as an Englishwoman gratefull to her country's 
 saviour, what I feel towards you. And as a much loved 
 friend that has the happiness of being beloved, esteemed, 
 and admired by the good and virtuos Nelson, what must 
 be my pride, my glory, to say this day have I the happiness 
 of being with him, one of his select, and how gratefull to 
 God Almighty do I feel in having preserved you through 
 such glorious dangers that never man before got through 
 them with such Honner and Success. Nelson, I want 
 Eloquence to tell you what I feil, to avow the sentiments of 
 respect and adoration with which you have inspired me. 
 Admiration and delight you must ever raise in all who 
 behold you, looking on you only as the guardian of England. 
 But how far short are those sensations to what I as a much 
 loved friend feil ! And I confess to you the predominant 
 sentiments of my heart will ever be, till it ceases to beat, 
 the most unfeigned anxiety for your happiness, and the 
 sincerest and most disinterested determination to promote 
 your felicity even at the hazard of my life. Excuse this 
 scrawl, my dearest friend, but next to talking with you is 
 writing to you. I wish this day I . . . could be near for 
 your sake. . . . God bless you, my ever dear Nelson. 
 Long may you live to be the admiration of Europe, the 
 delight of your country, and the idol of your constant, 
 attached Emma.'^ 
 
 She is ' still the same Emma.' A rhapsody of ' None but 
 the brave deserve the fair' rings in every line. It is 
 melodrama, but genuine melodrama ; and melodrama of the 
 heart. Nelson loved. It was what all along he had missed 
 in his wife, who had lived aloof from his career ; whereas 
 Emma and he had lived through its thrilling scenes together. 
 It was what he himself felt, and that to which Emma 
 answered with every pulse. At no time was she in the least 
 awe of her hero, whose strong will and gentle heart marked 
 him off from those she had best known. With Nelson she 
 was always perfectly natural, using none but her own voice 
 
 ' Eg. MS. 1623, f. 32. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 349 
 
 and gestures. Had she been really the conventional ' serpent 
 of old Nile' (and it is odd what an historical affinity the 'Nile' 
 has had for ' serpents '), that part would thoroughly have 
 clashed with her unchanging outspokenness of tone. Nelson 
 was always emphatic and picturesque ; he possessed to an 
 eminent degree, both in warfare and otherwise, the intuition 
 of temperament for temperament. Admitting idealisation, 
 I cannot think that he was absolutely mistaken in Emma's. 
 ' I shall write to Troubridge this day ' is Nelson's com- 
 munication to Lady Hamilton, in the earliest letter extant 
 of the ' Thomson ' series, penned on the passage to Torbay 
 only four days before the child was born, 'to send me 
 your letter, which I look for as constantly and with more 
 anxiety than my dinner. Let her [Lady Nelson] go to Briton 
 [sic], or where she pleases, I care not ; she is a great fool, and, 
 thank God ! you are not the least bit like her. I delivered 
 poor Mrs. Thomson's note ; her friend is truly thankful for 
 her kindness and your goodness. Who does not admire your 
 benevolent heart ? Poor man, he is very anxious, and begs 
 you will, if she is not able, write a line just to comfort him. 
 He appears to feel very much her situation. He is so agi- 
 tated, and will be so for 2 or 3 days, that he says he cannot 
 write, and that I must send his kind love and affectionate 
 regards. ... I hate Plymouth.'^ Yet Plymouth had just 
 conferred on him the freedom of the city. Nelson's whole soul 
 was with Emma ; in the suspense of fatherhood he shrank 
 into himself and recoiled from publicity. He had no com- 
 punctions about Lady Nelson. On the very evening of the 
 Plymouth honours he had despatched a remarkable epistle, 
 published by its owner last year.^ Nelson was never rich, and 
 his allowance of ;^ 2000 a year to his wife had been handsome 
 in the extreme.* Nelson had already heard with incredulity 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 502, January 25, 1801. 
 
 2 In The King, October 22, 1904. The author of the article kindly oflfered 
 to consent to my using this letter. The letter is dated January 24, 1801. It 
 has been excerpted in Sotheby's Catalogue of the sale. It also tallies with 
 another letter to Davison of even date. 
 
 ' His statement of his then income to Davison still exists. Add. MS. 28,333, 
 f. 5. Lady Nelson had brought him ;^4000. The allowance of ;^200O per 
 annum was to be paid in advance quarterly by Messrs. Marsh and Creed, 
 ' subject to the income tax which, as I pay the tax with my own, will reduce my 
 net yearly income to £7,(100.' 
 
350 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ' nonsensical reports ' that Lady Nelson was instructing the 
 agent to buy a ' fine house for him.' ^ From his wife, he 
 now acquaints Emma, he had received but half one side of 
 a slip of paper to tell him of her cold and her withdrawal 
 from London. He alludes to a rumour that she was about 
 to take Shelburne House. He treats it with scornful 
 ridicule. He had just met Troubridge's sister who lived at 
 Exeter, 'pitted with small-pox and deafer far than Sir 
 Thomas.' Emma need never be jealous. ' Pray tell Mrs. 
 Thomson her kind friend is very uneasy about her, and 
 prays most fervently for her safety — and he says he can only 
 depend on your goodness. . . . May the Heavens bless and 
 preserve my dearest friend and give her every comfort this 
 world can afford, is the sincerest prayer of your faithful and 
 affectionate Nelson and Bronte.' 
 
 Nelson is all prayer and piety for Emma. It is one of the 
 most singular features of his erratic greatness that he lays 
 her, the coming child, and himself as humble and acceptable 
 offerings before God's throne. His sincerity resembles 
 in another plane that of Carlyle,who, in some of his epistles 
 to his mother, translated his own earnest free-thought into 
 terms of the Scotch Covenanter. But at the same time the 
 reader is often tempted to echo what the same Carlyle 
 objected to in French eighteenth-century sentimentalism : 
 ' So much talk about Virtue. In the devil and his grand- 
 mother's name, be Virtuous then ! ' 
 
 Every night ^ Nelson withdrew after the day's fatigues, 
 and amid incessant occupations, to hint (when he feared to 
 pour forth) his torture of anxiety and ' unbounded ' fulness 
 of passionate affection. He bade her be of good cheer. He 
 assured ' Mr. Thomson ' of her ' innate worth and affectionate 
 disposition.' ^ But during these weary days of waiting, a 
 full month Before Oliver had been chosen to convey his 
 famous and self-convicting letter,* he must have disclosed 
 
 1 Cf. Nelson's letter to Davison of January 24 (the same day as the letter to 
 Emma), Eg. MS. 2240, f. 39. 
 
 ^ On January 26, 27, 28, and 29. Cf. Pettigrew, vol. li. p. 646. 
 
 3 Cf. Morrison MS. 302, 303. 
 
 * March i, 1801, Morrison MS. 532 ; Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 652. Cf. post, 
 p. 368. The one beginning ' Now my own dear wife, for such you are in my 
 eyes and the face of heaven.' 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 351 
 
 his inmost soul to its idol through him, or perhaps through 
 Davison, who at this very time had travelled over two 
 hundred miles to pay him a visit.^ Another letter of far 
 less reserve, and one never, so far as I know, cited, exists in 
 relation to the birth of the second child — the little Emma 
 who died so soon — in the earlier months of 1804. I* 's so 
 remarkable, and probably so identical with others which he 
 must have written on this earlier occasion, that I subjoin 
 a portion of it here, venturing to fill in some of the 
 excisions : — 
 
 ' My dearest Beloved, — ... To say that I think of you 
 by day, night, and all day, and all night, but too faintly ex- 
 presses my feelings of love and affection towards you. [Mine 
 is indeed an] unbounded affection. Our dear, excellent, good 
 [Mrs. Cadogan] is the only one who knows anything of the 
 matter ; and she has promised me when you [are well] again 
 to take every possible care of you, as a proof of her never- 
 failing regard to your own dear Nelson. Believe me that I 
 am incapable of wronging you in thought, word, or deed. 
 No ; not all the wealth of Peru could buy me for one 
 moment ; it is all yours and reserved wholly for you. And 
 , . . certainly . . . from the first moment of our happy, dear, 
 enchanting, blessed meeting . . . The call of our country 
 is a duty which you would deservedly, in the cool moments of 
 reflection, reprobate, was I to abandon : and I should feel so 
 disgraced by seeing you ashamed of me ! No longer saying, 
 " This is the man who has saved his country ! This is he, 
 who is the first to go forth to fight our battles, and the last 
 to return ! " . . . " Ah ! " they will think, " What a man ! 
 What sacrifices has he not made to secure our homes and 
 property; even the society and happy union with the 
 finest and most accomplished woman in the world." As 
 you love, how must you feel! My heart is with you, 
 cherish it. I shall, my best beloved, return — if it pleases 
 God — a victor ; and it shall be my study to transmit an 
 unsullied name. There is no desire of wealth, no ambition 
 that could keep me from all my soul holds dear. No ; it is 
 
 ' Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 26. The Morrison MS. show that Davison 
 did actually transmit letters. 
 
352 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to save my country, my wife in the eye of God. . . . Only 
 think of our happy meeting. Ever, for ever I am your's, 
 only your's, even beyond this world. . . . For ever, for ever, 
 your own Nelson.' ^ 
 
 Emma certainly inspired the Nelson who delivered Eng- 
 land; and for all time this surely ought to outweigh the carping 
 diatribes of half-moralists who narrow the whole of virtue to 
 a part. It cannot be too much emphasised that Nelson loved 
 her and not merely her enhancements. 'Thank God,' he 
 wrote at the beginning of February, 'you want not the 
 society of princes or dukes. If you happened to fall down 
 and break your nose or knock out your eyes, you might go 
 to the devil for what they care, but it is your good heart that 
 attaches to you, your faithful and affectionate Nelson.' ^ 
 
 On January 29 — a day of snow — Horatia was born.* 
 Within the week Emma, unattended, had taken the baby 
 by night in a hackney coach to the nurse, Mrs. Gibson,* 
 of Little Titchfield Street. Within a fortnight, ' thinner 
 . . . but handsomer than ever,' * she could play hostess at her 
 husband's table; in three weeks she was importuned by, 
 though she refused to entertain, royalty. From first to last, 
 she wrote daily to Nelson, and she was active in conceal- 
 ment. Her force of will and endurance at this juncture 
 pass comprehension. She behaved as if nothing had 
 happened, though she seriously deranged her health,* 
 
 ' Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 175. 
 
 ^ Letter of February J, 1801, transcribed by Pettigrew, vol. ii, p. 649. 
 
 ' Cf. Morrison MS. 502. When the child was baptized on May 13, 1803, in 
 Marylebone Church (though an earlier christening had been intended), its date 
 of birth was registered as October 29, 1800, so as to bear out the fiction of the 
 child's having been confided to them abroad. In 1804 he sent Lady H. an 
 elaborate note (presumably to be shown), explaining that the child was entrusted 
 to him abroad. One of the two originals of this curious document was in Mrs. 
 Hampden's possession ; the other is in the Morrison MS. Horatia's birthday 
 was always celebrated as if the birth had then occurred ; but the choice of the 
 29th of that month points to January 29, 1801, as the true date. 
 
 * Nelson in his mystifying letters at first purposely called her 'Jenkins.' Cf. 
 Morrison MS. 507, to Lady Hamilton, Feb. 4, 1801. Lady Hamilton is said to 
 have conveyed the infant concealed in her muff. 
 
 i> So Davison told Nelson. Cf. Morrison MS. 509, Nelson to Lady H., 
 Feb. 6, 1 80 1. 
 
 " Cf. Sir William's letter to Nelson of Feb. 19, Nelson letters, vol. ii. pp. 
 200 and 207, Feb. 19 and 20. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 353 
 
 ' I believe,' wrote the transported father so soon as her glad 
 tidings reached him, ' I believe dear Mrs. Thomson's friend 
 will go mad with joy. He cries, prays, and performs all 
 tricks, yet dares not show all or any of his feelings, but he 
 has only me to consult with. He swears he will drink your 
 health this day in a bumper, and damn me if I don't join 
 him in spite of all the doctors in Europe, for none regard 
 you with truer affection than myself. You are a dear good 
 creature, and your kindness and attention to poor Mrs. T. 
 stamps you higher than ever in my mind. I cannot write, 
 I am so agitated by this young man at my elbow. I believe 
 he is foolish, he does nothing but rave about you and her. 
 I own I participate in his joy and cannot write anything.' ^ 
 
 It is noteworthy that the eccentric demeanour of ' dear 
 Mrs. Thomson's friend ' accords with what was evidently a 
 trait in the Nelson family ; for Sir William, describing to 
 Nelson the joy of his brother ' the reverend doctor,' on 
 hearing the first intelligence of Copenhagen while dining 
 with him in Piccadilly, says: 'Your brother was more 
 extraordinary than ever. He would get up suddenly and 
 cut a caper ; rubbing his hands every time that the thought 
 of your fresh laurels came into his head.' * 
 
 The day after the 'young man' at Nelson's elbow had 
 been'thus disporting himself. Nelson again addressed Lady 
 Hamilton. He had cut out two lines from her letter with 
 which, he declares, he will never part. He had exceeded 
 his promise of the day before, and had drained two bumpers 
 to the health of Mrs. Thomson and her child in the 
 company of Troubridge, Hardy, Parker, and his brother, 
 till the latter said he would ' hurt ' himself : ' that friend of 
 our dear Mrs. T. is a good soul and full of feeling,' he wrote ; 
 ' he wishes much to see her and her little one. If possible I will 
 get him leave for two or three days when I go to Portsmouth, 
 and you will see his gratitude to you.' ^ Next morning he 
 communicates with her indirectly as ' Mrs. Thomson.' Her 
 'good and dear friend does not think it proper at present 
 to write with his own hand,' but he ' hopes the day may not 
 
 1 Morrison MS. S04, February I, 1801 ; Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 646. 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 213, Hamilton to Nelson, April 16, iSoi, 
 ^ Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 646. „ 
 
 Z 
 
354 .EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 be far distant when he may be united for ever to the object 
 of his wishes, his only, only love. He swears before heaven 
 that he will marry her as soon as possible, which he 
 fervently prays may be soon. Nelson is charged 'to say 
 how dear you are to him, and that you must [at] every 
 opportunity kiss and bless for him his dear little girl, which he 
 wishes to be called Emma, out of gratitude to our dear, good 
 Lady Hamilton, but in either [case?] its [name?], [whether?] 
 from Lord N., he says, or Lady H., he leaves to your judg- 
 ment and choice.' He has ' given poor Thomson a hundred 
 pounds this morning for which he will give Lady H. an 
 order on his agents ' ; and he begs her to ' distribute it 
 amongst those who have been useful to you on the late 
 occasion ; and your friend, my dear Mrs. Thomson,' he 
 adds, ' may be sure of my care of him and his interest, 
 which I consider as dearly as my own. . . .' ^ 
 
 But perhaps the least guarded of this long series is a 
 fragment to be found in the old volume of Nelson Letters, 
 though Pettigrew's transcripts and the Morrison original 
 do not comprise it. It bears date February i6. ' I sit down, 
 my dear Mrs. T.,' it runs, ' by desire of poor Thomson, to 
 write you a line : not to assure you of his eternal love 
 and affection for you and his dear child, but only to say 
 that he is well and as happy as he can be, separated from 
 all which he holds dear in this world. He has no thoughts 
 separated from your love and your interest. They are 
 united with his ; one fate, one destiny, he assures me, awaits 
 you both. What can I say more ? Only to kiss his child 
 for him : and love him as truly, sincerely, and faithfully as 
 he does you ; which is from the bottom of his soul. He 
 desires that you will more and more attach yourself to dear 
 Lady Hamilton.' ^ Only a week earlier he had addressed 
 to her that stirring passage which told her that it was she 
 who urged him forth to glory, that he had been the whole 
 world round, and had never yet seen 'her equal, or even 
 one who could be put in comparison.'* 
 
 Every night he and his ' band of brothers ' continue to raise 
 
 1 Morrison MS. SoS> Nelson to 'Mrs. Thomson.' Pettigrew (who only 
 gives the least interesting parts), vol. ii. p. 647. 
 
 2 Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 173. ' Ibid. p. 24. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 355 
 
 the glass to the toast of Emma. Letter succeeds to letter, 
 affection to impatience, and impatience to ecstasy. He makes 
 a new will, bequeathing her, besides other jewelled presenta- 
 tions, the portrait which Maria Carolina had given him of 
 herself at parting ^ ; charging, too, in her favour the rental of 
 Bronte, but on this occasion only in the case of the failure 
 of its male heirs ; creating, above all, a trust for the child, of 
 whom ' Emma Hamilton alone knows the parents,' of whom 
 too she is besought to act as guardian, and by her honour and 
 integrity to ' shield it from want and disgrace,' He would 
 ' steal white bread rather than that the child should want.' 
 He and she are to be and be known as godparents of an 
 infant in whom they take a ' very particular interest,' and 
 he especially requests that it may be brought up as 'the 
 child of her dear friend Nelson and Bronte.' He discusses 
 the name; Emma had evidently begged that it might be 
 his, not hers as originally proposed. Let it be christened 
 ' Horatia ' and be registered, anagramatically, as ' daughter 
 of Johem and Morata Etnorb.' ^ As for the date of baptism, 
 he leaves it entirely to his Emma's discretion, but, on the 
 whole, after some hesitation he favours its postponement, 
 since a clergyman might ask inconvenient questions.* He 
 rejoices to hear that the baby is handsome, for then it must 
 be like his dear ' Lady Hamilton,' between whom and Mrs. 
 Thomson there is said to be a striking resemblance. After 
 all, there is no immediate hurry to settle these trifles. He 
 must soon rejoin her, if only for a day. Till March he would 
 still be kept off the English coasts, near and yet far from 
 Emma ; he chafes at a division uncaused by duty or by 
 distance. He will run up so soon as ' Mr. Thomson ' can get 
 leave, and propitiate that watch-dragon, Troubridge. 
 
 Emma's correspondence with Mrs. William Nelson from 
 the latter end of February, which finds place in the 
 
 * This .portrait was reproduced in the Belle AssembUe for May 1807 by Lady 
 Hamilton's express permission. 
 
 2 i.e. Horatio and Emma Bronte. It should be noticed that three years later 
 he once more takes up the vein of mystification and uses another anagram, 
 ' Ganam Justem ' [' I 'gainst you Emma ' ?] Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. ii. pp. 
 71, 77; and there were others also. All this reminds one of Swift's anagrams 
 to Stella. 
 
 ' Cf. Morrison MS. 509 ; Pettigrew, vol, ii. pp. 650-652. 
 
3S6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Appendix, will shortly show how and when he appeared in 
 London. But before he hastened to her side, a curious and 
 unnoticed episode, mixing a drop of bitter disquiet with 
 his draught of rapture, will be followed with interest. It 
 exhibits Emma's constancy and fortitude under a tempta- 
 tion which surprised her, and anguished her fretting lover. 
 Her firmness in overcoming it and, with it, his jealousy, 
 riveted him, if possible, more closely than ever. It pervades 
 every one of Nelson's letters, from the February of this year 
 to the end of March, and many, long afterwards. 
 
 While, strained and nervous beyond measure, she now 
 awaited Horatia's birth,^ she was annoyed and alarmed, 
 though possibly flattered also, by a message from the 
 Prince of Wales — eager to bridge over the dull interval till 
 Parliament might pronounce his father imbecile and himself 
 Regent. He politely commanded Sir William to invite 
 him to dinner on a Sunday evening. It was his desire 
 to hear Lady Hamilton sing, together with La Banti, who was 
 now in London, and whose son Nelson had actually placed in 
 the navy together with Emma's cousin, Charles Connor.^ Sir 
 William was anxious to obtain from the Government not only 
 his full pension, but also a liberal reward for the heavy losses 
 which Jacobinism had inflicted on his property. Moreover, 
 he hoped, though in vain, for a new appointment — the 
 governorship of Malta.^ The Prince's aid was all-important 
 for the ex-Ambassador. He had been more than civil 
 during the short visit of 1791, when he had commissioned 
 portraits of the fair Ambassadress ; and, though an ill- 
 natured world might put the worst construction on his 
 presence in Piccadilly, Sir William trusted to, Emma's 
 prudence and his own interest* The fiery Nelson, however, 
 
 ' Nelson first mentions the matter on Jan. 26, Morrison MS. 503. 
 
 ' Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 107. 
 
 s Cf. Captain Louis's letter to Emma, regarding the affair as if it were settled, 
 Morrison MS. 603, June 15, 1801. Ball also wrote in the same strain. 
 
 * Cf. his letter to Nelson of Feb. 11, Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 200. 
 . . . She has got one of her terrible sick headaches. Among other things that 
 vex her is — that we have been drawn in to be under the absolute necessity of 
 giving a dinner to the P. of Wales on Sunday next. He asked it himself, having 
 expressed a strong desire of hearing Banti's and Emma's voices together. I am 
 well aware of the dangers, etc. ... As this dinner must be, or he would be 
 offended, I shall keep strictly to the musical part, invite only Banti, her husband, 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 357 
 
 infuriated, even demented, at the bare suspicion, ascribed 
 the whole manoeuvre to the bad offices and influence of 
 Lady Abercorn, Mrs. Walpole,^ and a 'Mrs. Nisbet,' who 
 had been heard publicly to assert that Lady Hamilton had 
 * hit ' the Prince's ' fancy.' Sir William, however, was now 
 once more under Greville's thumb, and I am satisfied that 
 the mild Mephistopheles of King's Mews had his finger in 
 this pie.^ At a moment so awkward, Emma certainly dis- 
 believed that her husband ever did more than countenance 
 the affair. She was proud of her talent, and pleased at 
 the sensation it created in the Duke of Queensberry's 
 circle. But the attentions of such a charmer as the First 
 Gentleman in Europe were doubtless of design ; and she 
 was on her guard at the outset, though in after years she 
 cultivated the new friendship of the Prince, together with 
 the long-standing one of his admiring brothers. Her child 
 had half-hallowed in her eyes the sin that sacrifice had 
 endeared, and she resented the buzz of the scandalmongers. 
 She welcomed, indeed invited, Nelson's plan of bringing up 
 his sister-in-law to the rescue. 
 
 Sir William's intention that the royal visit should be en 
 famille, and its projected secrecy, worked up Nelson's feelings 
 to their highest pitch : better by far, if it had to be, a big re- 
 ception. In the end, however, no party took place, still less 
 was there any Mat? The Prince was baffled, despite Sir 
 William. Emma showed that she could renounce vanity for 
 love, and that she dared to rebuff importunity in high places. 
 Nelson's mountain brought forth a mouse, nor did he ever 
 cease to commemorate his appreciation of Emma's firmness 
 — ' firm as a rock,' he said of her afterwards. 
 
 and Taylor ; and as I wish to show a civility to Davison, I have sent him an 
 invitation. In short, we will get rid of it as well as we can, and guard against 
 its producing more meetings of the same sort. Emma would really have gone any 
 lengths to have avoided Sunday's dinner. But / thought it would not be prudent 
 to break with the P. of Wales, etc. ... I have been thus explicit as I know well 
 your Lordship's way of thinking, and your very kind attachment to us and to 
 everything that concerns us.' The rest of this letter concerns his claims. 
 
 ^ In February l8oo Mr. Bolton speaks of her and her ' fine people ' with the 
 Prince of Wales at Bath, as great gamesters, Morrison MS. 454. 
 
 ^ Nelson mentions him expressly in a passage to be quoted, as engaged in 
 the affair, Morrison MS. 521. 
 
 ^ Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 34. Nelson to Emma, Marth 1 801. 
 
358 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Nelson was really on the rack. His distracted letters of 
 more than a fortnight — until his apprehensions of the main 
 danger had been calmed — present a striking self-revelation, 
 and are doubly interesting because Emma's own letters to 
 Mrs. William Nelson supplement them. It is only through 
 his own words that we can realise his feelings. His over- 
 wrought nature magnified every shadow, and overbore his 
 strong common sense. He was morbid, and conjured 
 up suspicions and anticipations alike unworthy of him. 
 Throughout his life his geese were too often swans, and 
 his bites noires, even oftener, demons. His Jeremiads 
 form a monotone. He tears his passion to tatters in a 
 crescendo of self-torture. The man whose bracing and 
 unblenching nerves were iron in action, who was shortly 
 to urg^e ' these are not times for nervous systems,' grew 
 unstrung and abased when his immense love lost its foot- 
 hold for a moment. At first he could scarcely believe 
 that 'Sir William should have a wish for the Prince of 
 Wales to come under your roof ; no good could come 
 from it, but every harm. 'You are too beautiful not to 
 have enemies, and even one visit will stamp you. . . . We 
 know that he is without one spark of honour in these 
 respects and would leave you to bewail your folly. But, 
 my dear friend, I know you too well not to be convinced 
 you cannot be seduced by any prince in Europe. You are, 
 in my opinion, the pattern of perfection.' ' Sir William 
 should say to the Prince that, situated as you are, it would 
 be highly improper for you to admit H.R.H. That the 
 Prince should wish it, I am not surprised at. . . . Sir 
 William should speak out, and if the Prince is a man of 
 honour, he will quit the pursuit of you. . . . The thought 
 so agitates me that I cannot write. I had wrote a few lines 
 last night but I am in tears, I cannot bear it.' ' I own I 
 sometimes fear that you will not be so true to me as I am 
 to you, yet I cannot, will not believe, you can be false. 
 No ! I judge you by myself. I hope to be dead before 
 that should happen, but it will not. Forgive me, Emma, 
 oh, forgive your own dear, disinterested Nelson. Tell 
 Davison how sensible I am of his goodness. He knows 
 my attachment to you. . . . May God send . . . happiness! 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 359 
 
 I have a letter from Sir William ; he speaks of the 
 Regency as certain ; and then probably he thinks you 
 will sell better — horrid thought!' 'Your dear friend, my 
 dear and truly beloved Mr. T., is almost distracted ; he 
 wishes there was peace, or if your uncle would die, he 
 would instantly then come and marry you, for he doats on 
 nothing but you and his child. . . . He has implicit faith 
 in your fidelity, even in conversation with those he dislikes, 
 and that you will be faithful in greater things he has no 
 doubt.' When Emma scolded, and sought to pique him by 
 a piece of jesting jealousy into reason, he reassured both 
 her^ and himself for a few days; but on February 11, 
 addressing her as ' My dear Lady,' he tells her that ' it is 
 very easy to find a stick to beat your Dog] and to find a pre- 
 text for blaming one ' who will never forget you, but to the 
 last moment of his existence, pray to God to give you 
 happiness and to remove from this ungrateful world your 
 old friend.' ^ Three days later, however, he again changes 
 his note; he trusts his 'dear Lady' to 'do him full justice, 
 and to make her dear mind at ease for ever, for ever and 
 ever.'* But on February 17 he burst out afresh: 'I am 
 so agitated that I can write nothing. I knew it 
 would be so, and you can't help it. Do not sit long at 
 table. Good God ! He will be next you, and telling 
 you soft things. If he does, tell it out at table, and 
 turn him out of the house. . . . Oh, God ! that I was 
 dead ! But I do not, my dearest Emma, blame you, nor 
 do I fear your constancy. ... I am gone almost mad, 
 but you cannot help it. It will be in all the newspapers 
 with hints. ... I could not write another line if I was to 
 be made King. If I was in town, nothing should make me 
 dine with you that damned day, but, my dear Emma, I do 
 not blame you, only remember your poor miserable friend, 
 
 ' ' Suppose I did say that the West Country women wore black stockings, 
 what is it more than if you was to say what puppies all the present young men 
 are? You cannot help your eyes, and God knows I cannot see much.' 
 Morrison MS. 514, and cf. 515. 
 
 ^ Cf. excerpt from a letter of February 11, 1801. ' San Josef , Brixham,' in 
 Sotheby's catalogue of July 8, 1905. Cf. Appendix, Part 11. E. (4) (a). 
 
 ^ Cf. excerpt in the same catalogue of another new letter of February 14, 
 1801. Cf. Appendix, Part II. E. (4) (b). 
 
36o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 That you must be singing and appear gay ! . . . I have read 
 . . . your resolution never to go where the fellow is, but 
 you must have him at home. Oh, God ! but you cannot, I 
 suppose, help it, and you cannot turn him out of your own 
 house. ... I see your determination to be on your guard, 
 and as fixed as fate. ... I am more dead than alive . . . 
 to the last breath your's. If you cannot get rid of this, I 
 hope you will tell Sir William never to bring the fellow 
 again.' ' 'Tis not that I believe you will do anything that 
 injures me, but I cannot help saying a few words on that 
 fellow's dining with you, for you do not believe it to be out 
 of love for Sir William. . . . You have been taken in. You 
 that are such a woman of good sense, put so often on your 
 guard by myself [against] Mrs. Udney, Mrs. Spilsbury, 
 Mrs. Dent, and Mrs. Nisbet. ... I knew that he would 
 visit you, and you could not help coming downstairs when 
 the Prince was there. . . . But his words are so charming 
 that, I am told, no person can withstand them. If I had 
 been worth ten millions I would have betted every farthing 
 that you would not have gone into the house knowing that 
 he was there, and if you did, which I would not have 
 believed, that you would have sent him a proper message 
 by Sir William, and sent him to hell. And knowing your 
 determined courage when you had got down, I would have 
 laid my head upon the block with the axe uplifted, and 
 said "strike," if Emma does not say to Sir William before 
 the fellow, " my character cannot, shall not suffer by per- 
 mitting him to visit." . . . Hush, hush, my poor heart, keep 
 in my breast, be calm, Emma is true. . . , But no one, not 
 even Emma, could resist the serpent's flattering tongue. . . . 
 What will they all say and think, that Emma is like other 
 women, when I would have killed anybody who had said 
 so. . . . Forgive me. I know I am almost distracted, but 
 I have still sens/e enough left to burn every word of yours. 
 . . . All your pictures are before me. What will Mrs. 
 Denis say, and what will she sing — Be Calm, be Gentle, the 
 Wind has Changed? Do you go to the opera to-night? 
 They say he sings well. I have eat nothing but a little 
 rice and drank water. But forgive me. I know my Emma, 
 and don't forget that you had once a Nelson, a friend, a 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 361 
 
 dear friend, but alas ! he has his misfortunes. He has lost 
 the best, his only friend, his only love. Don't forget hini, 
 poor fellow! He is honest. Oh! I could thunder and 
 strike dead with my lightning. I dreamt it last night, my 
 Emma. I am calmer. . . . Tears have relieved me; you 
 never will again receive the villain to rob me. . . . May the 
 heavens bless you ! I am better. Only tell me you forgive 
 me ; don't scold me, indeed I am not worth it, and am to 
 my last breath your's, and if not your's, no one's in the 
 world, . . , You cannot now help the villain's dining with 
 you. Get rid of it as well as you can. Do not let him 
 come downstairs with you or hand you up. If you do, tell 
 
 me, and then ! ' ' Forgive my letter wrote and sent last 
 
 night, perhaps my head was a little affected. No wonder, 
 it was such an unexpected, such a knock-down blow ; such 
 a death. But I will not go on, for I shall get out of my 
 senses again. Will you sing for the fellow The Prince, 
 unable to conceal his Pain, etc. ? No, you will not.' 
 
 And here follows, like a lull in the storm, his joy at 
 hearing from Emma herself that Sir William, ' who asks 
 all parties to dinner,' was not to have his way ; she had 
 resolved to evade the Prince. He cursed the would-be 
 intruder. Even now he implored her not to risk being at 
 home that next Sunday evening,^ but to dine with Mrs. 
 Denis. If the Prince still insisted on coming, Emma 
 must be away. But till he had certainty he would con- 
 tinue to starve himself. He thanked her 'ten thousand 
 times.' She was never to say that her letters bored him ; 
 they were ' the only real comfort of his life.' If ever he 
 proved false to her, might ' God's vengeance ' light upon 
 him. Parker knew his love for her — ' who does not ? ' He 
 was 'all astonishment at her uncle's conduct'; as for his 
 'aunt,' he did not care 'a fig for her.' He would buy 
 Madame Le Brun's portrait of her as well as Romney's. 
 Still, the yellow demon had not yet quite deserted him. He 
 still brooded on imaginary fears and scenes. ' Did you sit 
 alone with the villain? No! I will not believe it. Oh, 
 God ! Oh, God ! keep my sences. Do not let the rascal in. 
 
 ' February 22. Tuesday (when Emma wrote to Mrs. William Nelson) was 
 the 24th. Cf. Add. MS. 34,989, f. 38. 
 
362 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Tell the Duke ^ that you will never go to his house. Mr. 
 G.2 must be a scoundrel. He treated you once ill enough * 
 and cannot love you, or he would sooner die. ... I have 
 this moment got my orders to put myself under Sir 
 Hyde Parker's orders, and suppose I shall be ordered to 
 Portsmouth to-morrow or next day, and then I will try to 
 get to London for 3 days. May Heaven bless us, but 
 don't let that fellow dine with you. . . . Forget every cross 
 word: I now live! That Very night he received the 
 assurance of Emma's staunch determination, however Sir 
 William and Greville might remonstrate, and his answer 
 breathes a profound and rapturous calm : — ' Your good 
 sense, judgment, and proper firmness must endear you to 
 all your friends, and to none more than your old and firm 
 friend Nelson. You have shown that you are above all 
 temptation, and not to be drawn into the paths of dishonour 
 for to gratify any price, or to gain any riches. How Sir 
 William can associate with a person of a character so 
 diametrically opposed to his own — but I do not choose, as 
 this letter goes through any hands, to enter more at large 
 on this subject. I glory in your conduct and in your 
 inestimable friendship. ... I wish you were my sister that 
 I might instantly give you half my fortune for your glorious 
 conduct. Be firm ! Your cause is that of honour against 
 infamy. . . . You know that I would not, in Sir William's 
 case, have gone to Court without my wife,* and such a wife, 
 never to be matched. It is true you would grace a Court 
 better as a Queen than a visitor.' ' Good Sir William,' he 
 added, must, on reflection, ' admire your virtuous and proper 
 conduct.' * 
 
 Nelson never forgot or ceased to praise Emma's conduct 
 in this ticklish transaction. William Nelson joined his 
 
 ' Of Queensberry. 2 Greville. 
 
 ° This is proof positive that Nelson was fully awrare of Emma's past. The 
 reverse has often been asserted. 
 
 * Queen Charlotte vfould never receive her. 
 
 ' For the foregoing cf., inter alia, Morrison MS. 503, 507, 509, Jii, 513-15, 
 518, 520, 521-22, 532 ; Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 34, vol. ii. p. 200 ; and for the 
 two citations to follow, Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 451, and excerpt from a letter, 
 'St. George, March 7, 1801,' from Sotheby's catalogue for July 8, 1905. Cf. 
 Appendix, Part 11. D, (c) (a). 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 363 
 
 brother ' in admiration.' ^ But the lover holds her aloft as 
 a matchless example in letters compatible with the most 
 platonic affection. She is incomparable. The more he reads, 
 the more he admires her ' whole conduct.' The thought of 
 it inspired that ' Santa Emma ' letter written in the May of 
 this very year on the St. George off Rostock, one excerpt 
 from which, canonising her as a saint, has been already 
 quoted,^ and which is given entire in the Appendix.^ It 
 inspired another uncited passage addressed to Emma a 
 few weeks later. ' I now know he never can dine with you ; 
 for you would go out of the house sooner than suffer it : 
 and as to letting him hear you sing, I only hope he will 
 be struck deaf and you dumb, sooner than such a thing 
 should happen ! But I know it never now can. You 
 cannot think how my feelings are alive towards you : pro- 
 bably more than ever : and they never can be diminished.' * 
 
 In strength of will, in picturesqueness, in emphasis, in 
 courage, it must be acknowledged that Nelson and Emma 
 were affinities. 
 
 The fresh correspondence between Emma and Mrs. 
 William Nelson — transcribed in the Appendix — is interest- 
 ing in relation to this episode, for through it we are 
 enabled to hear Emma's own voice. It rings out true 
 and clear, confirming every word that Nelson uttered. 
 There is also here and there a touch in it of Emma as 
 ' stateswoman ' once more. She never relaxed her interest 
 in politics, and she was still in correspondence with Maria 
 Carolina.^ 
 
 ' His letter is very characteristic — all smirk, starch, bows and compliments. 
 He can only send her his ' little morsel of a better half ; her letters to him are 
 'charities.' For a specimen of this worthy's spirit, cf. the following in a letter 
 to Lady H. of August 23, 1801 : — ' I am told there are two or three very old 
 lives. Prebends of Canterbury, in the Minister's gift — near ;^6oo a year, and 
 good houses.' — Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 204. 
 
 2 Add. MS. 34,274 G. Cf. ante, p. 26. 
 
 2 Appendix, Part 11. D. i {]>). * Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 34. 
 
 * Emma wrote, after Nelson's departure, to the Queen. The reply reached 
 her in May, protesting 'vera amicizia.' Maria, herself in great trouble at the 
 entry of the French, grieves to hear that Emma is neither ' happy nor con- 
 tented.' — Eg. MS. l6l6, f. 125. They exchanged fresh letters in December, 
 the Queen assuring her old friend that she always interests her. — Ibid. f. 127. 
 In some of his this year's letters Nelson inquires of Emma news from the Queen, 
 who continued her correspondence so late as 1809. 
 
364 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Emma had welcomed Nelson's wish that his sister-in- 
 law should be with her at this so trying a moment. 
 Unfortunately, ' Reverend Doctor ' and his wife had ended 
 their stay in town just before the Sunday of the party 
 which haunted Nelson came round. At Nelson's request, 
 however, the little woman, whose ' tongue,' he said, ' never 
 lay still,' returned in the nick of time to fill the blank 
 caused by his departure.^ On the very Friday of Nelson's 
 two letters^ to Emma, she also took up her own tale 
 to Mrs. Nelson. She was still in bed with a headache: 
 ' . . . It is such a pain to part with dear friends, and you 
 and I liked each other from the moment we met : our souls 
 were congenial. Not so with Tom Tit,* for there was an 
 antipathy not to be described. ... I received yesterday 
 letters from that great adored being that we all so love, 
 esteem, and admire. The more one knows him, the more 
 one wonders at his greatness, his heart, his head booth \sic\ 
 so perfect. He says he is coming down to Spithead * soon, 
 he hopes. Troubridge comes to town to-day as one of the 
 Lords, so he is settled for the present, but depend on it, 
 my dear friend, this poor patched-up party ^ can never hold 
 long. A new coat will bear many a lag and tag as the 
 vulgar phrase is, but an old patched mended one must 
 tear. ... I am so unwell that I don't think we can have 
 his Royal Highness to dinner on Sunday, which will not vex 
 me. Addio, mia Cara arnica. You know as you are learning 
 Italian, I must say a word or so. How dull my bedroom 
 looks without you. I miss our little friendly confidential 
 chats. But in this world nothing is compleat.' And here 
 Emma's philosophy follows : — ' If all went on smoothly, 
 one shou'd regret quitting it, but 'tis the many little 
 vexations and crosses, separations from one's dear friends 
 that make one not regret leaving it. . . .'^ 
 
 * From the Morrison MS. and these new Add. MSS. it is clear that Mrs. 
 Nelson arrived again about March 20. 
 
 ^ February 19. The two last notes aboye cited. ' Lady Nelson. 
 
 * From Portsmouth, where the work of refitting the fleet was nearly finished. 
 Cf. Morrison MS. 522. 
 
 ^ Addington [London-to-Paddington Addington] was trying to edge in on the 
 debris of Pitt's administration, but as he could not form a Cabinet, Pitt returned. 
 ' Add. MS. 34,989> ff- 36, 37 ; and see Appendix, Part II. B. 
 
PICCADILLY TO ' PARADISE ' MERTON 365 
 
 On February the 24th Nelson hurried to London ^ before 
 he finally set out for the Baltic in the second week of the 
 next month. A note from Emma in this new series 
 describes his arrival to Mrs. Nelson. The letter is franked 
 by Nelson himself to ' Hillborough, Brandon, Suffolk ':— 
 
 ' My dearest Friend, — Your dear Brother arrived this 
 morning by seven o'clock. He stays only 3 days, so by 
 the time you wou'd be here, he will be gone. How un- 
 lucky you went so soon. I am in health so so, but spirits 
 to-day excellent. Oh, what real pleasure Sir William and 
 
 1 have in seeing this our great, good, virtuous Nelson. His 
 eye is better. . . . Apropos Lady Nelson is at Brighton 
 yet. The King, God bless him, is ill, and there are many 
 speculations. Some say it is his old disorder. . . ,' 
 
 And on the next day, February 25 : — 
 
 ' . . . Your good, dear Brother has just left me to go to 
 pay a visit to Mr. Nepean,^ but is coming back to dinner 
 with Morice, his brother,* whom he brings with him, and 
 Troubridge also. We shall be comfortable, but more so 
 if you had been here. Oh, I wish you was, and how happy 
 would Milord* have been to have had that happiness, to 
 have walked out with Mrs. Nelson. . . . Our dear Nelson 
 is very well in health. Poor fellow, he travelled allmost all 
 night, but you that know his great, good heart will not be 
 surprised at any act of friendship of his. I shall send for 
 Charlotte^ to see him before he goes, and he has given 
 
 2 guineas for her, . . .' 
 
 » At ' Lothian's." 
 
 ^ Afterwards Sir Evan, Secretary to and one of the Lords of the Admiralty. 
 He was a shrewd courtier, and a great admirer of Lady H. In one of his after 
 letters Nelson tells her that Nepean only comes to Merton to feast on the sight 
 of her beauty and sound of her voice, and that he is a 'fair-weather friend.' 
 
 2 He died next year. Nelson, with difficulty and to his disgust, could not 
 actually procure for him this year more than a small under-post from the 
 Government. His so-called widow, ' poor blind Mrs. Nelson,' has been already 
 mentioned. Both Nelson and Emma befriended her affectionately. • She shall 
 never want,' he said, and he bequeathed her an annuity of ;f loo. 
 
 * Maria Carolina's name for Nelson. 
 
 ° The Rev. William Nelson's daughter, afterwards Lady Bridport, now at 
 Mrs. VoUer's school in London. From 1802-1805 she was to be constantly at 
 Merton under the wing of Lady Hamilton, and the instruction both of her 
 and of Miss Connor. 
 
366 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 On the following morning^ again : — 
 
 ' Yesterday I cou'd not, my dearest friend, write much, 
 and Milord was not yet returned from the Admiralty time 
 enough to frank your letters, and sorry I was you shou'd 
 pay for such trash that I sent you, but I thought you wou'd 
 be uneasy. We had a pleasant evening ['and night' — 
 erased]. I often thought on you, but now the subject of 
 the King's illness gives such a gloom to everything. . . . 
 Mr. Addington is not minister, for his commission was not 
 signed before the King was taken so ill, so Mr. Pitt is 
 yet first Lord. . . . Our good Lord Nelson is lodged at 
 Lothian's ; Tom Tit, at the same place [Brz^/iton]. The 
 Cub ^ is to have a frigate, the Thalia. I suppose HE will 
 be up in a day or so. I only hope he does not come near 
 me. If he does, not at home shall be the answer. I am glad 
 he is going. . . . Milord has only Allen ^ with him. We 
 supped and talked politics till 2. Mr. East \i.e. Este] who is a 
 pleasant man, was with us. . . . Oh, my dearest friend, our 
 dear Lord is just come in. He goes off to-night and sails 
 imediately. My heart is fit to Burst quite with greef. 
 Oh, what pain, God only knows. I can only say may the 
 Allmighty God bless, prosper, and protect him ! I shall go 
 mad with grief. Oh, God only knows what it is to part 
 with such a friend, such a one. We were truly called the 
 Tria juncta in uno, for Sir W., he, and I have but one 
 heart in three bodies. . . . He, our great Nelson, sends his 
 love to you. . . . My greif* will not let me say more 
 Heavens bless you, answer your afiflicted E. H.' ^ 
 
 From Yarnjouth, after a brief spell of final prepara- 
 tion, Nelson sailed for the double feat of annihilating 
 the Northern Confederation single-handed, and negotiat- 
 ing with a mastery both of men and management the truce 
 
 ' February 26. 
 
 2 Nelson's stepson Josiah Nisbet. It should be noticed that though she thus 
 speaks of him, Lady Nelson's 'ill-treatment' of her son formed one of the 
 grounds for Nelson's bitterness towards her. Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 63. 
 
 * The servant whom Nelson had aftei-wards to dismiss. Long years later, he 
 gave a false account of Horatia's parentage. Nelson, in finding him another 
 place, termed him ' a great liar.' 
 
 « It will be noticed that in one letter grief figures rightly as ' grief,' and also 
 as 'greef and 'greif. ^ Add. MS. 34>989, ff. 40-43. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 367 
 
 that preceded the Peace of Amiens. Copenhagen was now 
 the key of the situation, as it was to prove six years later, 
 when Canning saved Europe from the ruin of Austerlitz 
 and the ignominy of Tilsit by that secret expedition which 
 would have gladdened Nelson, had he been alive. As 
 victor and peacemaker he was now to stand forth supreme. 
 ' Time is our best ally,' he wrote to Lord St. Vincent a few 
 days later, when the wind caused a week's delay in the 
 start of the refitted ships. ' I hope we shall not give her 
 up, as all our allies have given us up. Our friend here is a 
 little nervous about dark nights and fields of ice, but we 
 must brace up ; these are not times for nervous systems. 
 I want peace, which is only to be had through, I trust, 
 our still invincible navy ' ; and, just before sailing,^ he 
 made a declaration to Berry that no Briton should ever 
 forget : — ' . . . As to the plan for pointing a gun truer 
 than we do at present, if the person comes, I shall of 
 course look at it, and be happy, if necessary, to use it. 
 But I hope that we shall be able, as usual, to get so close 
 to our enemies, that our shots cannot miss their object, 
 and that we shall again give our northern enemies that 
 hailstorm of bullets which is so emphatically described in 
 the Naval Chronicle, and which gives our dear country 
 the dominion of the seas. We have it, and all the devils in 
 hell cannot take it from us, if our wooden walls have fair 
 play.' ^ On the verge of battle he indited three lines meant 
 for Emma's eyes alone : — ' He has no fear of death but 
 parting from you.' * 
 
 Emma resumed her disconsolate epistles both to him and, 
 until her return, to Mrs. William Nelson. The first can 
 only be inferred from his most vehement answers, while of 
 the second a few scraps may find appropriate place. 
 
 With a single exception she had withheld nothing from 
 Nelson ; * their communion was unreserved. But of ' Emma 
 
 1 March g. 
 
 ^ Laughton's Despatches, p. 246. Nelson always laid the greatest stress on 
 time. Five minutes, he would say, made the difference between defeat and 
 victory. ^ Morrison MS. 549. 
 
 * The Greville story he has already mentioned as known ; and in the first 
 chapter I have hinted the bare possibility that he knew of Fetherstonehaugh, 
 who, with Hodges, was a member of the Prince of Wales's charmless circle. 
 
368 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Carew,' that ' orphan,' ^ now a girl of nineteen, for whom she 
 was still caring,^ who was soon to be put under the alternate 
 charge of Mrs. Denis and of Mrs. Connor, and who was 
 frequently to see her undisclosed mother at Merton, she 
 seems to have kept silence. On the first day of March 
 Nelson addressed to the ' friend of his bosom ' ^ that most 
 remarkable letter opening ' Now, my own dear wife,' * which 
 has become so hackneyed. He at last found a full vent for 
 his feelings, for Oliver was the bearer of the paper. There 
 was nothing, he said, that he would not do for them to live 
 together, and to have their dear little child with them. He 
 firmly believed that the imminent campaign would ensure 
 peace, and then — who knew? — they might cross the water 
 and live in avowed partnership at Bronte. He wanted to 
 see his wife no more, but until he could quit the country 
 with Emma (and before that possibility England must be 
 safeguarded), there could be no open union. After ensuring 
 a ' glorious issue,' he would return with ' a little more fame ' 
 for his Emma, proud of him and their country. ' I never 
 did love any one else,' he continues ; ' I never had a dear 
 pledge of love till you gave me one, and you, thank my God, 
 never gave one to anybody else. . . . You, my beloved 
 Emma<^ and my country are the two dearest objects of my 
 fond heart, a heart susceptible and true. Only place con- 
 fidence in me and you never shall be disappointed.' He is 
 now convinced of his dominion over her. He protests in the 
 most passionate phrases his longing and his constancy. He 
 is hers all, only, and always. ' My heart, body, and mind * 
 is in perfect union of love towards my own dear beloved ' — 
 his matchless, his flawless Emma. 
 
 Yet a living proof of flaw lurked in oblivion. We have 
 heard Emma in 1798 sighing over her married childlessness. 
 
 ' She had been so styled in a communication from Greville about her in 1792. 
 
 ^ In April she was still with her old educators, the Blackbums, near Man- 
 chester, where Mrs. Cadogan went to visit her and report to Emma. Cf. 
 Morrison MS. 563, Mrs. Cadogan to Emma, April 26, 1801. 
 
 ' ' Emma, let me be the friend of your bosom. I deserve it, for my confi- 
 dence is reciprocated.' — Morrison MS. 543. 
 
 * Not the only occasion on which he so addressed her. Cf. Morrison MS. 
 546, 621. 
 
 " It is worthy of notice that he omits ' soul.' In a much later letter to her 
 be says that his being is hers entirely, but that his ' soul ' is his Creator's. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 369 
 
 Horjatia, Nelson's Horatia, was at length hers. Horatia's 
 name and influence tinge his every tone ; he even writes to 
 the babe-in-arms, the child of his own heart. As Horatia's 
 mother, Emma seems holy in his eyes. Every letter that he 
 kisses before he sends it, is sealed with her head ; ^ each of hers 
 with 'Nelson' and 'The Nile,' with his glorious emblem — 
 ' Honor est a Nilo.' Was it now possible, at this longed-for 
 moment, to reveal the dark error of her day's clouded open- 
 ing ? She had been but seventeen when that other daughter, 
 watched, befriended, but never acknowledged, had been born. 
 The foundling's disavowal had been wholly the work and 
 craft of Greville, once so ' good,' so ' tender' to her and the 
 offspring that he snatched away from her girl's embrace. 
 Was this the moment, she might well plead with the 
 Pharisees, for withdrawing the veil that hid Horatia's half- 
 sister from Nelson ? She remained a ' Protestant of the 
 flesh ' — a born pagan. As pagan she would be true in trial. 
 She would do her duty as she knew it, and act her double 
 part of nurse and wife. She would be generous and 
 warm-hearted. But such surrender ! — Was it in human, 
 in feminine nature? Had she been the born 'saint' of 
 Nelson's canonisation, she would have done so now. Pale 
 and weeping, she would have humbled herself and placed 
 that daughter by her side as some token of atonement. 
 How the scribes of the long robe, like Greville, would have 
 sneered, how Hamilton would' have smiled ! And Hamil- 
 ton's name — poor, fading Hamilton's-^must surely have 
 struck some chord in her better self. Who was she, what 
 manner of man was Nelson, to make or exact such sacri- 
 fice! Although Sir William's own recent weakness had 
 endangered her, and belittled him before Nelson, they still 
 esteemed him — formed together, indeed, his right hand. 
 And yet, whether Greville and he had guessed the truth or 
 not, to him they were half traitors — an ugly word for an 
 ugly fact ; for what had Caracciolo been but a traitor! This 
 was a moment when self-illusions might have vanished, and 
 
 ^ This seal — in imitation of a classic intaglio^ — was made in Rome about 
 1792 by Rega, a famous artist. It is now in the British Museum, and was 
 originally covered with Nelson's sealing-wax. She had a tiff with Nelson 
 about it in August. Cf. Morrison MS. 6ll. 
 
 2 A 
 
370 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Nelson's Roman virtue might have listened to the stern 
 rebuke to David — 'Thou art the man.' Yet, contrasted 
 with the lax crew of Carlton House and many at St. James's, 
 Nelson and she were all but virtuous, virtuous sinners. 
 Would her sin, then, ever find her out ? Was this the time 
 to bare her conscience to the world ? 
 
 And during that brief London visit they had both seen 
 the child,^ as they were so often to do in the two succeed- 
 ing years. Their visits suggest a striking picture, — the 
 spare, weather-beaten man in the plain black suit, with the 
 firm yet morbid mouth ; the beautiful woman longing to call 
 aloud to her baby ; the little, homely room ; Nurse Gibson 
 with her housekeeper air, furtively wondering why the great 
 Lord Nelson and the Ambassador's lady were so much con- 
 cerned in this work-a-day world, with the mysterious child 
 of ' Mr. and Mrs. Thomson.' ^ 
 
 The very day that Emma received Nelson's confession of 
 faith in her, she took up her pen once more to his sister-in- 
 law : — 
 
 ' My dearest friend, anxiety and heart-bleedings for your 
 dear brother's departure has made me so ill, I have not 
 been able to write. I cannot eat or sleep. Oh, may God 
 prosper and bless him. He has wrote to Lord Eldon * for 
 Mr. Nelson. You will have him at Yarmouth in two days. 
 Oh, how I envy you! Oh God, how happy you are! . . . 
 My spirits and health is bad endeed. . . . Tom Tit is at 
 Brighton. She did not come, nor did he go. Jove, for such 
 he is — quite a Jove — knows better than that. Morrice 
 means to go to Yarmouth. The Cub dined with us, but I 
 
 ' Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 30. 'I have seen and talked much with 
 Mr. Thomson's friend. The fellow seems to eat all my words, when I talk 
 of her and his child. He says he never can forget your goodness and kind 
 affection to her and his dear, dear child. I have had the felicity of seeing 
 it, and a finer child,' etc. 
 
 ^ According to tradition, Mrs. Gibson's daughter used often to say that she 
 remembered these visits. Nelson would play with the child on the floor while 
 Lady Hamilton looked on. 
 
 ' i.e. for a bishopric. He was always soliciting Lord Eldon for 'Reverend 
 Doctor.' He got him a Prebendary stall at Canterbury; and to this, and her 
 share in it, Emma refers in one of her last despairing letters. Cf. the letter to 
 Sir William Scott of September 12, 1814, in Sotheby's catalogue for July 8, 
 1905 ; cf. Appendix, Part 11. C. 10 (a). 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 371 
 
 never asked how Tom Tit was. . . . How I long to see you ; 
 do try and come, for God's sake do.' And a like burden 
 pervades the notes of days following : she is ' so very low- 
 spirited and ill ' since ' the best and greatest man alive went 
 away.' She has 'no spirit to do anything.' She prays 
 Mrs. Nelson of her charity to come. They can then ' walk 
 and talk, and be so happy together.' She can hear 'all the 
 news of my Hero' She has bought Charlotte presents, and 
 will take them to her. The King is better, and Tom Tit is 
 in the country. She sends every message to ' little 
 Horatio.' ^ She had been ill all night, and cannot even take 
 the morning air.* For the second time, ' Calypso nepouvait 
 pas se consoler du depart d Ulysse' 
 
 Nelson had asked, Emma had hoped, that she and Sir 
 William (for Nelson would never see her without her hus- 
 band) might run down to Yarmouth, and bid him and the 
 St. George farewell. But ' his eternally obliged ' Sir William 
 (possibly warned by Greville) declined with civil thanks. 
 He was dedicating every moment to art. Some of his 
 choicest vases, to his great joy, had turned up from the 
 wreck. Pending the dubious bounty of the Government, 
 he was preparing to sell these and his pictures by auction. 
 Among the latter were three portraits of his wife. Nelson 
 was furious at Emma being thus for the second time 'on 
 sale.' He bought the St. Cecilia, as has been recounted 
 earlier,^ for ;^300, and enshrined it as a true 'saint 'in 
 his cabin : had it cost ' 300 drops of blood,' he would 
 ' have given it with pleasure.' * And almost up to the date 
 of departure, renewed uneasiness about the loose set that 
 Sir William now encouraged harassed him. Should she 
 ever find herself in extremities, she must summon him back, 
 and he would fly to her deliverance.^ It was at this moment 
 
 ' He entered the navy, but did not live to inherit his uncle's honours. 
 
 2 Add. MS. 34,989, a. 45-49. App. Part II. B. 
 
 ^ Chap. i. p. 26. The new and most remarkable Nelson letter there quoted is 
 given in its entirety in the Appendix, Part li. D. (b). 
 
 * Cf. Morrison MS. S43) 544 ; Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 445 ; Nelson Letters, vol. 
 ii. p. 207. ' Can this be the great Sir William Hamilton ? I blush for him,' 
 writes Nelson in the first-named letter. Among these pictures was the ' Bacchante ' 
 by Madame Le Brun, an enamel of which, by Bone, was bequeathed by Hamilton 
 to Nelson. The sale realised over £,yiOO. Morrison MS. 550. 
 
 = Cf. Morrison MS. 535-539. 54'. 542- 
 
372 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 that, in once more revising his will, he bequeathed to her a 
 diamond star. 
 
 It is strange that the virtuously indignant Miss Knight's ^ 
 pen should have been employed in celebrating the loves 
 of Nelson and Lady Hamilton ; yet such had been the case. 
 Nelson retained them until the great battle was over, when 
 he enclosed them in a letter to Emma : — 
 
 ' L'Infelice Emma ai Venti.' 
 
 ' Blow, blow, thou winter wind, 
 To Love and Emma kind ! 
 Ah ! come ! more grateful far 
 Than perfumed zephyrs are. 
 Blow, blow, and on thy welcome wing 
 My Life, my Love, my Hero bring. 
 
 Blest, blest the compass be 
 
 Which steers my love to me ! 
 
 And blest the happy gale 
 
 Which fills his homeward sail ; 
 
 And blest the boat, and blest each oar 
 
 Which rows my True Love back to shore.' ' 
 
 And ' blest^ one might add, this maudlin trash. Robuster, 
 at any rate, than these, surely, is the mediocre set that 
 Emma composed for her hero in the same month. 
 
 ' Silent grief, and sad forebodings 
 
 (Lest I ne'er should see him more), 
 Fill my heart when gallant Nelson 
 Hoists Blue Peter at the fore. 
 
 On his Pendant anxious gazing, 
 Filled with tears mine eyes run o'er ; 
 
 At each change of wind I tremble 
 While Blue Peter 's at the fore. 
 
 All the livelong day I wander, 
 
 Sighing on the sea-beat shore. 
 But my sighs are all unheeded. 
 
 When Blue Peter 's at the fore. 
 
 Oh that I might with my Nelson 
 Sail the whole world o'er and o'er. 
 
 Never should I then with sorrow 
 See Blue Peter at the fore. 
 
 • For Nelson's opinion of her conduct, cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 75. 
 " Morrison MS. SSS- 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 373 
 
 But (ah me !) his ship 's unmooring ; 
 
 Nelson's last boat rows from shore ; 
 Every sail is set and swelling, 
 
 And Blue Peter's seen no more.'^ 
 
 While Nelson reaped fresh laurels to lay at her feet, Emma 
 waited for the peace which should bring him back, but which 
 was indefinitely delayed. Among the frequenters of the 
 Piccadilly household, ' Old Q.' and Lord William Douglas, 
 an indefatigable scribbler of vers de sociit^, remained real 
 friends, as Nelson constantly acknowledged, but the Carlton 
 House gang still pestered and annoyed her. For a space 
 she became cross with herself, cross with Sir William and 
 cross even with Nelson, whose most unselfish devotion to 
 her never allowed the gall in her imperious nature to embitter 
 its honey. But, despite her own ailments and her husband's, 
 she soon resumed her energy. Never did she appear to 
 better advantage, except in days of danger, than in those 
 of sickness. She was always trying to get promotions for 
 Nelson's old Captains, and caring for his prot^g^s and 
 dependants ; ^ she even acted as Nelson's deputy in urging 
 the authorities to supply him with the requisite officers' 
 so often denied him, that he would protest himself forgotten 
 * by the great folks at home.' To Nelson she wrote daily, 
 pouring out her heart and soul. 
 
 From Kioge Bay Nelson sailed to Revel, from Revel to 
 Finland ; and thence Russia-ward to complete his work of 
 peace by an interview with the new Czar, and with that 
 Count Pahlen who had headed the assassinators of Paul 
 in his bedroom. The Russians f^ted him and found him 
 the facsimile of their ' young Suwaroff.' Nelson's new 
 triumph — one of navigation, of strategy, and of ubiquitous 
 diplomacy as well — which had again saved England and 
 awoke the unmeasured gratitude of the people, met with 
 the same chill reception from the Government as of 
 old. Nelson had always been his own Admiral. He 
 habitually disobeyed orders : it was intolerable. They 
 
 * Morrison MS. 572. 
 
 2 Among many other instances, cf. 'There is an old black servant,, James 
 Price, as good a man as ever lived ; he shall be taken care of, and have a comer 
 in my house as long as he lives.' — Morrison MS. 589, May 26, 1801. 
 
 * E.g. 'Our friend Bowen.' — Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 151. 
 
374 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 suspected the armistice that he had made in the thick of 
 the battle ; all along, the white flag seems to have pursued 
 Nelson with misconstruction. He has himself recorded in 
 two letters to Lady Hamilton a telling vindication, which 
 does honour to his humanity and to his prudence.^ He 
 did not conceal his vexation. ' I know mankind well 
 enough,' he told Hamilton, ' to be sure that there are those 
 in England who wish me at the devil. If they only wish 
 me out of England, they will soon be gratified, for to go to 
 Bronte I am determined. So I have wrote the King of the 
 two Sicilies, whose situation I most sincerely pity.' He 
 comforts himself that he is ' backed with a just cause and 
 the prayers of all good people.'^ No medals were struck 
 for Copenhagen ; even the City began to flag in its appre- 
 ciation. He flew out against the Lord Mayor who had 
 once said, ' Do you find victories, and we will find rewards.' 
 It was not for himself but for his officers that he coveted 
 the latter ; and yet, as he was to write in the following year, 
 ' I have since that time found two complete victories. I 
 have kept my word. They who exist by victories at sea 
 have not.'^ Nelson 'could not obey the Scriptures and 
 bless them.' The victory itself he extolled as the most 
 hard-earned and complete in the annals of the navy.* 
 Addington simply wanted the prestige that Nelson alone 
 could confer; it was the common case of mediocrity 
 against genius. And Nelson was further troubled not only 
 by wretched health and disappointment at the frustration of 
 an earlier return, but by the blow of his brother Maurice's 
 death. Amid his own engrossing avocations, he hastened 
 to assure the poor blind 'widow' that she was to cease 
 fretting over her prospects, remain at Laleham, and count 
 on him as a brother. ' I am sure you will comfort poor 
 blind Mrs. Nelson,' he writes to Emma. 
 
 Both Sir William and Emma cheered him under depres- 
 
 ' Cf. Morrison MS. S79, 580. 
 
 ^ Cf. Morrison MS. 571, Nelson to Hamilton, April 27, 1801. 
 
 ' Cf. his letter to Davison, Eg. MS. 2240, f. 139, and ibid. f. log : • It was 
 a sight which no real man could have enjoyed. I felt that when the Danes 
 became my prisoners, I became their protector. ... By her armistice we tied 
 the arms of Denmark for four months from assisting our enemies and her allies.' 
 
 * Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 225. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 375 
 
 sion. He had now done enough, wrote SJr William. It 
 was the neplus ultra. He quoted Virgil : — 
 
 ' Hie victor caestus artemque reponam.' ' 
 
 As for Emma, let Sir William's v\rords depict her : — ' You 
 would have laughed to have seen what I saw yesterday. 
 Emma did not know whether she was on her head or her 
 heels — in such a hurry to tell your great news, that she 
 could utter nothing but tears of joy and tenderness.' Once 
 more she is 'the same Emma' — the Emma after the battle 
 of the Nile.2 
 
 Nelson responded with avidity to his now ' dearest, ami- 
 able friend.' As her birthday neared he reminded her of 
 those happy times a year gone by, and contrasted them 
 with the present — ' How different^ how forlorn.' His body 
 and spirit, like his ships, required" refitting. His 'wife' 
 alone, he wrote, could nurse him, and only her generous 
 soul comfort the ' forlorn outcast.' He suspected that the 
 Admiralty wanted to replace him. He would willingly 
 have re-commanded in the Baltic, should emergencies re- 
 arise, if only they would concede him his needed interval 
 of rest. He ' would return with his shield or upon it' ^ 
 
 With his shield the Pacificator of the North at length 
 landed at Yarmouth on the ist of July. He repaired first 
 to Lothian's hotel, as usual, but he was soon ensconced with 
 the Hamiltons. He was not suiifered to remain long. 
 While the King and Queen of Naples — still Emma's «»««« 
 sosur — were besetting him with lines of sympathy in the 
 hope that he might re-emancipate them from renewed 
 distress in the Mediterranean, Nelson was ordered, at the 
 end of July, to baffle Buonaparte once more in the Channel. 
 The meditated invasion of England terrified the nation. 
 Consols tumbled, panic prevailed ; all eyes were fixed on 
 the one man who could save his country. 
 
 ^ ' The champion boxer now hath played his part. 
 
 Let him lay down at once his gloves and art. ' 
 
 " For the preceding, cf. among other authorities Morrison MS. 589, 590, 
 596, 605 ; Nelson Letters, vol. ii. pp. 310, 313 ; Add. MS. 34,274, f, G. ; 
 Pettigrew, vol. i. p. 451 ; vol. ii. 
 
 5 Pettigrew, vol. i. pp. 440, 442 ; vol. ii. p. 45 ; Add. MS. 34,274, f. G. ; 
 and Morrison MS. under dates of April and May passim. 
 
376 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 But an unheroic interlude happened before his worn 
 frame was again called upon to bear the strain. Emma it 
 was who took him out of town. Their first ramble was to 
 Box Hill; and thence they went to the Thames. Sir 
 William, as angler, frequented the ' Bush Inn ' at Staines — 
 'a delightful place,' writes Emma, 'well situated, and a 
 good garden on the Thames.' ' We thought it right to let 
 him change the air and often.' She had been ill at ease, 
 chafing at the doubtful predicament in which devotion to 
 the lover and care for the husband increasingly placed 
 her ; ^ this little trip might afford a breathing-space. ' The 
 party,' relates Emma,* ' consisted of Sir William and Lady 
 Hamilton, the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Nelson, Miss Nelson and 
 the brave little Parker, who afterwards lost his life in that 
 bold, excellent and vigorous attack at Boulogne, where 
 such unexampled bravery was shown by our brave Nelson's 
 followers.' 
 
 ' Old Q.' * and Lord William Douglas, detained with a 
 sigh in town, forwarded their apologies in verse : — 
 
 ' So kind a letter from fair Emma's hands, 
 Our deep regret and warmest thanks commands,' 
 
 and so forth. It satirises the parson's gluttony and banters 
 his chatterbox of a wife. It depicts ' Cleopatra ' rowing 
 ' Antony ' in the boat. It dwells on the old ' Cavaliere ' 
 and his ' waterpranks,' his ' bites,' his virtu, his memories of 
 excavation, and his stock of endless anecdotes. It holds 
 up to our view poor, fatuous Hamilton as a prosy raconteur. 
 ' Or, if it were my fancy to regale 
 My ears with some long, subterraneous tale. 
 Still would I listen, at the same time picking 
 A little morsel of Staines ham and chicken ; 
 But should he boast of Herculaneum jugs, 
 Damme, I 'd beat him with White's* pewter mugs ' ; 
 
 ' This is evident from the terms of Maria Carolina's answer to her letter of 
 about this date, Eg. MS. 1616, f. 125. 
 
 ^ Cf. Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. no. Her original indorsement on the verses is 
 among the Eg. MS. 1623. 
 
 ' If any should wish to explore this accomplished roui's career, they should 
 consult a rare and amusing little book. The Piccadilly Amiulator, by J. Hur- 
 stone (1808). ' Old Q.' is called the ' D. of Quizz.' The book makes much of 
 his love of gambling, but breathes not a word about Lady Hamilton. 
 
 « The host. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 377 
 
 while little red-cheeked, sloe-eyed Charlotte, rod in hand, 
 yet shuddering at the fisherman's cruelty towards 'the 
 guileless victims of a murderous meal,' is adjured to 
 
 ' Heave a young sigh, and shun the proffered dish.' 
 
 Emma's life was now wholly Nelson's ; '^ it is a relief 
 to pass to a worthier scene. The main toils of the Channel 
 defence were over. So was Nelson's keen disappointment 
 in the deferred arrival of the Hamiltons to visit him at 
 Deal on the Amazon? Sir William had been with Greville 
 to look after the Milford estate.^ It was mid-September, 
 and that second ' little Parker,' the truest friend of the man 
 who felt that ' without friendship life is misery,' * lay dying. 
 Nelson had styled himself Parker's father. The death of 
 one so young, promising, and affectionate, desolated him, 
 and he would not be comforted. It was Parker who had 
 looked up to him with implicit belief and absolute self- 
 forgetfulness ; Parker who had addressed his letters and run 
 his and Emma's errands ; Parker who, he had recently told 
 her, ' Knows my love for you ; and to serve you, I am sure 
 he would run bare-footed to London ' ; ^ he had been called 
 her 'aide-de-camp.' Together Nelson and Emma sat in 
 the hospital and smoothed the pillows of the death-bed. 
 Together they listened to his last requests and bade him 
 still be of good cheer : for a few days there was ' a gleam 
 of hope.' On September 27 he expired, and Nelson could 
 say with truth that he 'was grieved almost to death.'® 
 The solemnity of that moment can never quite have 
 deserted Emma. 
 
 Sad, but not hopeless, Nelson was purposely kept hover- 
 ing round the Kentish coast until his final release towards 
 the close of October. Yet Emma spurred him to his duty. 
 
 * In 1804 he wrote to her of 'Old Q.' : 'I love the old man, and would give 
 up everything but you to him, and to all oux joint friends, for I can have none 
 separate from being yours.' — Morrison MS. 750. 
 
 ^ ' I came on board, but no Emma. I have 4 pictures, but I have lost the 
 original.' — Morrison MS. 621. 
 
 ' Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 61. * Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 216. 
 
 ^ Cf. the excerpt from Nelson's letter to Lady Hamilton, 'St. George, 
 March 7,' in Sotheby's catalogue of July 8, igoj. Cf. App. Part II. D. (l) (a). 
 
 « Cf. Nelson's MS. letters to Davison, Eg. MS. 2240, ff. 72, 86, 87, 97, 102, 
 103 ; Morrison MS. 622. 
 
378 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ' How often have I heard you say,' he wrote to her at this 
 very time, ' that you would not quit the deck if you came 
 near a Frenchman ? ' ^ He made use of his time to forward 
 Hamilton's interests with Pitt, on whom he called at Walmer, 
 but found 'Billy' 'fast asleep.' As he walked back, a 
 scene with Emma of the previous spring rose again before 
 him : ' The same road that we came when the carriage 
 could not come with us that night ; and all rushed into my 
 mind and brought tears into my eyes. Ah ! how different 
 to walking with such a friend as you, and Sir William, 
 and Mrs. Nelson.' In her anxiety for his return, Emma 
 actually upbraided him with being a ' time-server.' ^ The 
 Admiralty would not yield even ' one day's leave for Picca- 
 dilly.' It was the 14th before he could tell her with gusto 
 ' To-morrow week all is over — no thanks to Sir Thomas.' * 
 Just before his flag was struck, he wrote, in pain as usual, 
 ' I wish the Admiralty had my complaint ; but they have no 
 bowels, at least for me.' * 
 
 He was now at length to possess a homestead and haven 
 of his own. ' Whatever Sir Thomas Troubridge may say,' 
 he wrote to his ' guardian angel ' in August, ' out of your 
 house I have no home.'^ Even before the Copenhagen 
 conquest, he and his ' dearest friend,' at this moment with 
 poor Mrs. Maurice Nelson, the widow of Laleham,* had 
 been mooting to each other projects for such a nest. He 
 would like, he wrote, ' a good lodging in an airy situation.' "> 
 A house in Turnham Green and others had been rejected, 
 but at last one suitable had been found. Like almost 
 everything connected with them both, difficulties and a 
 dramatic moment attended its acquisition. The prelimin- 
 aries of the Peace of Amiens ^ were yet a secret, but Nelson 
 had informed himself of the coming truce, so acceptable to 
 
 ' Cf. Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 161. 
 
 2 Nelson Letters, vol. i. pp. 69, 96. He dined with Pitt, however, three days 
 before quitting the Amazon. Ihid. p. 92. 
 5 Letter dated 'Amazon, October 14, 1801,' in Mrs. Hampden's ownership. 
 
 * Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 34. 
 
 ° From Sotheby's catalogue of 1904. Nelson to Lady H., ' Medusa at tea,' 
 August 24, 1801. 
 " Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 62. ' Morrison MS. 570. 
 
 * The treaty itself was not signed till the following March. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE* MERTON 379 
 
 him. Before its ratification had been divulged, Merton 
 Place was bought — in the general depression — for the low 
 sum of six thousand pounds. But even this amount of 
 capital was not easy for Nelson to raise, and the enthusi- 
 astic Davison — one of the few friends to whom Nelson 
 would ever lie under the slightest obligation — lent him the 
 money.^ Sir William seems to have objected to Emma's 
 town hospitality to her relations. Nelson found in this an 
 additional reason for purchasing a roof-tree which he de- 
 sired her to treat as her own.^ ' I received your kind 
 letters last evening,' he wrote to her on this and other 
 heads, ' and in many parts they pleased and made me 
 sad. So life is chequered, and if the good predominates, 
 then we are called happy. I trust the farm will make 
 you more so than a dull London life. Make what use 
 you please of it. It is as much yours as if you bought 
 it. Therefore, if your relative cannot stay in your house 
 in town, surely Sir William can have no objection to your 
 taking to the farm [her relation] : the pride of the Hamiltons 
 surely cannot be hurt by settling down with any of your 
 relations ; you have surely as much right for your relations 
 to come into the house as his could have.'* 
 
 The whole afifair was left entirely to Emma's manage- 
 ment. She pelted Nelson's solicitor, Hazlewood, with 
 letters, begging him to hurry forward the arrangements, 
 and pressing the proprietor, Mr. Graves,* to oblige Lord 
 Nelson's 'anxiety.' Builders and painters were in the 
 house immediately, to fit it for the hero's reception. The 
 indispensable Mrs. Cadogan, now in charge of Nelson's 
 new 'Peer's robe,'^ bustled in and out, covered to the elbows 
 with brickdust. Emma set to work with a will, organising, 
 ordering, preparing: in rough housework she delighted. She 
 
 ^ For the foregoing cf. Morrison MS. 6ll, 620, 622; Eg. MS. 2240, f. 106. 
 
 2 AH the letters henceforward to Lady Hamilton at Merton are addressed to 
 her 'at Viscount Nelson's, Merton Place. ' 
 
 2 Cf. excerpt from a striking letter — 'Amazon, September 23, 1801' — from 
 Nelson to Emma in Sotheby's catalogue for July 8, 1905. 
 
 * Earlier in the eighteenth century it had belonged to the Chittys. Up to a 
 few years before the purchase by Nelson, the house had always gone with the 
 rectory. Cf. Lysons's Environs of London, supplement 1st edn., p. 46. 
 
 " Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 105. 
 
38o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 and her mother set up pigstyes, arranged the farm, stocked 
 with fish the streamlet, spanned by its pretty Italian bridge. 
 She procured the boat in which Nelson had promised 
 she should row him on that miniature ' Nile,' which was 
 really the Wandle. Day after day they slaved — glad to 
 be quit of the artificial life in Piccadilly — so that all 
 might be spick and span within the few weeks before 
 the 22nd of October, the great day of Nelson's arrival. 
 The whole village was eager to greet him. All the neigh- 
 bours, the musical Goldsmids,^ the rustic Halfhides, the 
 literary Perrys, the Parratts, the Newtons, the Pattersons, 
 and Lancasters,* were proud of the newcomers. Never had 
 Merton experienced such excitement since one of the first 
 Parliaments had there told Henry III. that the 'laws of 
 England' could not be changed. There, too, the same 
 sovereign had concluded his peace with the Dauphin — a 
 good augury for the present moment. Nelson wanted to 
 defray all the annual expenses, but Sir William insisted on 
 an equal division, and rigorous accounts were kept which 
 still remain. 
 
 ' I have lived with our dear Emma several years,' he jests 
 in a letter to Nelson, ' I know her merit, have a great 
 opinion of the head and heart God Almighty has been 
 pleased to give her, but a seaman alone could have given 
 a fine woman full power to choose and fit up a residence 
 for him, without seeing it himself. You are in luck, for on 
 my conscience, I verily believe that a place so suitable to 
 your views could not have been found and at so cheap a 
 ■ rate. For, if you stay away three days longer, I do not 
 think you can have any wish but you will find it compleated 
 here. And then the bargain was fortunately struck three 
 days before an idea of peace got about. Now, every estate 
 in this neighbourhood has increased in value, and you might 
 get a thousand pounds for your bargain. ... I never saw 
 so many conveniences united in so small a compass. You 
 have nothing but to come and to enjoy immediately. You 
 
 ^ The two daughters had already played and sung with Emma. Cf. London 
 newspapers of September 29. Abraham Goldsmid, financier and philanthropist 
 of Morden, and his brother of Roehampton, were great supporters of Pitt and 
 much liked and trusted by the King. They both ended in suicide. 
 
 " Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 52. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 381 
 
 have a good mile of pleasant dry walk around your farm. 
 It would make you laugh to see Emma and her mother 
 fitting up pigstyes and hencoops, and already the Canal is 
 enlivened with ducks, and the cock is strutting with his hen 
 about the walks.' ^ 
 
 Hamilton still retained the house in Piccadilly ; he was 
 now living above his means ; as fast as money came in, the 
 ' housekeeping draughts ' drew it out. His grand entertain- 
 ments had proved a bad investment.^ One cannot help 
 smiling when Nelson tells Emma during her Merton pre- 
 parations, ' You will make us rich with your economies.' * 
 
 When Nelson at length drove down from London in his 
 postchaise to this suburban land of promise, it was under a 
 triumphal arch that he entered it, while at night the village 
 was illuminated.* Here at last, and in the ' piping ' times 
 of peace, the strange Tria juncta in uno were re-united ; 
 what Nelson had longed for had come to pass. Here, too, 
 the man who loved retirement and privacy might hope to 
 enjoy them ; ' Oh ! how I hate to be stared at ! ' had been 
 his ejaculation but two months before.* And, above all, 
 here he hoped to have Horatia with them in their walks, 
 and to see her christened.® 
 
 One of the first visitors was his simple old father,'' who 
 maintained a friendly correspondence with Emma.* By the 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 638, Hamilton to Nelson, October 16, 1 801 ; and cf. ibid. 
 and Nelson Letters, passim, under date of about that month. Some of my 
 information comes also from autographs in private Jiands. Sir William himself 
 gravely discussed as to whether barbel or pike should be excluded from the 
 stream, and Nelson as gravely decided the point against the latter. 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 633. ^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 102. 
 
 * Add. MS. 34,989, f. Sl> and cf. newspapers of date. 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 47. 'I will not be shewn like a beast, ^ ibid. 
 p. 55 and ibid. p. 85. ° Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 62. 
 
 ' Eg. MS. 2240, f. 109. Nelson allowed him ;^5D0 a year, and in this letter 
 he wishes him to have it on November 28 in advance. He had written to con- 
 gratulate his son on the return of himself and peace. ' In the words of an 
 Apostle, you have fought a good fight.' He excused himself for keeping lonely 
 Lady Nelson company. Mprrison MS. 630. For Nelson's view of this ' de- 
 testable subject,' cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. pp. 63, 105. A further letter from 
 him to Nelson of December 5, 1801, was sold at Sotheby's this summer. 
 
 8 Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 189. The first letter of the Rev. Edmund 
 Nelson of this year. He wrote again in December about a lad that he had 
 recommended. He hopes she ' will celebrate with songs of praise the return 
 of Christmas.' — Morrison MS. 645. 
 
382 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 close of the year the William Nelsons also stayed at Merton 
 to rejoin their 'jewel ' of a daughter.^ 
 
 How smoothly and pleasantly things proceeded at first 
 may be gleaned from Emma's further new letters to Mrs. 
 William Nelson (then staying in Stafford Street), which 
 find a place in the Appendix. Emma occasionally drives 
 into London for ' shopping parties ' (shops she could never 
 resist) with Nelson's sister-in-law. 
 
 No sooner had Nelson returned, than they all went 
 together to beg a half-holiday for Charlotte. — 'All girls 
 pale before Charlotte ' ; and her classmate, a Miss Fuss, is 
 ' more stupid than ever, I think.' — Charlotte came for her 
 Exeat and fished with Sir William in the 'Nile': they 
 caught three large pike. She helped him and Nelson on 
 with their great-coats, ' so now I have nothing to do.' ' Dear 
 Horace,' whose birthday Nelson always remembered,^ must 
 soon come also. Nelson was proud of Charlotte and of her 
 ' improvement' under Emma's directions. Emma, too, was 
 proud of her r61e as governess. Charlotte turned over the 
 prayers for the great little man in church. They were all 
 regular church-goers. (Had not Nelson sincerely written 
 to her earlier that they would do nothing but good in their 
 village, and set ' an example of godly life ' ?) * Nelson and 
 Sir William were the ' greatest friends in the world.' (Did 
 he ever, one wonders, call him ' my uncle ' ?) The ' share- 
 and-share alike' arrangement answered admirably — 'it comes 
 easy to booth partys.' They none of them cared to visit 
 much, though all were most kind in inviting them. ' Our 
 next door neighbours, Mr. Halfhide and his familly, wou'd 
 give us half of all they have, very pleasant people, and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Newton allso ; but I like Mrs. Halfhide very 
 much indeed. She sent Charlotte grapes.' As for Nelson, 
 
 * Charlotte : I have seen an autograph letter from Emma inviting Dr. Fisher 
 of Doctors' Commons to meet them for him. Cf. jiost, chap. xiv. 
 
 ^ Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 107. 
 
 ^ Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 62. ' We will set an example of good- 
 ness to the under parishioners.' He wished to buy everything from the 
 villagers, and did so, as the very high accounts (in the Morrison MS.) testify. 
 This very October, Admiral Lutwidge's wife had agreed with Nelson that Lady 
 H. was an ' angel ' : — ' In short she adores you, but who does not? You are so 
 kind, so good to everybody; old, young, rich or poor, it is the same thing.' 
 — Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 78. 
 
PICCADILLY TO 'PARADISE' MERTON 383 
 
 he was 'very happy': — ' Indeed we all make it our con- 
 stant business to make him happy. He is better now, but 
 not well yet' ' He has frequent sickness, and is Low, and 
 he throws himself on the sofa tired and says, " / am worn 
 out"' She hopes ' we shall get him up ' — a phrase reminiscent 
 of the laundry. 
 
 Hamilton himself averred to Greville that he too was 
 quite satisfied. The early hours and fresh air agreed with 
 him : he could run into town easily for his hobbies ; he 
 was cataloguing his books ; he still hoped against hope that 
 Addington would help him.^ 
 
 Eden at length without a serpent — at least so Nelson 
 and Emma imagined. Merton idyllicised them. ' Dear, 
 dear Merton ! ' If only baby Horatia could be there (and 
 soon she was) it would be perfect. As she was to express 
 it in the last letter she could ever forward to him, and 
 which he was never able to read — ' Paradise Merton ; for 
 when you are there it will be paradise.' ^ 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 642, December S- 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 845. The actual transfer of all Merton was not completed 
 till the beginning of 1803. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 EXIT 'NESTOR' 
 
 January 1802 — May 1803 
 
 The winding high-road on the right of Wimbledon towards 
 Epsom leads to what once was the Merton that Nelson and 
 Emma loved. A sordid modern street is now its main 
 approach, but there are still traces of the quaint old inns ^ 
 and houses that jutted in and out of lanes and hedgerows. 
 The house that many a pilgrim thinks a piece of the old 
 structure is really the remains of Mr. Halfhide's or Mr. 
 Newton's. Through a side road is found the sole relic of 
 Merton Place that has braved the ravages of time and 
 steam. Opposite a small railway station, and near a timber- 
 yard, stands the ruin of an ivied and castellated gate, through 
 which the stream meanders on which Emma would row her 
 hero, around which the small Horatia played, in which 
 Charlotte and Horatio fished ; while on its banks Nelson 
 planted a mulberry-tree that Emma fondly vaunted would 
 rival Shakespeare's. Goldsmid's Georgian house still stands; 
 but Merton Place has vanished into the vista of crumbled 
 yet unforgotten things. The ancient church, however, though 
 enlarged and well restored, is much the same. Its church- 
 yard still shows familiar names — Thomas Bowen, and the 
 Smiths who were to be poor Emma's last befrienders. In the 
 south aisle remains an old Venetian picture of the Deposition 
 — the gift, doubtless, of Emma or Sir William.^ The very 
 pew on which they sat is still kept in the vestry. The 
 hatchment with Nelson's bearings, which Emma presented 
 after Trafalgar, still hangs in the nave. The fine old house 
 — ' New Place,' which they must have passed so often — still 
 
 ' The Nag's Head and Nelson Arms. 
 
 2 The 1792 edition of Lysons's Environs makes no mention of this picture, 
 which it certainly would have done had it then been there. 
 384 
 
EXIT 'NESTOR' 385 
 
 fronts the church porch. Even when they were there, the 
 famous Priory where the great Becket was educated, and 
 round which Merton's feudal memories clustered, had been 
 replaced by calico factories. How eagerly must Nelson 
 have awaited a glimpse even of these, when he drove up 
 along the Portsmouth road for his last brief sojourn in the 
 home of his heart ; how wistfully must he have passed them, 
 when the door clicked to, and off he rattled to eternity ! ^ 
 
 The two snakes in the grass of ' Paradise ' Merton were 
 lavishness and its contrast, Greville. 
 
 Nelson's liberality was as unbounded as abused ; even his 
 skin-flint brother William begged him to refrain in his own 
 favour.* Applications rained from all quarters. A York- 
 shireman wrote and said he would be pleased to receive 
 ;^300. 'Are these people mad?' sighed the hero, 'or do 
 they take me quite for a fool ? ' ^ He was always bestowing 
 handsome presents, while for his many regular benefactions 
 he had sometimes to draw on Davison- And Emma's open- 
 handedness was not far behindhand. She scattered broad- 
 cast to her relations, to the poor, deserving or the reverse. 
 The Connors soon began to prey on her anticipated means. 
 Money burned a hole in her pocket, and she never stopped 
 to think of the future. Before the year closed she left a 
 note from Coutts for her husband on her toilet-table to the 
 effect that her ladyship's balance was now twelve shillings.* 
 Greville must have shuddered when his uncle forwarded il 
 to him. ' Sensibility ' was always over-drawing its banking 
 account, and ' Nature ' continually forestalling expectations. 
 Added to largesse was some extravagance, but not to the 
 degree that has often been put forward : it was by no means 
 enormous, and in these days might be considered normal 
 for her husband's position.^ Emma was in a holiday mood. 
 
 1 The best picture of Merton Place is by Locker, to whom Lady Hamilton 
 gave a plan in Nelson's autograph of the blockade of Cadiz, drawn a short time 
 before he lost his arm. Cf. Sotheby's catalogue of a sale in 1904. In this 
 picture the figures walking in the garden are Lady Hamilton, Horatia, and the 
 young Horatio Nelson. " Cf. Morrison MS. 664. 
 
 * Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 103. * Morrison MS. 694. 
 
 " Cf. inter alia the jewellery bill given in the Appendix, Part n. C. (14). 
 Another bill for jewellery was sold with the catalogue of Emma's effects in 1808 
 this year at Sotheby's. 
 
 2 B 
 
386 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Hamilton would not brace himself to the real retrenchment 
 of giving up the London house, nor would Emma forgo 
 superfluities. Merton, though with intervals of quiet, became 
 open house. Nelson's sisters, with their families — the 
 Boltons with six, the Matchams with eight, his brother, 
 still hunting for preferment, with his ' precious ' Charlotte, 
 and little Horatio, the heir ; old naval friends, including 
 ' poor little fatherless Fady,' ^ whom, it will be remembered, 
 Emma tended in 1798.^ Emma's kindred, Italian singers, 
 the theatrical and musical Mrs. Lind, Mrs. Billington, and 
 Mrs. Denis ; * ' Old Q.' from Richmond, Wolcot the satirist, 
 Hayley from Felpham, Dr. Fisher from Doctors' Commons ; 
 Admiralty big-wigs, disgusted officials, noisy journalists, 
 foreign bearers of Nelson's decorations, the Abb6 Camp- 
 bell,* Prince Castelcicala the Neapolitan ambassador,^ the 
 Marquis Schinato,^ Maria Carolina's own son, Prince 
 Leopold — all were indiscriminately welcomed. It was a 
 menagerie. The Tysons, too, were now at Woolwich, and 
 to them, as Nelson's attached adherents, Emma was all 
 attention. She chaperoned their young people to balls.'^ 
 She healed their conjugal differences : Mrs. Tyson was 
 never so happy as at Merton, when her dear husband was 
 restored to her, and she could at last ' take the sacrament 
 with a composed mindl and ' bless dear Lady Hamilton.' 
 Benevolence, hospitality, and racket each mingled in the 
 miscellany, and all of them tended to outrun the constable. 
 The cellar was stocked with wine. Only last September 
 Nelson had ordered three hundred dozen for the Amazon, 
 and this, with much else, may have been transferred from 
 the ship to the home. When, seven years later, Emma's 
 
 1 Cf. chap. i. 
 
 ^ He was the bearer of letters from Emma to Nelson at Toulon in 1804. Cf, 
 Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 10. ' He appears to have grown a fine young man.' 
 
 ' Mrs. Denis was herself nSe Lind, and the two famihes were to intermarry 
 again in 1810. Cf. Morrison MS. 994. 
 
 * This was the mysterious ' Monk ' who, the Memoirs of Lady Hamilton 
 (1815) declared, was always in Emma's train. 
 
 ^ Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 54. 
 
 " For these last two, cf. Morrison MS. 648 ; Add. MS. 34,992, f. 192, from 
 Dr. Fisher to Lady Hamilton, 1806. 
 
 ' One of them given by the Rev. S. Horsley, the grandfather of the late 
 Royal Academician. Cf. Morrison MS. 696. 
 
EXIT 'NESTOR' 387 
 
 affairs were liquidated, the valuation of the cellar amounted 
 to no less than two thousand pounds. 
 
 Nelson, who had protested against large gatherings, 
 affected to enjoy Liberty Hall ; all that his Emma com- 
 manded was exemplary. And, indeed, as appears from the 
 accounts preserved in the Morrison autographs, the profusion 
 was far greater in London.i allowing for the expenditure of 
 
 ^ The accounts of this summer in Appendix D. of the Morrison Collection 
 vary from about £2,"] at Merton to as much (twice) as ;^ioo per week at Picca- 
 dilly (including Merton expenses also). These were continued for a week after 
 Hamilton's death by Greville as his executor. Here is a specimen of a high 
 week, but most are merely for £,e,'] or so. It comes, of course, from the Mor- 
 rison MS., and it should be noticed that it includes large items for stores and 
 arrears of bills which do not recur and were not current expenditure. It is very 
 different, however, from the Edgware Row days of ' Poor man, one halfpenny. ' 
 
 ^ From the nth to the nth October 1802. 
 
 Mr. Haines, Poulterer, £T o (> 
 
 Mr. Stinton, Grocer 4 19 8 
 
 Mr. Coleman, Fishmonger, 408 
 
 Mr. Wyld, Cheesemonger, 2 7 8J 
 
 Mr. Scott, for brown stout 250 
 
 Coachman, for turnpike and expenses at different times 
 
 from Merton to London, etc., o 15 7 
 
 Mr. Gadd, Baker, . 074 
 
 Mr. Cummins, for washing, 072 
 
 Mr. White, for 4 lbs. coffee sent to Merton, . . . 0120 
 
 To Richard, for turnpike at different times, , . . o 13 11 
 
 Mr. Lucas, for milk, o 2 oj 
 
 Mr. Perry, Pastry Cook 10 10 9 
 
 Mr. Greenfield, Butcher at Merton, . . . . 8 12 lo^ 
 
 Mr. Cribb, for vegetables at Merton, . . . . 2136 
 
 Mr. Skelton, Baker at Merton, i 17 o 
 
 Mr. Boyes, for letters at Merton, o i6 4 
 
 Mr. Woodman, chandler shop at Merton, . . . o 12 8J 
 
 Mr. Woodman, for charcoal, etc., 15 5 10 
 
 Mr. Foottit, for malt, hops, etc., 18 15 o 
 
 Mr. Whitmore, for poultry, I 16 3 
 
 Mr. Stone, Brandy Merchant, 13 i o 
 
 Mr. Belthese, for fruit sent to Merton, .... i i o 
 
 Paid for carriage and porterage for 4 hampers, . . 309 
 
 ;^iil 13 4 
 
 Expended at Merton by Mrs. Cadogan 4 o 10 
 
 Expended in the town house from 4th to nth October, . i 14 oj 
 
 ;^II7 8 2i 
 Last week's account brought over 66 7 ij 
 
 Total expended from 27th September to nth October, . £1%^ 15 4 
 (Paid Mr. White, October 19, N. & B., £<ji 17s. Sd.) 
 
388 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 » 
 
 both houses. The joint weekly expenses at Merton were often 
 no higher than some £io. Hamilton, however, whose own 
 extravagance contributed, though he justified it by hopes from 
 Addington, soon began to murmur. Greville, the monitor, 
 was at his elbow. The heir's prospects were being im- 
 perilled by that very Emma whose thrift he had first incul- 
 cated and extolled ; it was too bad j he must protect his old 
 uncle, who protested to him that only fear of an ' explosion ' 
 which might destroy his best friend's comfort stopped his 
 rebellion against a ' nonsensical world ' invading his quiet.^ 
 Before the year was out he even meditated an amicable 
 separation. He did not complain ; he still loved her. But 
 he could not but perceive that her whole time and attention 
 were bestowed on Nelson and ' his interest' Therefore (and 
 Greville's voice recurs in what follows), after his hard fag at 
 Naples, at his waning age, and under the circumstances, a 
 wise and well-concerted separation might be preferable to 
 ' nonsense ' and silly altercations. He had not long to live, 
 and ' every moment was precious ' to him. He only wanted 
 to be left alone at Staines, or Christie's, the Tuesday Club, 
 the Literary Society, and the British Museum. ' Nestor ' con- 
 tinued a philosopher. They might still get on well enough 
 apart, or together, if Emma would but consult the comfort of 
 a worn-out diplomatist and virtuoso : ' I am arrived at the age 
 when some repose is really necessary, and I promised myself 
 a quiet home, and although I was sensible, and I said so 
 when I married, that I should be superannuated when my 
 wife would be in her full beauty and vigour of youth ; that 
 time is arrived, and we must make the best of it for the 
 comfort of both parties.' He ' well knew ' the ' purity of 
 Lord Nelson's friendship ' for them both. Nelson was their 
 best friend, and it would pain him deeply to disturb his life 
 or hurt his feelings. 'There is no time for nonsense or 
 trifling. I know and admire your talents and many excel- 
 lent qualities, but I am not blind to your defects, and con- 
 fess having many myself ; therefore, let us bear and forbear, 
 for God's sake.' ^ 
 
 The voice of this last appeal is that of the kindly old 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 651. ^ Morrison MS. 684, and cf. 679, 680. 
 
EXIT 'NESTOR' 389 
 
 epicurean, and not of the calculating cynic. Emma, erring 
 Emma, responded to it, and peace was restored for the few 
 months remaining. So far, our entire sympathy must be 
 with the worried and injured Hamilton. But ere this his 
 necessities, and the cunning use to which his nephew seems 
 to have put them, had prompted a plan which must lower 
 him in our estimation. 
 
 As a rule, when Greville was asked (and he often was) 
 to Merton, he politely excused himself. So anxious was 
 Sir William for his presence that he actually assured 
 him of Nelson's 'love,'^ whereas Nelson, as we know, 
 misliked the cold-blooded caster -off of his paragon. 
 Greville, however, perpetually sent his warmest messages to 
 the whole party, including his old acquaintance Mrs. 
 Cadogan. With Greville, by hook or crook, a strapge 
 scheme was now to be concocted. Failing the princely aid 
 of the previous spring, a bargain after his own heart was 
 being revived. 
 
 It will be recollected that Beckford, wearied of solitary 
 magnificence, had offered Sir William a large annuity if he 
 could induce royalty to grant a peerage to Hamilton with a 
 reversion to himself. The Marquis of Douglas, heir of the 
 ninth Duke of Hamilton and head of the clan, had shown 
 symptoms of attachment to Euphemia, Beckford's daugh- 
 ter, whom in the end he married. If this attachment could 
 be played upon for the purpose by the wary diplomatist, 
 Beckford's object and Hamilton's might be secured. For 
 such a plum Beckford now proposed a life annuity of ^£"2000 
 that his kinsman might maintain the dignity of the peerage, 
 and after his death one of £Soo to Emma ; while, as a 
 bribe to ministers, Beckford's ' two sure seats ' were to be at 
 their disposal. 
 
 Hamilton opened his mind the more freely to his ' dear 
 Marquis ' on this ' delicate ' business since there existed a 
 ' very remarkable sympathy between them.' Beckford had 
 actually sent his West India agent to Merton for the manage- 
 ment of this affair. Sir William ridiculed the mere notion 
 of himself coveting such empty honours. He might, how- 
 ever, be useful to his friends, and no /clai need attend the 
 ' Morrison MS. 642. 
 
390 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 transaction. Beckford had ' strong claims on Government.' 
 An idea had struck Hamilton that the Marquis might one 
 day be intimately connected with the Fonthill family. He 
 did not demand definite answers ; he was ' sensible of its 
 being a delicate point,' yet he could not help flattering him- 
 self that ' the good Duke of H. and myself would readily 
 undertake anything for Emma's and my advantage, pro- 
 vided it could be done sans vous compromettre trap' The 
 Marquis promptly answered his kinsman's ' very kind and 
 confidential letter from Merton ' by a gentle refusal. He 
 found town very empty, but a select few, his books, papers, 
 and pictures, contented him. As to the matter in hand, it 
 was, he feared, quite impracticable. With regard to his own 
 inclinations, ' any symptoms of any sort "which might have" 
 appeared in any part of his family ' were unknown to and 
 unencouraged by him. Hamilton must convey every kind 
 expression to Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton ; to himself 
 he need not name his regard, and he was and ever should be 
 his afiectionate friend.^ 
 
 Poor ' Nestor ' ! To this pass have art and ambassador- 
 ship brought him. And, alas, poor Emma, that she, too, 
 should enlist her Nelson in such a service ! 
 
 This disappointment happened in the summer, but in 
 the spring an event occurred which cast real gloom over the 
 Merton household. In April died, at his favourite Bath, the 
 well-loved father, that kindly, upright English clergyman, 
 whom his great son fondly cherished, and whom he had 
 actually wished to be a permanent inmate of the household. 
 Nelson's health immediately grew worse.^ His first care, 
 however, was for others, for his brother and sisters and his 
 father's old man-servant.* Condolences poured in upon him ; 
 nor was Emma the least grief-stricken, for this truly Chris- 
 tian soul had treated her with chivalrous charity, had wholly 
 refrained from cruel speculations, and had rather sought to 
 raise the thoughts of this strange incomer into Horatio's 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 673, 674, 678. 
 
 ^ Cf. Mrs. Bolton's letter from Cranswick to Lady Hamilton, Morrison 
 MS. 666. He had had to consult an oculist as to an operation on his eye. For 
 his general health also he now consulted his friend and correspondent Dr. 
 Moseley. Cf. excerpts from Sotheby's catalogue of July 8, 1905. 
 
 « Cf. Eg. MS. 2240, ff. 127, 137. 
 
EXIT 'NESTOR' 391 
 
 life.'^ While the brother flattered for gain, while every appli- 
 cation for Nelson's favour came through her, she had known 
 and felt that Nelson's father, who refused to realise the 
 truth, was wholly good as well as godly. She was in 
 London at the time, and what she wrote has not survived. 
 Sir William's letter has. It is characteristic of his ' philo- 
 sophy ' — that of ' the best of all possible worlds' : — 
 
 'Piccadilly, April 28, 1802. 
 ' . . . Emma says I must write a letter to you of condol- 
 ence for the heavy loss your lordship has suffered. When 
 persons in the prime of life are carried off by accident or 
 sickness — or what is, I believe, oftener the case, by the 
 ignorance and mistakes of the physicians — then, indeed, 
 there is reason to lament. But, as in the case of your good 
 father, the lamp was suffered to burn out fairly, and that his 
 sufferings were not great ; and that by his son's glorious and 
 unparalleled successes, he saw his family ennobled, and with 
 the probability in time of its being amply rewarded, as it 
 ought to have been long ago — his mind could not be 
 troubled, in his latter moments, on account of the family he 
 left behind him. And as to his own peace of mind at the 
 moment of his dissolution, there can be no doubt, among 
 those who ever had the honour of his acquaintance. . . .' ^ 
 
 Before the blow, however, had fallen that saddened 
 Merton, a musical party was given at which Braham, who 
 was afterwards to sing, amid furore, the ' Death of Nelson,' 
 was the chief performer. 
 
 Nelson had greatly offended a society that longed to 
 lionise him by sequestering himself from it altogether. 
 Except at the assemblies of the Hamiltons' friends, he 
 seldom figured at all, and the outraged Lady Nelson's 
 advocates added this to their weightier reproaches against 
 the ' horrid ' woman at Merton. He preferred even 
 Bohemian routs to the solemnities of Downing Street and 
 the frivolities of Mayfair, though he disliked all gatherings 
 but those of intimate friends. 
 
 Among the guests of this evening was their old acquaint- 
 
 ' Cf. his Christmas letter to her of 1801 (dated January 7, I802), Nelson 
 Letters, vol. i. p. 191. " Ibid., vol. ii. p. 220. 
 
392 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ance Sir Gilbert Elliot, formerly of Vienna. He was 
 disgusted at the interior with its trophies and portraits, but, 
 above all, with Emma herself. Doubtless the sight of him 
 put her in her most self-assertive vein. The reader must 
 form his own judgment; but at any rate Elliot, in this 
 record, is quite wrong in supposing that the Hamiltons 
 were 'living on' Nelson. The Merton accounts in the 
 Morrison Collection prove that all expenses were scrupu- 
 lously shared. And when he brands Emma's effusiveness 
 to Nelson as flattery, what would he have said had he been 
 able, as we are, to read Nelson's own outpourings to Emma? 
 If hers was 'flattery,' then still more was his. But Elliot 
 was no psychologist, nor had he any insight into such 
 emotional temperaments. 
 
 ' . . . The whole establishment and way of life is such as 
 to make me angry as well as melancholy ; but I cannot alter 
 it. I do not think myself obliged or at liberty to quarrel 
 with him for his weakness, though nothing shall ever induce 
 me to give the smallest countenance to Lady Hamilton. 
 She looks eventually to the chance of marriage. ... In the 
 meanwhile, she. Sir William, and the whole set of them are 
 living with him at his expense. She is in high looks, but 
 more imniense than ever. She goes on cramming Nelson 
 with trowelfuls of flattery, which he goes on taking as 
 quietly as a child does pap. The love she makes to him is 
 not only ridiculous, but disgusting. Not only the rooms, 
 but the whole house, staircase and all, are covered with 
 nothing but pictures of her and him, of all sizes and sorts, 
 and representations of his naval actions, coats of arms, 
 pieces of plate in his honour, the flagstaff of L Orient, etc., 
 an excess of vanity which counteracts its own purpose. If 
 it was Lady H.'s house, there might be a pretence for it. 
 To make his own a mere looking-glass to view himself all 
 day is bad taste. Braham, the celebrated Jew singer, per- 
 formed with Lady H. She is horrid, but he entertained 
 me in spite of her. Lord Nelson explained to me a little 
 the sort of blame imputed to Sir Hyde Parker for 
 Copenhagen. . . i'^ 
 
 ' Elliot Memoirs, vol. ii. pp. 242 et seq. It should be noticed that not only 
 is Elliot here inaccurate as to facts, but in his account of Hamilton's provision 
 for Emma by his will in the following year. Ibid. p. 283. 
 
EXIT 'NESTOR' 393 
 
 It was certainly a queer household for seemly self- 
 importance to enter. Without question, there was warrant 
 for worse than such superficial strictures as those in which 
 Elliot here indulged. Emma had deteriorated, and she 
 had never fitted the formalities of English drawing-rooms. 
 Average folk, as will be seen hereafter, she charmed. But 
 Elliot was too prejudiced to be either accurate or discrimi- 
 nating. Emma was wholly offensive to him, and the 
 patronising air of one whom Braham's pathos ' entertained ' 
 may, after its own manner, have been offensive also. Sir 
 Gilbert himself was eminently a type of that ' good taste ' 
 which restricts itself to caste, and eschews good-fellowship. 
 His looks on this occasion must have been vinegar, and can 
 have ill accorded with that natural sweetness of expression 
 which, by consent of friend and foe alike, distinguished 
 Emma from first to last. Officialism had set itself against 
 Nelson like a flint, and, likely enough, his devotee was 
 supercilious to the enemy, whom probably she mimicked 
 after he had gone, as she certainly used to mimic Nelson's 
 fussy brother.^ Still, however it may be deplored, the 
 stubborn fact remains that Britain's deliverer loved this 
 woman's reality, and misliked the Elliots of this world ; 
 that against him were arrayed the pettiest forces at home 
 and the mightiest abroad. Nelson endures in history, and 
 with him Emma, while the phantom of prim diplomacy has 
 long receded into the thinnest air possible. To appraise 
 Emma, not defence but understanding is requisite. Anti- 
 pathy, like flattery, is the worst critic; and pedantic 
 antipathy is perhaps its worst form. Burleigh would have 
 made a bad judge of the Queen of Scots, and Cicero of 
 Cleopatra. 
 
 Emma's ' immensity' had been for some time in evidence, 
 and was grossened in the caricatures. She affected to 
 think that fatness became her fine stature and large pro- 
 portions. It was due, partly, to the porter^ which she 
 drank for the sake of her voice, and which, as appears in 
 
 ' Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 143. — ' You make me laugh when you imitate 
 the Doctor.' 
 
 '^ Cf. Madame Le Brun's Memoirs, pp. 69 et seq. In the following year, 
 after a private performance of the 'Attitudes' for the Dukes of Berri and 
 Bourbon, she saw her take three bottles at supper. Their size is not mentioned. 
 
394 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the earlier letters of the Morrison Collection, had been for- 
 warded by Greville to his uncle long before Emma had 
 entered his life at Naples. 
 
 In the June of this year, too, died Admiral Sir John Willet- 
 Payne, who, after sitting in Parliament, had for some time 
 been treasurer of Greenwich Hospital. Nelson must have 
 known him, and curiosity is aroused as to whether Emma 
 ever saw her first tempter again, and what he thought of 
 her marvellous career. 
 
 And in November was to flicker out that sensitive genius 
 and singular being to whom Emma had been so beholden 
 in her girlhood. Romney, wasting with melancholy, had 
 resought the refuge of the Kendal roof-tree and the minis- 
 tering wife so long neglected.^ In one of his conversations 
 with Hayley, he told him that he had always studied 
 ' Sensibility ' by observing the fibrous lines around the 
 mouth. It was Emma's mouth that had been a revelation 
 to him. One cannot help wishing that some final corre- 
 spondence between them may one day be discovered. 
 
 For the summer, Hamilton and Greville had planned a 
 long driving tour to the property at Milford, where the 
 nephew and steward was anxious to show his uncle the 
 best work of his life — a flourishing and contented settle- 
 ment of labourers. Emma and Nelson, accompanied them 
 on the Welsh trip, which soon turned into a fresh triumphal 
 progress for the hero of the Nile and of Copenhagen, who 
 shamed the Government by remaining a Vice-Admiral. 
 Before they started, William Nelson, who had just returned 
 from 'bowing to Billy Pitt'^ at Cambridge, stayed at 
 Merton, and he, his wife and their young Horatio, were 
 added to the group of travellers. It is strange on this 
 occasion to find the triple alliance of Nelson and the 
 Hamiltons reinforced by Greville, before whom, Nelson told 
 Emma, conversation must be restrained ; in his official 
 presence they could not speak freely ' of kings and queens.' 
 This journey, like its continental predecessor, was certainly 
 not calculated to allay irritation in high places. 
 
 They started on the 9th of July with Box Hill once more 
 
 1 For thirty-six years, with one interval in 1767. 
 ^ Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 258. 
 
G. ROMNEY. 
 From a rare engravmg by Madame Boiry after the medallion by Alpftonso Hayley. 
 
EXIT 'NESTOR' 395 
 
 — ' a pretty place, and we are all very happy.' ^ They went 
 on to Oxford, where Nelson received the freedom of the 
 city in a fine box to the music of finer orations, and where 
 the Matchams joined the caravan. It was here that on a 
 visit to Blenheim the Marlboroughs infuriated Emma by 
 declining to receive her. She was determined to appeal, for 
 herself and her hero, to the Caesar of the people. She per- 
 formed her music both for the select and the vulgar. Every- 
 where Emma beat the big drum of popular enthusiasm. The 
 long high-roads, the swarming streets, the eager villages 
 from Burford to Gloucester, from Gloucester to Ross, from 
 Ross to Monmouth, Caermarthen and Milford, from Mil- 
 ford to Swansea, from Swansea to Cardiff, were thronged 
 with stentorian admirers. On the return journey, from 
 Cardiff to Newport and Chepstow, and so to Monmouth 
 again, on to Hereford, Leominster, Tenbury, Worcester, 
 Birmingham, Warwick, Coventry, Dunstable, Watford, and 
 Brentford,^ all turned out like one man to cheer the pos- 
 tilioned carriages. Bells were rung, factories* and theatres 
 visited, addresses read, speeches made, the National 
 Anthem and Rule Britannia sung by the shouting crowds. 
 Wherever they went, the neighbouring magnates loaded 
 Nelson and his friends with invitations, and Payne-Knight 
 implored Emma for a visit.* And everywhere this exuberant 
 daughter of democracy led and swelled the chorus. Her 
 Nelson should ' be first.' ' Hip, hip, hip ! ' ' God Save the 
 King ! ' ' Long live Nelson, Britain's Pride ! ' 
 
 ' Join we great Nelson's name 
 First on the roll of fame, 
 
 Him let us sing ; 
 Spread we his praise around, 
 Honour of British ground. 
 Who made Nile's shores resound — 
 God save the King ! ' 
 
 1 Eg. MS. 2240, f. 139, Nelson to Davison. 
 
 ^ Cf. the accounts of this journey (of which the expenses were again strictly 
 shared) preserved in the Morrison MS. 401-405. 
 
 ' Especially Chamberlain's china manufactory at Worcester. 
 
 ■* Morrison MS. 685, August 15. At Chepstow the Rev. C. Este, a devout 
 worshipper both of Emma and Nelson, joined them, and afterwards told Emma 
 that, revisiting the bridge there, he had met a ' poor sailor ' who had ' served ' 
 under ' my Lord.' On this occasion, at Bath, he also met Captain Bowen. 
 
396 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 It was Naples over again, and Emma was in her true 
 element. Let the Elliots and their brotherhood look to 
 themselves and dare their worst. They were routed now. 
 The people were on the side of those who had toiled hard 
 instead of peddling and prating, of those who had risked 
 their lives to save their homes from the bogey of Europe. 
 ' Hip, hip, hip, in excelsis ! ' No wonder that, when all was 
 over and, hoarse but happy, Emma reposed at Merton once 
 more,^ awaiting a fresh but private jubilation on Nelson's 
 approaching birthday, she took up her pen with triumph : — 
 
 ' We have had a most charming Tour which will Burst 
 some of THEM. So let all the enimies of the GREATEST 
 man alive [perish?] ! And bless his friends.' ^ In this same 
 letter her native goodness of heart breaks out with equal 
 vehemence about the death of ' poor Dod,' one of Nelson's 
 countless protdg^s : ' Anything that we can do to assist the 
 poor widow we will.' How this 'we' reminds us of the 
 'we' before Sir William had married her, which had so 
 annoyed Legge ! And the sensation of this progress still 
 tingled in the air. In October Lord Lansdowne begged in 
 vain for a visit, should they stay again at Fonthill. Sir 
 Joseph Banks, now ' crippled,' wrote to bless the wanderers. 
 So did Ball, who told Emma that the episodes of their 
 journey reminded him of the scenes with the Maltese 
 Deputies.* Her enthusiasm was still contagious. 
 
 But this trip did not close without a conjugal breeze 
 easily raised and easily calmed. 
 
 Emma insisted on recruiting her health by her old 
 remedy of sea-baths, probably at Swansea ; Hamilton, 
 however, longed to get home. He was exhausted, and she 
 was petulant, as the following little passage at arras bears 
 witness : — 
 
 ' As I see it is pain to you to remain here, let me beg of 
 you to fix your time for going. Weather I dye in Picca- 
 dilly or any other spot in England, 'tis the same to me ; 
 but I remember the time when you wished for tranquillity, 
 but now all visiting and bustle is your liking. However, 
 I will do what you please, being ever your affectionate 
 
 ^ About September 19. ^ To Davison ,; Eg. MS. 2240, f. 139. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 685, 691. 
 
EXIT 'NESTOR' 397 
 
 and obedient E. H.' On the back of it Sir William 
 wrote : — 
 
 ' I neither love bustle nor great company, but I like some 
 employment and diversion. ... I am in no hurry, and am 
 exceedingly glad to give every satisfaction to our best 
 friend, our dear Lord Nelson. Sea-bathing is usefuU to 
 your health ; I see it is, and wish you to continue a little 
 longer ; but I must confess that I regret, whilst the season 
 is favourable, that I cannot enjoy my favourite amusement 
 of quiet fishing. I care not a pin for the great world, and 
 am attached to no one as much as you.' On its fly-leaf 
 Emma added, ' I go, when you tell me the coach is ready,' 
 to which Hamilton retorted : ' This is not a fair answer to 
 a fair confession of mine.' ^ So ended the last of their tiny 
 quarrels. Nestor was reconciled to Penelope. 
 
 The sands of his life were fast running down, and he was 
 soon to have that euthanasia which he had praised to 
 Nelson. Emma's heart smote her as she beheld his fading 
 powers. He suffered no pain, but he gradually sank. He 
 was removed to Piccadilly, and by the March of 1 803 it 
 was clear that his end was in sight. Both Emma and 
 Nelson were constant in their attendance and attention. It 
 had been Nelson who, in his passionate outpourings, occa- 
 sionally speculated on 'my uncle's' demise; but Emma, 
 apart from gratitude and a sense of the wrong that she had 
 done him, well knew that his death would remove a real 
 friend and a loving counsellor. All the past rose up vividly, 
 from the days of the selfishness of Greville, who was now 
 again half-hardening himself against her, to those of the 
 loving husband who had trusted and shielded her. Some 
 feeling of sorrow, compunction, and forlornness possessed 
 her. However grievously she had erred, she did her duty 
 at the last. And at the last the old man's mind had 
 wandered.^ 
 
 On April 6, 1803, at eleven o'clock, Nelson wrote this 
 hurried note to Davison : — 
 
 ' Our dear Sir William died at 10 minutes past Ten this 
 morning in Lady Hamilton's and my arms without a sigh 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 679, 680, August 1802. 
 ^ Eg. MS. 2240, f. 162 (misplaced in its order). 
 
398 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 or a struggle. Poor Lady H. is as you may expect desolate. 
 I hope she will be left properly, but I doubt.' ^ 
 
 Greville had once more succeeded. 
 
 Nelson would not so have written if Emma had not so 
 felt. His feelings were coloured by hers. Among Nelson's 
 papers remains one in Emma's handwriting intended for no 
 eye but his, and to which no hypocrisy can be imputed : — 
 
 ^ April 6. — Unhappy day for the forlorn Emma. Ten 
 minutes past ten dear blessed Sir William left me.'^ 
 
 In all her private answers to condolence the refrain is the 
 same — ' What a man, what a husband.' It can scarcely be 
 called falsetto. Not until she had lost him did she realise 
 all that he had been to her, and how she had wronged him. 
 Strange as it may sound, she was stricken indeed.* 
 
 And yet her attitudinising heart soon alternated between 
 different moods. She cut off her flowing locks and wore 
 them i la Titus in the fashionable mode of mourning.* 
 When Madame Le Brun met her a few months afterwards, 
 she sat down and sang a snatch at the piano. On a later 
 occasion the French paintress noticed that she had put a 
 rose in her hair, and inquiring the reason, was told, ' I 
 have just received a letter from Lord Nelson.' Later on, 
 she consented to oblige Madame Le Brun by privately 
 showing before a few of the noblesse ^migrie some of her 
 ' Attitudes,' which she had never been willing to display in 
 London. 
 
 ' On the day appointed,' notes the artist in her chronicle, 
 ' I placed in the middle of my drawing-room a very large 
 frame, with a screen on either side of it. I had a strong lime- 
 light prepared and disposed, so that it could not be seen, 
 but which would light up Lady Hamilton as though she 
 were a picture. . . . She assumed various attitudes in this 
 
 1 Eg. MS. 2240, f. 157. Nelson had shared Sir William's attendances at the 
 Literary Society, and on April 17 he excused his attendance there to Sir J. C. 
 Hippisley on the score of Sir William's 'irreparable loss.' Cf. excerpt in 
 Sotheby's catalogue of July 8, 1905. 
 
 2 Transcribed by Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 294. The letters of condolence to her 
 all assume that she was truly grieved at an event which she must long have fore- 
 seen. Cf. Ball's, Morrison MS., July 23, from Malta, and many others. 
 
 = The Annual Register in its obituary speaks of Emma in the highest terms. 
 * Her bill for the household mourning, as well as that for jewellery supplied 
 during the previous year, is given in the Appendix, Part 11. C. (14). 
 
Lady Hamilton as a Pompeian Dancer. 
 
 From one of the "A£tihi(fes." 
 
EXIT 'NESTOR' 399 
 
 frame in a way truly admirable. She had brought a little 
 girl with her, who might have been seven or eight years 
 old, and who resembled her strikingly.^ One group they 
 made together reminded me of Poussin's " Rape of the 
 Sabines." She changed from grief to joy, and from joy to 
 terror, so that we were all enchanted.' 
 
 Such a ' lime-light,' perhaps, revealing without being seen, 
 was Emma's own organisation unconsciously ' lighting up ' 
 the possibilities of others. Her ' Attitudes ' were the ex- 
 pression of her successive and often self-deceiving emotions. 
 In the old Indian music, we are told, are certain selected 
 notes, called ' ragas,' that, separately and without harmonised 
 relations, strike whole moods into the heart of the listener. 
 Such, it seems to me, was her temperament, and such its 
 function. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton was buried ^ by the side of his first 
 wife, as he had promised her twenty-five years before. 
 
 A month after his decease the will was read in Piccadilly 
 before the assembled relations — the Grevilles, the Cathcarts, 
 the Meyricks, the Abercorns, and the rest.^ Nelson for- 
 warded the announcement to Davison by Oliver. He had 
 suggested the advisability of reading Sir William's deed of 
 gift of the furniture to Emma before a full conclave, as it 
 might otherwise ' be supposed that Mr. C. Greville gives 
 Lady H. the furniture,' which her money had bought for 
 Sir William. The will itself proved Nelson's suspicion of 
 Greville's influence not altogether unfounded, and the fact 
 'vexed' him sorely.* Though Hamilton had forestalled 
 income, his means were ample ; even Elliot was astonished 
 at the inadequate provision for his widow.^ To his 'dear 
 
 1 The insinuation is liere obviously groundless. In 1795 Emma encouraged 
 no lovers, and was regarded at Naples as a pattern for wives. This child may 
 have been one of her nieces. Madame Le Brun also misdates the year as 1802. 
 
 ^ About a fortnight after his death. Cf. the excerpt from Nelson's letter to 
 Hippisley above cited. 
 
 3 Eg. MS. 2240, f. 164. * Eg. MS. 2240, f. 166. 
 
 ^ Elliot Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 283. ' Worse off than I imagined. ' He adds : 
 ' She talked very freely of her situation with Nelson, and of the construction the 
 world may have put upon it, but protested that her attachment was perfectly 
 pure ' [Oh, Emma !] '.which I can believe, though I declare it is of no conse- 
 quence whether it is so or not.' Maria Carolina also deplores her 'indifferent 
 provision.' Cf. Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 322. 
 
400 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 wife Emma' he bequeathed a sum of ;^300, and an annuity 
 of ;£'7oo, together with one of ;^ioo to her mother. In a 
 codicil he recites that as he had promised to pay her debts, 
 amounting to ;^700, but of this sum had only paid ;£'2SO, 
 Greville was to pay her in advance the current annuity of 
 ;^8oo, for herself and Mrs. Cadogan, while the unpaid 
 remainder of her debts she was to recover as a charge upon 
 the arrears of pension owed him by the Government. The 
 last arrangement was nugatory on the face of it. The 
 Government that had disregarded Sir William was un- 
 likely to regard his widow. It is but just towards Greville, 
 who had been always at his uncle's elbow, to relate that 
 within a week of Sir William's demise he urged his dying 
 wishes on the then Foreign Secretary in the strongest terms, 
 while at the same time he repeated his (Hamilton's) previous 
 strictures on the Government's past treatment. ' I know', 
 he concluded, ' that the records of your office confirm the 
 testimony of their Sicilian Majesties by letter as well as by 
 their Ministers of circumstances peculiarly distinguished and 
 honourable to her, and at the same time of high importance to 
 the public service.' ^ But Emma was thus left with no capital 
 except the furniture, of uncertain value, and with an income 
 diminished by a debt which her husband had promised to 
 discharge, but of which only one quarter had been settled. 
 Greville and his brother, the Colonel, were declared 
 executors, the first being residuary legatee. To Nelson 
 he gave an enamel of Emma ' as a very small token of 
 the great regard I have for his lordship, the most virtuous, 
 loyal, and truly brave character I ever met with. God bless 
 him, and shame fall on all those who do not say Amen.' 
 
 This avowal does Hamilton honour. Poor Nestor! — 
 however reluctant his ' submission,' ^ whatever his mis- 
 givings, he steeled himself against them to the last. I do not 
 think that Hamilton was wholly befooled, but how could 
 the Nelson that he loved reconcile to his conscience such 
 tributes of trust from one whom he had long cherished with 
 
 1 For a transcript from the original of this new and interesting document, 
 substantiating Emma's assertion in one of her own memorials, cf. App., Part li. 
 F. (i). The letter was, formally, one accompanying the return of Hamilton's 
 ribbon of the Bath. " Morrison MS. 651, 
 
EXIT 'NESTOR' 401 
 
 more than esteem ? He and Emma must both have felt a 
 pang of shame and remorse. They had skated on thin 
 ice together. Though their duplicity, uncongenial to the 
 frankness of both, had been imposed on them by their 
 united care for each other's interest, and Horatia's,i it had 
 also imposed upon others. Bearing in mind every extenua- 
 tion, one would fain forget this unlovely spectacle ; apart from 
 extenuation it is hideous. Their falsity towards Hamilton 
 cannot be condoned. Their sin had impaired Emma's 
 sense, and Nelson's principle, of truth. 
 
 Neither of them lost time in besetting the authorities for 
 a grant both of pension and of compensation ^ which might 
 clear her of debt. To Addington she wrote herself. She 
 was 'forced to petition.' She was 'most sadly bereaved.' 
 She was now 'in circumstances far below those in which 
 the goodness ' of her ' dear Sir William ' allowed her ' to 
 move for so many years.' She pleaded for his thirty-six 
 years' efforts for England at Naples. ' And may I mention,' 
 she added, in words to be carefully scanned as the first 
 expression of her claims, ' what is well known to the then 
 administration at home — how I too strove to do all I 
 could towards the service of our King and Country, The 
 fleet itself, I can truly say, could not have got into Sicily 
 but for what I was happily able to do with the Queen of 
 Naples (and through her secret instructions so obtained), on 
 which depended the refitting of the fleet in Sicily, and with 
 that, all which followed so gloriously at the Nile. These 
 few words, though seemingly much at large, may not be 
 extravagant at all. They are, indeed, true. I wish them 
 to be heard only as they can be proved ; and being proved, 
 may I hope for what I have now desired.' Addington 
 professed to Lord Melville, who spoke to him on the matter, 
 that he would give the whole circumstances a favourable 
 consideration. But Nelson from the first counted little on 
 
 ^ Horatia had actually been shown to Sir William as a child confided to 
 Emma's and Nelson's care abroad, as will appear a few pages further on. 
 
 ^ Hamilton, and Greville as his advocate, had repeatedly pressed the Govern- 
 ment for a reimbursement of half the debt 'incurred by Public Convulsions.' 
 The whole was stated by Hamilton as amounting to ;^30,ooo. Hamilton in his 
 dying conversations always pressed that not only his arrears of pension, but 
 some portion of the pension itself might revert to his widow. 
 
 2 C 
 
402 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 his assistance, though of Pitt, and with reason, he was 
 rather more sanguine.^ 
 
 But already, amid all these agitations, the supreme one of 
 renewed severance from Nelson threatened. He had always 
 prophesied that the truce of Amiens would not endure.^ In 
 May Napoleon divined the safe moment for breaking it. 
 Russia was then friendly, and Austria hesitating. It was 
 not till the following year, when his murder of the Due 
 d'Enghien scandalised Europe, that Russia contrived the 
 third coalition, which Prussia and Austria joined. Napoleon 
 now prepared to invade Naples : his troops were soon to 
 occupy Hanover. Our Ambassador, Lord Whitworth, was 
 recalled from Paris. Maria Carolina assured Emma of her 
 delight at the prospect of Nelson's renewed Mediterranean 
 command, and Acton, who had by now assumed the super- 
 intendence of Bronte,^ looked forward to seeing his old 
 associate once more. 
 
 Death, doubt, and despair confronted Emma together, 
 but she did not quail. Her faults were many, but cowardice 
 was never one of them. Her hero would win fresh victories 
 and once more save his country. She little recked how 
 long that absence was to last.* For the first time he had 
 been with her for eighteen months, unparted. 
 
 A wedding ^ and a christening signalised the month of his 
 departure, and showed Nelson and Emma together in public. 
 
 In May, at the Clarges Street house, to which Emma had 
 then been forced to remove, Captain Sir William Bolton 
 married his cousin, the daughter of Nelson's sister and 
 Emma's friend, Mrs. Thomas Bolton.^ Emma was after- 
 wards to be godmother to their first-born, ' Emma Horatia.' ^ 
 Sir William, for whose promotion Nelson always exerted 
 
 1 For the foregoing cf. Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p, 131 ; Morrison MS. 710-716. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 707. 
 
 ' After Grafer's recent death, and the appointment of Gibbs, the Palermo 
 banker, as its agent. 
 
 * Two years and three months. 
 
 ^ From a letter of Nelson dated May 18, however, it would seem as though 
 the wedding took place on the day of his departure. He there says to Lady H., 
 ' I hope your marriage has gone off well, for the girl may thank you (if it is 
 worth thanking) for her husband.' 
 
 « Cf. Harrison, vol. ii. p. 454. ' v. post, chap. xiv. 
 
EXIT 'NESTOR' 403 
 
 himself, proved somewhat of a booby, to Nelson's amused 
 chagrin. 
 
 And three days before he said farewell, Horatia was 
 baptized in the same Marylebone church which had wit- 
 nessed her mother's marriage. The nurse had already 
 brought the two years old child from time to time to see 
 them at Merton. Nelson and Emma stood by the font as 
 god-parents of their own child, and two clergymen officiated 
 at the christening of ' Horatia Nelson Thomson.' Now, at 
 least, she might soon find her home at Merton. Nelson 
 gave her a silver cup, a cup by which hangs a sad tale, and 
 which, years afterwards, had to be sacrificed to poverty. 
 
 Greville behaved very ill. He harshly denied her a 
 moment longer than the end of April in the Piccadilly 
 house. She applied to him, in the third person, to ascer- 
 tain the precise limit of her stay, as she must 'look out 
 for lodgings' and 'reduce her expenses.'^ Nelson, how- 
 ever, now resolved to allow her ;£^ioo a month for the 
 upkeep of Merton,^ but unfortunately, though mainly 
 residing at her 'farm,' she could not refrain from still 
 renting a smaller town house in Clarges Street. 
 
 An altercation ensued, it is said, between Nelson and 
 Greville. At any rate, Greville's continued hardness 
 towards Emma, soon to be accentuated by his deduction 
 of the income-tax from her annuity, evoked the following 
 from Nelson more than two years afterwards : — 
 
 ' Mr. Greville is a shabby fellow. It never could have 
 been the intention of Sir William but that you should have 
 had seven hundred pounds a year neat money. . . . It may 
 be law, but it is not just, nor in equity would, I believe, be 
 considered as the will and intention of Sir William. Never 
 mind ! Thank God, you do not want any of his kindness ; 
 nor will he give you justice.' ^ 
 
 At four o'clock on the morning of May 18, the postchaise 
 drew up before Merton Place : only one trunk was in it.* 
 Before any one was astir. Nelson had bidden his passionate 
 
 1 Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 273 ; Morrison MS. 715. 
 ^ Cf. his directions to Davison, Eg. MS. 2240, f. 159. 
 ' Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 68. Victory, August 30, 1804. 
 ^ Nelson to Davison, Eg. MS. 2240, f. 174. 
 
404 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 adieu, and had driven off with the dawn. From Kingston, on 
 his road, he despatched the familiar line of consolation : — 
 
 ' Cheer up, my dearest Emma, and be assured that I ever 
 have been, and am and ever will be, your most faithful and 
 affectionate.' He had hardly reached his destination when 
 he resumed : ' Either my ideas are altered, or Portsmouth. . . . 
 It is a place, the picture of desolation and misery, but 
 perhaps it is the contrast to what I have been used to. . . . 
 When you see my deve, which you will when you receive 
 this letter, give her a kiss from me, and tell her that I never 
 shall forget either her or her dear good mother.'^ Two 
 days later he again gave comfort from the Victory : — ' You 
 will believe that although I am glad to leave that horrid 
 place Portsmouth, yet the being afloat makes me now feel 
 that we do not tread the same element. I feel from my 
 soul that God is good, and in His due wisdom will unite 
 us. Only, when you look upon our dear child, call to your 
 remembrance all that you think I would say, was I present. 
 And be assured that I am thinking of you every moment. 
 My heart is full to bursting. May God Almighty bless 
 you is the fervent prayer of, my dear beloved Emma, your 
 most faithful, affectionate Nelson.' ^ 
 
 The old trio had been dissolved, and a new trio reigned 
 
 in its stead. Horatia now sanctified his existence, her 
 
 portrait already adorned his cabin.' Emma becomes 
 
 Calypso no more, but Penelope — a Penelope, moreover, with 
 
 repulsed suitors. On Greville's life — even on Hamilton's — 
 
 she had been but an iridescence, but to Nelson she is light, 
 
 air, and heat in one ; and what she was to him, that Nelson 
 
 remains to her in perpetuity. 
 
 ' Cf. Appendix, Part il. E (4). = Morrison MS. 712, 713. 
 
 * Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 109. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 
 
 June 1803 — -January 1806 
 
 It is a far cry from Merton to the Mediterranean, but for 
 Nelson the one was nearly as important as the other : the 
 heart of Ulysses was with his Penelope. 
 
 Estranged Greville straightway took up his uncle's 
 mantle, exchanging learned disquisitions with Banks about 
 ' mud volcanoes in Trinidad.' Davison was trying to curb 
 Emma's extravagant schemes for Merton improvements, 
 though he himself was now in election scrapes, and a few 
 years later was, unfortunately, to rival St. George himself 
 as a fraudulent contractor.^ Penelope (fretted and ailing), 
 whether at Merton, Southend, Clarges Street, or Canterbury, 
 by turns with the Matchams, Boltons, or Nelsons, sent daily 
 reports to her wandering Ulysses. She tattled alike of her 
 conflicting emotions, of the dukes and princes, her suitors,^ 
 and of her exertions to secure berths for countless appli- 
 cants.* All Nelson's nephews and nieces constantly found 
 themselves a happy family under her roof, and Merton was 
 now Merton Academy for Charlotte. Strange as it seems, 
 Emma's relations and Nelson's were on afiectionate and 
 equal terms, her cousin, Sarah Connor, being now governess 
 to the Bolton children, while Mrs. Matcham, Nelson's pet 
 sister, actually wished to find a new house near Merton.* 
 ' Our good Mrs. Cadogan,' too, was beloved by his family and 
 
 ' Such, alas ! was our patron saint. 
 
 ^ Nelson called -them ' P.''s and Q.'s' (Princes and Queensberrys). They in- 
 cluded one, perhaps the Harquis of Douglas, whom Nelson styles 'the great 
 Bashaw at the Priory.' — kelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 23. 
 ^ Este, Sir William Bolton, the Denises, etc. 
 
 * For part of this condensation, cf. Morrison MS. 724, 726-728, 736> and 
 passim under dates 1803-4 ; Eg. MS. 2240, f. 178 ; Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 
 136. The authorities are too many for citation. 
 
 406 
 
406 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 his friends, whom she provided from the dairy. She was the 
 Merton economist, kept all too busy checking the accounts 
 of the rapacious Cribb.^ Such was Penelope's chronicle. 
 
 Nelson had only three thoughts — Emma, Horatia, and 
 the French fleet. During the next three years, whether at 
 Gibraltar or Naples, Toulon or, afterwards. La Rosas, and 
 eventually off Boulogne, he mused on these, and these 
 alone, by day ; he dreamed of them at night ; they pos- 
 sessed him in fierce concentration. He was an inspired 
 monomaniac, and the flame of his fanaticism both burnt and 
 fired him to achievement. Different kinds of self-forgetful 
 ardour animate every prophet. Adoration of his country, a 
 woman, and a child, animated Nelson. In this he contrasts 
 with all his colleagues and predecessors, who did their duty 
 like stolid Spartans, unwarmed and unenticed by any 
 dangerous glow. To the sober-minded, Emma is his will- 
 of-the-wisp ; to him, she was his beacon. He calls her his 
 ' Alpha and Omega ' ; he beseeches her not to fret. Her 
 and the French fleet — ' to these two objects tend all his 
 thoughts, plans, and toils,' and he will ' embrace them so 
 close ' when he ' can lay hold of either the one or the other, 
 that the devil himself should not separate' them. He 
 longed ' to see both ' in their ' proper places ' — the one at 
 sea, the other ' at dear Merton, which, in every sense of the 
 word,' he expects 'to find a paradise.' He still deemed 
 none worthy ' to wipe her shoes.' He vowed not to quit his 
 ship till they could meet again. ' From Ambassatrice to the 
 duties of domestic life ' he has never seen her equal ; her 
 'elegance, . . . accomplishments, and, above all, goodness 
 of heart,' are ' unparalleled,' and he is devoted to her ' for 
 ever and beyond it.' Eagerly he treasured the slenderest 
 tidings of her from ofificers returning to or from England. 
 
 Each night, as Scott, his secretary — Scott, with his light- 
 ning-struck head ^ — relates to Emma, he toasted their 
 Guardian Angel, with a tender look towards her portrait, 
 
 ^ He was a sort of steward at Merton, but he also supplied the green-groceries. 
 He encouraged the extravagant expense of the Merton improvements. Cf. 
 Davison's letter to Lady H. , ' The Terrace, June 19, 1804 ' ; Add. MS. 34,989, 
 
 ff- 53. 54- 
 
 ^ An actual fact. Nelson says that ' learning had turned it ever since.' He 
 was Chaplain Scott's brother. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 407 
 
 and a side glance, doubtless, at the smiling face of the child 
 below it. To Horatia he addressed the first whole letter 
 that he had written to her. He bought her a gold watch 
 through Falconet of Naples, and forwarded it as a reminder 
 of her liking to listen to his own ; he sent her a pretty 
 picture-book of 'Spanish dresses,' bidding her be always 
 good and obedient to her ' Guardian Angel, Lady Hamilton.' 
 When, for the second time, he ensured such a settlement 
 for Horatia's future as no imprudence could undo, he com- 
 mended ' the dear little innocent ' to Emma, as certain to 
 train her in the paths of religion and virtue. Emma's every 
 concern interested him. In her letters he finds the ' knack ' 
 of hitting off and picturing topics to a marvel. Over her 
 cousin, Charles Connor, now a midshipman under his 
 charge, he watched like a father. As he passed Capri, 
 recollection ' almost overpowers ' his feelings. He enclosed 
 for her the new entreaties of her old friends the King and 
 Queen of Naples, while she transmitted to him Maria 
 Carolina's letter to her, protesting the usual sympathy and 
 gratitude. Amid his many engrossments he followed the 
 projected improvements at Merton as if he were there— the 
 new rooms and porch, the new road, the dike to fill up a 
 part of the ' Nile,' the surrender of a strip to ' Mr. Bennett, 
 which will save ;^SO a year,' the acquirement of another 
 field, the ' strong netting ' to surround the rivulet for 
 little Horatia's safety. Davison had remonstrated over the 
 expense ; Nelson directed him to proceed. He expressly 
 enjoined her — a fact afterwards important — not to pay for 
 them out of her income. He little guessed what a millstone 
 she was hanging round her neck ; she was right to have her 
 way ; all was right always that she did, wrote, or thought. 
 He commended her to Davison's tenderest care. He chose 
 her presents of shawls and chains from Naples. He 
 recovered some of her lost furniture both at Malta and 
 Palermo. He enclosed ;£'ioo — for herself and the poor at 
 Merton, together with gifts to Miss Connor, Mrs. Cadogan, 
 and Charlotte, ' a trifling remembrance from me, whose 
 whole soul is at Merton ' ; and her ' good mother ' is always 
 sure of his ' sincerest regard,' 
 
 Emma's heart, too, was across the sea. She watched 
 
4o8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 every wind, chance, and disappomtment. When at South- 
 end, where she met het old friend Jane Powell, the actress, 
 she thought of little but Nelson and Horatia. She was in ill 
 health ; but she was still ' patroness of the navy,' forwarding 
 each officer's requests to, and his interest with, her Nelson. 
 If she diverted herself with concerts, or teased her ogling 
 suitors, at the same time she begged Davison to intro- 
 duce her to Nepean,^ for her hero's sake. She kept the 
 'glorious first of August' with her friends, and only re- 
 gretted that the Ahh6 Campbell must be absent. She 
 looked anxiously for letters, — ' despatches and sea breezes 
 will restore you,' wrote Mrs. Bolton. She bought and sent 
 off his very boots — a size, it would seem, too small. He 
 has warned her never to spend her money ' to please a pack 
 of fools,' nor to let her native generosity empty her purse 
 even for his sisters, as she so often did ; not to hunt for a 
 legacy from ' Old Q.' — Nelson (repeating her own phrase) 
 ' would not give sixpence to call the King my uncle.' He 
 regretted Addington's hard-heartedness in begrudging her 
 an annuity, but Addington's tether was fast coming to an 
 end. He got the Queen to address the Government on 
 Emma's behalf, though he placed little reliance on the 
 letter's efficacy or her friendship.^ When, nearly eighteen 
 months later, he was baulked, as he usually was, of his prize- 
 money, Emma characteristically wrote to Davison : — ' The 
 Polyphemus should have been Nelson's, but he is rich in 
 great and noble deeds, which t'other, poor devil, is not. So 
 let dirty wretches get pelf to comfort them : victory belongs 
 to Nelson. Not but what I think money necessary for 
 comfortis; and I hope our, yours, and my Nelson will get a 
 little, for all Master O.' * How well does this accord with 
 Nelson's own avowal to her of ' honourable poverty ' ! ' I have 
 often said, and with honest pride, what I have is my own ; 
 it never cost the widow a tear or the nation a farthing. I 
 
 ^ Secretary to the Admiralty. 
 
 ' In a letter of August 27, 1804 [communicated by Mrs. Hampden), Nelson 
 tells Emma that the King wrote to him, ' I think it very just that she should be 
 helped.' The Queen's letter is said to have stated that Emma had been 
 ' her best friend and preserver, to whom she was indebted certainly for her 
 life, and probably for the crown.' Cf. Harrison, vol. ii. p. 416. It sounds very 
 credible. • Sir John Orde. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 409 
 
 gbt what I have with my pure blood from the enemies of 
 my country. Our house, my own Emma, is built upon a 
 solid foundation.' ^ 
 
 In September, so wretched was she away from him, that 
 she implored him to let her come out and see him. ' Good 
 sense,' he replied, ' is obliged to give way to what is right, 
 and I verily believe that I am more likely to be happy with 
 you at Merton than any other place, and that our meeting 
 at Merton is more probable to happen sooner than any 
 wild chase in the Mediterranean.' ' It Would kill you,' he 
 repeated, 'and myself to see you. Much less possible, 
 to have Charlotte, Horatia, etc., on board ship.' ^ And as 
 for living in Italy, 'that is entirely out of the question. 
 Nobody cares for us there ' : it would cost him a fortune to 
 go to Bronte, and be ' tormented ' out of his life.* Indeed at 
 this very moment he had serious thoughts of relinquishing 
 Bronte altogether.* 
 
 Nelson was never self-indulgent ; he was unselfish, if not 
 selfless, in devotion, even where he went most astray. 
 Under dispiritments innumerable, and mortifications doubly 
 galling to one of his temperament, through a catalogue of 
 hardship which rivals the apostle's, in weary wakefulness, in 
 headache, eye-ache, toothache, and heartache, constantly 
 sea-sick in the newly painted cabins which he abhorred, 
 with a body, as he said, unequal to his spirit, he was always 
 thinking of and caring for others ; and it is this that endears 
 him to us even more than his glory. At this very time he 
 bade Emma do her utmost for General Dumouriez,^ the 
 brave enemy turned into a friend — their friend ; not a sailor 
 in the service but was proud of one of his 
 
 ' . . . nameless, unremembered acts 
 Of kindness and of love,' 
 
 1 For the foregoing, cf. inter alia, Morrison MS. 717, 719, 724, 725, 734, 
 742, J^t) passim for 1803-4; N'elson Letters, vol. i. pp. 78, 80, 99, 133, 136, 
 138, 142, 147, 149, 159, 165 ; vol. ii. pp. 6, 9, 14, 29, 44, 59, 64, 68, 127, 310; 
 Pettigrew, vol. ii. pp. 310, 322, 336, 341, 352-53, 376-77 5 Eg. MS. 2240, ff. 
 185, 191-93. 204. 210, 217; Add. MS. 34,989, ff. 53, 54. 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 160 ; Morrison MS. 733. 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 162. 
 
 * Cf. the letter given in Appendix, Part II. I). (4). 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 144. 
 
4IO EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 and his considerate maintenance of their health was his 
 perpetual boast. 
 
 There was, moreover, something daemonic about this 
 wonderful man. At a glance he sweeps the horizon, intui- 
 tively discerning the danger and its preventives. At Naples 
 once more he renewed the royal gratitude, incited Acton, 
 now rapidly falling into disfavour, and forecast the 
 French designs at a time when Ferdinand wrote to him, 
 ' the hand of Providence again weighs heavy on us,' when 
 the Sicilians themselves, and even the Queen, were on the 
 verge of turning towards Napoleon's risen sun, and our old 
 acquaintance Ruffo, now ambassador, was off on the wonted 
 wild-goose chase to Vienna. As in public, so in private, 
 Nelson seems always to hear voices prompting him. He 
 believes in a star that will guide him to victory and home. 
 ' My sight is getting very bad,' he wrote, ' but I must not be 
 sick till after the French fleet is taken,' at the very moment 
 when it seemed further off than ever. Small wonder that, 
 with such a leader, Davison ejaculated his certainty that 
 sooner or later Buonaparte's Boulogne flotilla would ' go to 
 old Nick.' 1 
 
 Nelson this autumn retailed all the Neapolitan gossip 
 for Emma. Napoleon had dictated to Maria Carolina the 
 dismissal of her ex-favourite, Acton.^ She herself, sur- 
 rounded by French minions, had relapsed into the pecca- 
 dilloes of a date prior to Emma's arrival, of which Acton 
 used to tell them such amazing stories.* The King had 
 thrown the last shred of love for her to the winds.* It 
 would not be long before Napoleon pounced on and annexed 
 Naples ; ^ before the royalties were once more exiles in 
 Sicily. The Princess Belmonte was mischief-making in 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 732. 
 
 ^ Acton left in the summer of 1804, ' on account of some disgust with the French 
 ambassador.' — Morrison MS. 762, Sir W. Bolton to Lady Hamilton. And cf. 
 the King of Naples' letter to Nelson from Portici, May 22, 1804 : 'The ani- 
 mosity of the First Consul demands that I must remove the worthy and well- 
 deserving General. Buonaparte alleges his nationality.' — Eg. MS. 1623, f. 49. 
 
 3 Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 45. 
 
 * Cf. Eg. MS. 1623, f. JO. The King writes to Nelson, ' My wife, son, and 
 I shall divide ourselves. She will take upon her the defence of Naples, ' etc. 
 He goes to Sicily, the Prince to Calabria, the rest to Gaeta. 
 
 '' Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 165. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 411 
 
 London, and Emma must be careful of encountering her.^ 
 All Sir William's old dependants were cared for ; one of his 
 servitors, Gaetano, was already in Nelson's service, and pre- 
 ferred it to home. Hugh Elliot was now ambassador, 
 friendly ,2 but futile. One of the Hamiltons' old abodes had 
 become an hotel. Their ancient friend, Lord Bristol, was 
 dead at Rome. He had once promised them the bequest 
 of a table, but now ' There will be no Lord Bristol's table. 
 He tore his last will a few hours before his death.' ^ 
 
 These are trifles, but before reverting to Emma, let us 
 rapidly glance at Nelson's doings during this year of 1804, 
 during his tedious task of guarding the Mediterranean and 
 watching Toulon (' blockading ' he would never term it : he 
 hated blockades). He was endeavouring to decoy the 
 French to sea — ^to ' put salt on their tails,' but save for a 
 brief spurt in May, endeavouring in vain. As the French 
 fleet was ' in and out,' so he was up and down — at Malta, 
 Palermo, and when Spain rejoined the fray, at Barcelona, 
 where the Quaker merchant 'Friend Gaynor' became a 
 fresh intermediary with Emma. His ' time,' as he said, 
 ' and movements depended on Buonaparte.' Impatient by 
 nature, he could play the waiting game to perfection. 
 Though his cough and swelled side continually troubled 
 him, he was as indefatigable out of action as in it, and he 
 disdained the mean advantage offered by any subordinate's 
 breach of strict neutrality.: He still hoped to force those 
 unconscionable ships out of port. Trdville was now the 
 Toulon Admiral, and Nelson ' owed him one ' for landing 
 the Grenadiers at Naples in 1792. Amid the discourage- 
 ments of long delays and the customary official threat to 
 supplant him, he could look forward to eating ' his Christ- 
 mas dinner at Merton.' Although, when his birthday came 
 round, he was farther off" from consummation than ever, and 
 reminded Emma of his ' forty-six years of toil and trouble,' 
 he refused to appear downcast. The accession of Pitt to 
 power in the spring of 1804 cheered him, both on England's 
 account and hers. He still regularly drank her health and 
 
 1 Acton to Nelson, 'Caserta, March z, 1803' ; Eg. MS. 1623, f. 35. 
 = Cf. Morrison MS. 768. 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 157; cf. vol. ii. pp. 19, 54. Eccentric to the last, 
 he did so to balk the Italian parasites around hitn. 
 
412 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 'darling' Horatia's. Her letters still brought before him 
 the tranquillity of their days ; he rejoiced in her many acts 
 of kindness, not only to his friends and relations, but to 
 grateful strangers.^ He welcomed a tress of her ' beautiful 
 hair,' and treated it as a pilgrim does a relic. Even while 
 he sat signing orders, he wrote to her, ' My life, my soul, 
 God in heaven bless you.' He remembered the birthday of 
 the ' dear beloved woman ' with emphasis. He instructed 
 her to buy pieces of plate for their new and joint god- 
 children.^ Even in his wrath at the capture of a vessel 
 bringing her portrait and letters, he made merry over the 
 admiration of them by the French Consul at Barcelona.* 
 
 While Emma was occupied with Horatia and her young 
 charges from Norfolk, all had suddenly to be dismissed. 
 Nelson's second daughter, 'Emma,' was born at the close 
 of February.* The reader will recall Nelson's torrent of 
 passionate love and anxiety in the ebullition cited ^ as 
 applicable to his feelings at the time of Horatia's birth. 
 At this very moment Horatia was unwell also, and her 
 illness added to his ' raging fever ' of emotion, as he awaited 
 Emma's news. Before July, the second infant of his hopes 
 was dead.® Thorns there were besides roses at Merton. 
 
 ' Cf. besides repeated instances of Emma's abundant kindness, as well as 
 bounties, one unknown one from a passage omitted by Pettigrew's citation of 
 Nelson's letter to Emma of August 27, 1804. Through the kindness of 
 Mrs. Hampden, I am able to supply this, and several other gaps. Nelson 
 there says that Sir Robert Barlow is 'full of gratitude for your unremitted 
 goodness to his daughters,' and desires some silk to be sent as ' there is nothing 
 else worth your acceptance.' He also there says, 'Mrs. Cadogan's account of 
 your dress made me laugh.' Emma never cared for elaborate fashions. 
 
 '^ The ' Emma Horatia ' of Sir William Bolton (his nephew by marriage), and 
 the son of his cousin, ' William Suckling, and of Wibrew, his wife. ' This child, 
 it appears from the Merton parish register, was not actually baptized, in con- 
 sequence of Nelson's prolonged absence, till his last short stay at Merton. 
 
 3 For this/r^a'j cf. Nelson Letters, vol. ii. pp. 27, 29, 31, 37, 49, 51, 60, 73, 
 77, 81, 85 ; Morrison MS. 752, 758 ; Eg. MS. 2241, ff. 224, 227, 242 ; Petti- 
 grew, vol. ii. p. 309. This portrait was sold in July 1905 at Sotheby's. 
 
 ^ The date could scarcely have been early March, for she was then writing long 
 letters to George Rose about her claims. Cf. Rose's Diaries, vol. i. p. 239. 
 
 ^ Cf. chapter xii. p. 3Si- 
 
 ^ It is said, of convulsions. Cf. Morrison MS. 746, 749, 752, 768 ; Nelson 
 Letters, vol. i. pp. I3S-17S ! vol. ii. pp. 77, 78. I have searched in vain for 
 any trace of birth or death certificate at Merton. The infant was probably 
 buried at Paddington, where her grandmother was afterwards to lie. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 413 
 
 All this while the correspondence of the Boltons and 
 Matchams, both young and old, with Lady Hamilton, 
 breathes affectionate regard, unfeigned admiration, and real 
 respect. She is the best of friends ; her coming is eagerly 
 awaited, her going keenly deplored. Eliza and Anne Bolton 
 find in her a confidante, a trusted and trustworthy coun- 
 sellor, the acme of the accomplishments that she knows 
 how to impart to them. With the William Nelsons it was 
 the same, though here, perhaps, the motives were less dis- 
 interested. Charlotte adores her benefactress and educatress. 
 As for the Navy, Louis and others, in their letters, look up 
 to her almost with veneration. If Emma had the power of 
 offending, that also of conciliating was hers. These are 
 facts which cannot be wholly ascribed to the exaggerations of 
 homely admirers, or to the self-interest of office-seekers ; not 
 one of these people were ever to relinquish their fondness. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the variety of contrasts in a nature 
 to which it lends fascination. Emma's tissue is spangled 
 homespun, but the spangles only overlie it, Let us ex- 
 amine it on both sides. 
 
 We watch her throughout these letters, on the one hand, 
 simple, homely, sympathetic, with no good or humble office 
 beneath her, working in and for her house and her friends ; 
 a Lady Bountiful dignifying the trivial round, and generous 
 not only with her purse but with her time, her praise, and 
 her exertions — a true Penelope by her spinning-wheel. And 
 yet, on the other hand, we view her inhaling the fumes of 
 homage, whether from the suitors or the crowd. We see 
 her courting the flutter of Bohemia, while she cherishes her 
 household gods, and hugging flattery though she has a keen 
 scent for the flatterer. In like manner she borrows with 
 far less consideration than she gives ; ^ nor does debt cause 
 her a pang until its consequences are in sight. To the end 
 she remains far more lavish to her lowliest kinsfolk and 
 associates than to herself, while she conceals her unsparing 
 
 ' In May 1805 she wrote to Tyson, himself a poor man : — ' My dearest Tyson, 
 the long absence of our dearest Nelson makes me apply to you,' etc. AH her 
 bankers' balance has evaporated in Merton improvements, for which Nelson 
 has thanked her, promising to settle on return. She asks for a Ipan of ;^I50. 
 A letter quoted in Sotheby's catalogue, 1904. 
 
414 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 generosity quite as much as her waste. So far from ' affect- 
 ing to be unaffected '^that 'sham simplicity which is a 
 refined imposture '—she rather affects affectation, whether 
 from whim or in self-defence. Devoid of the petty vanities 
 of fashion, she is vain of her power. Tender in excess to 
 her friends, to her foes she can be overbearing. Enjoying 
 the recognition of rank, of her own kindred she is proud ; 
 and if she is not gentle, she is never genteel, though in her 
 flush of pride at the royal licence to wear her Maltese 
 honours, she can stoop to bid Heralds' College invent 
 the ' arms of Lyons.' ^ Lyon's arms, forsooth ! Had her 
 blacksmith father but known of this, surely he would 
 have thrown up his own brawny arms in astonishment. 
 Compassionate and sensitive, to such as thwart or suspect 
 her she can be coarse and obdurate. Natural and out- 
 spoken to a fault, she is unscrupulous wherever her con- 
 nection with Nelson is concerned, in double-speaking and 
 double-dealing. Piquing flirtation, to Nelson she abides 
 steadfast as a rock. When least virtuous, she never loses 
 a sense of and reverence for virtue. A tender, if unwise, 
 mother, her moods drive her into outbursts with the child 
 she adores. Big schemes of expenditure always allure 
 her ; to little economies she attends, and she will squander 
 by mismanagement in the mass what her management 
 saves in detail. Constantly ailing, she is always energetic, 
 but though never idle, she is often indolent. Passionate 
 and even stormy, she battles hard with a temperament 
 which repeatedly masters her. She is at once home- 
 loving and pleasure-loving, careful and careless, sensible 
 and silly, kind and cruel, modest and unblushing, calm 
 and petulant, natural and artificial ; and through all these 
 phases runs the thread of individuality, of self-consciousness, 
 of independence, of insurgent and infectious courage and 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 The letters speak for themselves. Little Miss Matcham, 
 at ' Pappa's ' request, indited a prim little note to her dearest 
 Lady Hamilton.^ Miss Anne Bolton, often at loggerheads 
 
 1 Within a few months, on Nelson's last return :— 'those of "Lyons" with 
 the Cross of Malta in chief,' etc. Morrison MS. 832, August 31, 1805. 
 ^ Morrison MS. 751. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 415 
 
 with her morbid sister Eliza, wrote to her at Ramsgate, 
 where she was recruiting her health with Charlotte and 
 Mrs. William Nelson : — 
 
 ' I would have thanked you sooner for the few affectionate 
 lines you sent me by Bowen, tho' indeed the life we lead is 
 so uniformly quiet, that tho' we are perfectly happy and 
 comfortable, it is very unfavourable to letter writing. . . . 
 It gives me much pleasure to find that Miss Connor ^ is 
 not to come into Norfolk, till you go. I should not know 
 what to do without her. She is so companionable to me, 
 who, you know, would have none without her, for Eliza, 
 when most agreeable, I consider as nothing, and my father 
 is very much in town. She is so good, she seems quite 
 contented with the very retired life we lead. We have got 
 our instrument, which, with books and work, form our 
 whole amusment. Sometimes, by way of variety, we have 
 the old woman ^ come down, who behaves extremely well 
 and is become quite attached to Miss Connor. Sometimes 
 we sing to her till the poor thing sheds tears, and we are 
 obliged to leave off. I am glad I have got over the horror I 
 once felt in her presence, because it is in my poWer, the short 
 time I am here, to contribute a little to her comfort. We 
 have beautiful walks in this neighbourhood, which Miss 
 Connor and I enjoy, and you, dearest Lady Hamilton, are 
 often the subject of our conversation. I live in the pleasing 
 hope of seeing you once more, before we begin our journey, 
 which will not be till the 22nd of August. But possibly, 
 as you are so well and happy, you may prolong your stay 
 at Ramsgate, I was delighted at the account Bowen gave 
 me of you. I made him talk for an hour about you, and, 
 indeed, to do him justice, he seemed as fond of the subject 
 as myself. And thank you for the darling pin-cushion, 
 which is treasured up, and only taken out occasionally to 
 be kissed. A few nights ago I had an alarming attack of 
 the same complaint which was very near killing me a year 
 and a half ago.* I fainted away and terrified them all. 
 
 ' Sarah, the nicest of the Connors, and soon to be Horatia's instructress also. 
 This letter is interesting as showing how much she had already fastened the 
 regard of Nelson's kindred. 
 
 2 Her hostess at Stanmore, where she was staying; an invalid whose brain 
 was afifected. ' Heart-spasms, prevalent in all Nelson's family. 
 
4i6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Eliza declares she began to consider what she could do 
 without me. Thank God, and my father's skill, I am again 
 well. Pray write to me ; if it is but such a little scrap as I 
 have hitherto had from you, I shall be content. How often 
 we long to have a peep at you. . . . Miss Connor and Eliza 
 desire their best love to you, as would daddy, were he at 
 home. God bless you, most dear Lady Hamilton. . . .'^ 
 Eliza Bolton, who at Merton had learned music from Emma 
 and Mrs. Billington, also reports her own progress.^ 
 
 Nor, meanwhile, in Clarges Street, did Emma neglect the 
 interests of the Boltons. For Tom, she solicited Nelson's 
 cautious and official friend George Rose, already busied 
 over her own suit with the new Ministry : — ■' It will make 
 Nelson happy,' she tells him ; ' I hope you will call on 
 me when you come to town, and I promise you not to 
 bore you with my own claims, for if those that have 
 power will not; do me justice, I must be quiet. And in 
 revenge to them, I can say, if ever I am a Minister's 
 wife again with the power I had then, why, I will again 
 do the same for my country as I did before. And I 
 did more than any Ambassador ever did, though their 
 pockets were filled with secret service money, and poor Sir 
 William and myself never got even a pat on the back. But 
 indeed the cold-hearted ^ Grenville was in then.'* She adds 
 that Pitt would do her justice if he could hear her story : 
 she calls him ' the Nelson of Ministers.' 
 
 When Emma proposed spending the ist of August with 
 the Nelsons at Canterbury, Nelson, during a fresh scare of 
 French invasion, evinced playful anxiety at her neighbour- 
 hood to the French coast.^ But the ist of August was 
 always her {6te. She begged her constant and learned 
 ally, Dr. Fisher, to join their ' turtle and venison.' ' I wish,' 
 she concludes, ' you would give heed unto us, and hear us, 
 and let our prayers prevail.' « Doubtless the long, thin 
 beakers and pink champagne of our ancestors were brought 
 out at Canterbury to celebrate the anniversary of the Nile, 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 772. 2 /^^^^ g^^_ 
 
 " Nelson's own expression for him. 
 
 * Rose's Diaries, vol. i. p. 239. Morrison MS. 768. 
 
 * Letter of July 25, 1804, in Mr. Sabin's possession. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 417 
 
 while 'Reverend Doctor' bowed his best, and Emma raised 
 the glass with a tirade in honour of the distant hero. It 
 was not the French fleet that interrupted this festivity : a 
 worse epidemic than invasion was abroad — that of small- 
 pox. Poor little Horatia caught the disease, though lightly, 
 and Emma was in great distress. Nelson's anxiety was as 
 keen : — ' My beloved,' he wrote, ' how I feel for your situa- 
 tion and that of our dear Horatia, our dear child. Un- 
 exampled love never, I trust, to be diminished, never : no, 
 even death with all his terrors would be jubilant compared 
 even to the thought. I wish I had all the small-pox for 
 her, but I know the fever is a natural consequence. Give 
 Mrs. Gibson a guinea for me, and I will repay you. Dear 
 wife, good, adorable friend, how I love you, and what would 
 I not give to be with you at this moment, for I am for ever 
 all yours.' ^ Relieved by better accounts, he sighed for long 
 years of undivided union — 'the thought of such bliss 
 delights me ' — ' we shall not want with prudence.' ^ 
 
 Horatia could at last be 'fixed' at Merton, to his in- 
 tense delight. Hitherto she had oscillated between Nurse 
 Gibson's care^ and Lady Hamilton's. Nelson now de- 
 spatched to Emma a strange announcement, evidently 
 designed as a circular note of explanation for the enlighten- 
 ment of over-curious acquaintances.* It bears date Victory, 
 August 13, 1804: — 'I am now going to state a thing to 
 you, and to request your kind assistance, which, from 
 my dear Emma's goodness of heart, I am sure of her 
 acquiescence in. , Before we left Italy, I told you of the 
 extraordinary circumstance of a child being left to my 
 care and protection. On your first coming to England, 
 I presented you the child, dear Horatia. You became, 
 to my comfort, attached to it, so did Sir William, thinking 
 her the finest child he had ever seen. She is become 
 of that age when it is necessary to remove her from a 
 mere nurse, and to think of educating her. Horatia is by 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 778. 
 
 2 Sentences omitted by Pettigrew in his citation of the letter of August 27, 
 1804. The entire original has been kindly communicated by Mrs. Hampden. 
 
 ' Some of her receipts remain in the Morrison MS. 
 * Its account tallies with Harrison (vol. ii. p. 461), informed by Lady H. 
 
 2 D 
 
4i8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 no means destitute of a fortune. My earnest wish is that 
 you would take her to Merton, and if Miss Connor will 
 become her tutoress under your eye, I shall be made happy. 
 I will allow Miss Connor any salary you may think proper. 
 I know Charlotte loves the child, and therefore at Merton 
 she will imbibe nothing but virtue, goodness, and elegance 
 of manners, with a good education to fit her to move in 
 that sphere of life which she is destined to move in.' ^ Not 
 long afterwards he added that his dearest wish was that 
 Horatio Nelson when he grew up, ' if he behaves,' should 
 wed Horatia, and thus establish his posterity on Emma's 
 foundation aa well as his brother's, and this wish he 
 embodied in one of his numerous wills. 
 
 In these mysteries of melodrama it is impossible not 
 to discern Emma's handiwork. As a girl she had 
 devoured romances and been thrilled by the strokes and 
 stratagems of the theatre. The same leaning that had 
 prompted the secret passage episode at Naples, prompted 
 this also; and from her Nelson caught the pleasures of 
 mystification. Nor can impartiality acquit her of planting 
 some of her relatives on Nelson's bounty. Sarah Connor's 
 salary is one instance ; Charles Connor's naval cadetship 
 is another. At this very time the youth, who was to end 
 in madness, was discoursing to ' her Ladyship ' of Nelson's 
 'unbounded kindness.' It is true that the unworthier 
 members of this family, especially Charles and Cecilia, took 
 advantage of Emma to the close, and that she had to sup- 
 port all of them, including their parents ; but it is also true 
 that Nelson's charities temporarily lightened her burdens. 
 
 Nelson was now nearing the end of his Mediterranean 
 vigil. The King and Queen of Naples despaired at his 
 departure. Acton, in disgrace, had thoughts of taking his 
 new wife to England. Nelson had tarried long enough in 
 the scenes of his memories. ' Nothing, indeed,' he tells his 
 ' dearest Emma,' ' can be more miserable and unhappy than 
 her poor Nelson.' From February 19, 1805, he had been 
 'beating' from Malta to off Palma, where he was now 
 anchored. He could not help himself; none in the fleet 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 779. Another original of this document is with Mrs. 
 Hampden. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 419 
 
 could ' feel ' what he did ; and, ' tg mend his fate,' since the 
 close of November all his letters had gone astray, and he 
 was without even the solace of news.^ 
 
 And yet his energy was never more indispensable than 
 at this moment. The French strained every nerve to meet 
 the renewed vigour which characterised Pitt's brief and 
 final accession to power. Directing their fleet to the West 
 Indies, they hoped to strike Britain where she was most 
 vulnerable, her colonies. Eight months' strenuous activity 
 dejected but could not subjugate Nelson. ' I never did,' he 
 assured Davison, 'or ever shall desert the service of my 
 country, but what can I do more than swim till I drop ? If 
 I take some little care of myself, I may yet live fit for some 
 good service.' He was dying to catch Villeneuve. Irri- 
 tated at the command of Sir John Orde, destitute of ' any 
 prize-money worthy of the name,' he could still waft his 
 thoughts and wishes beyond the waves. It was not only 
 each movement at Merton that he followed; he cared for 
 poor blind ' Mrs. Nelson,' ^ while he sat beside the sick-bed 
 of many a man in his own fleet. Nor did his vigilance 
 concerning each veriest trifle that might profit his country 
 ever diminish. Scott's descendants still cherish the two 
 black - leathered and pocketed armchairs, ensconced in 
 which, night by night. Nelson and his secretary^ waded 
 through the polyglot correspondence, and those 'inter- 
 minable papers ' which engrossed him. ' His own quick- 
 ness,' writes one of the latter's grandsons, ' in detecting the 
 drift of an author was perfectly marvellous. Two or three 
 pages of a pamphlet were generally sufficient to put him 
 in complete possession of the writer's object, and nothing 
 was too trivial for the attention of this great man's mind 
 when there existed a possibility of its being the means of 
 obtaining information.' Nelson insisted on examining 
 every document seized in prize-ships, and so tiring proved 
 the process that 'these chairs, with an ottoman that fits 
 between them, formed, when lashed together, a couch on 
 which the hero often slept those brief slumbers for which he 
 
 1 Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 89. ' Eg. MS. 2240, ff. 224, 226, 230, 244. 
 
 ' The Rev. Alexander John Scott (1768-1840), Nelson's chaplain, and brother 
 of Secretary J. Scott, who perished at Trafalgar. 
 
420 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 was remarkable.' 1 At t^ie end of March he heard that the 
 French were safe in port. Within three days his fleet 
 was equipped and refreshed. He scoured every quarter, 
 ransacked every corner, to sight the enemy — in vain. 
 Villeneuve had left Toulon to form his junction with the 
 Spaniards and effect his great design ; Orde retired from 
 Cadiz, where the junction was effected. Nelson ground his 
 teeth and cursed his luck. By mid-April the French were 
 reported as having passed Gibraltar with their colours 
 flying. Nelson chased them once again, foul winds and 
 heavy swells hampering his course. ' Nothing,' he wrote, 
 ' can be more unfortunate than we are in our winds. But 
 God's will be done! I submit. Human exertions are 
 absolutely unavailing. What man can do, I have done.' 
 Orde's remissness in taking no measures for ascertaining 
 their course over-exasperated Nelson. At last he heard 
 of their East Indiaward direction. Though they out- 
 numbered him greatly in ships, and entirely in men,^ he 
 swore that he would track them ' even to the Antipodes.' 
 Though, by the opening of May, the elements still defied 
 him off Gibraltar, and the linen had been actually sent on 
 shore to be washed, while the officers and men had landed, 
 their observant commander perceived some indication of an 
 east wind within twenty-four hours. Without hesitation he 
 took the risk of his weatherwise observation. ' Off went a 
 gun from the Victory, and up went the Blue-peter.' The 
 crew was recalled, 'the fleet cleared the gut of Gibraltar, 
 and away they steered for the West Indies.'* He hurried 
 with unexampled expedition to Martinique and Barbadoes 
 — thus revisiting, in the last year of his life, the two scenes 
 associated respectively with his love and his marriage. By 
 the West Indies he was hailed as a deliverer, and it was 
 their joy that first warned the French of the approach of the 
 sole commander whom they dreaded. Nelson did not stay 
 even to water his ships. The shrewd Villeneuve, who had 
 once escaped from Egypt, hastened to escape once more, 
 and his superior force fled like a hare from Nelson's fury. 
 
 ' From information kindly and privately communicated. 
 * Tlie French and Spaniards had twelve thousand troops on board. 
 ' From the Rev. A. J. Scott's grandson's account, privately printed and 
 kindly communicated. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 421 
 
 And Emma, meanwhile, was in an agony of suspehse. 
 To the incessant inquiries of Nelson's sisters, she could 
 give no answer, for she could glean no news. At last 
 letters arrived. He was longing to fly to ' dear, dear Merton.' 
 He dared not enclose one of his ' little letters,' for fear of 
 ' sneakers and cutters,' but he published for all to read ' that I 
 love you beyond any woman in the world, and next our dear 
 Horatia.'^ As for her, she paid visits. She threw herself 
 into London distractions — again she sought retirement. But 
 the hard fact of debt stared in the face of all her emotions. 
 Just before her return to Merton,^ her mother wrote to her : 
 ' I shall be very glad to see you to-morrow, and I think you 
 quite right for going into the country to keep yourself 
 quiet for a while. My dear Emma, Cribb is quite distrest 
 for money, would be glad if you could bring him the £13 
 that he paid for the taxes, to pay the mowers. My dear 
 Emma, I have got the baker's and butcher's bills cast up ; 
 they come to one hundred pounds seventeen shillings. 
 God Almighty bless you, my dear Emma, and grant us 
 good news from our dear Lord. My dear Emma, bring me 
 a bottle of ink and a box of wafers. Sarah Reynolds thanks 
 you for your goodness to invite her to Sadler's Wells.' ^ 
 
 While Emma lingered, bathing at Southend, Mrs. Tyson, 
 returning from a visit to her there, described a pleasant day 
 spent at 'charming Merton' with 'dear Mrs. Cadogan': 
 ' She, with Miss Lewold ' (Emma always left her mother a 
 companion) ' did not forget to drink my Lord's and your 
 health. Tom Bolton was of the party. We left them six 
 o'clock, horseback, but, alas ! I am got so weak that the 
 ride is too much for me. ... I am, my dear Lady Hamilton, 
 wishing all the blessings your good and charming dis- 
 position should have in this life. . . . Your Ladyship, I 
 beg, will pardon this and please give it to Nancy. . . . I will 
 be much obliged to look for a pair of silk stockings marked 
 H.S. or only H., as they were given me at Bath, changed in 
 the wash. . . . She has been very pert about them, and I 
 will not pay her till I hear from you.' * Nor did old sailors 
 forget to show Emma their appreciation. Captain Lang- 
 
 > Morrison MS. 814, April 4, 1805. 
 
 » July 19, 1805. ' Morrison MS. 821. * Hid. 826. 
 
422 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ford brought back for her from Africa a crown-bird and a 
 civet cat, which must have astonished the Mertonites.^ 
 
 Far removed from such trivialities Nelson still struggled 
 'o come up with that fleeing but unconquered fleet. Once 
 more at Cadiz he gained fresh advices : it had been seen 
 off Cape Blanco. He rounded Cape Vincent, the scene of 
 his earliest triumphs. CoUingwood, steering for the Straits' 
 mouth, reported Cape Spartel in sight ; but still no French 
 squadron. Anchored again at Gibraltar, Nelson could descry 
 not a trace of them. He went ashore, as he recounts, for the 
 first time since June i6, 1803, and although it was 'two 
 years wanting ten days ' since he had set foot in the Victory, 
 still he would not despair. The French destination might 
 be Newfoundland, for aught he knew ; Ireland, Martinique 
 again, or the Levant; each probability had its chance. 
 He searched every point of the compass. He inquired 
 of Ireland. He secured Cadiz. He sailed off to Tetuan. 
 He reinforced Cornwallis, lest the combined ships should 
 approach Brest. At last he heard of Sir Robert Calder's 
 brilliant encounter, but problematic victory,^ sixty leagues 
 west of Cape Finisterre. Pleasure mingled with disappoint- 
 ment ; at least and at last he was free. On August 17 he 
 rode off Portland, at noon off the Isle of Wight. He 
 anchored at Spithead on the following morning at nine, 
 and with a crew in perfect health, despite unfounded allega- 
 tions of the need for quarantine, he landed. 
 
 All his family were gathered at Merton with Emma, who 
 had sped from Southend to greet him. The next day saw 
 him in Emma's and Horatia's arms. This was his real 
 reward. The society that resented his isolation rushed to 
 honour him. London was jubilant. Deputations and 
 gratitude poured in on his privacy. But, rightly or wrongly, 
 Merton was his Elysium, and from Merton he would not 
 budge.* 
 
 ' Thank God,' wrote her lively cousin Sarah to Emma iJie 
 day after his arrival, ' he is safe and well. Cold water has 
 been trickling down my back ever since I heard he was 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 827. 2 j„iy 22, 1805. 
 
 ' He dined out nowhere until his final departure, except at the Duke of 
 Queensberry's and Abraham Goldsmid's. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 423 
 
 arrived. Oh ! say how he looks, and talks, and eats, and 
 sleeps. Never was there a man come back so enthusiasti- 
 cally revered. Look at the ideas that pervade the mind of 
 his fellow-citizens in this morning's post. Timid spinsters 
 and widows are terrified at his foot being on shore ; ^ yet 
 this is the man who is to have a Sir R. Calder and a Sir J. 
 Orde sent to intercept his well-earned advantages. I hope 
 he may never quit his own house again. This was my 
 thundering reply last night to a set of cowardly women. I 
 have lashed Pitt ... to his idolatrice brawler. I send you 
 her letter. The public are indignant at the manner Lord 
 Nelson has been treated.' ^ Outside his family he received 
 friends like the Perrys.^ With reluctance he acceded to 
 the Prince's command that he would give him audience 
 before he went. 
 
 He had not long to remain. On September 13, little 
 more than three weeks after his arrival, the Victory was 
 at Spithead once more, preparing to receive him. Ville- 
 neuve must be found, and the sole hope of the French at 
 sea shattered. Nelson's ' band of brothers ' were to welcome 
 the last trial of the magic ' Nelson touch.' Emma is said 
 to have chimed with, and spurred his resolve for, this final 
 charge. Harrison's recital of this story has been doubted, 
 but she herself repeated it to Rose at a moment, and in a 
 passage, that lend likelihood to sincerity. Moreover, in a 
 striking letter of self-vindication to Mr. A. J. Scott, Nelson's 
 trusted intimate, she thus delivered herself in the following 
 year, assuming his own knowledge of the fact : — ' Did I ever 
 keep him at home, did I not share in his glory ? Even this 
 last fatal victory, it was I bid him go forth. Did he not pat 
 me on the back, call me brave Emma, and said, "If there 
 were more Emmas there would be more Nelsons.'"* 
 
 Together with his assembled relatives she shrank from 
 bidding him adieu on board. One by one all but the 
 
 1 Alluding to the fear of French invasion. 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 828, Sarah Connor to Lady Hamilton — Tuesday, August 
 20, 1805. There follows some very curious gossip about the legacy-hunting and 
 wine-bibbing set of the Regent. Sarah fears her letter is illegible, as she 'is 
 sitting with a compress of goulard ' on her inflamed left eye. One is almost 
 tempted to fancy that the ' idolatrice brawler ' gave her one there. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 838. * Cf. App., Part 11. C. (3) (a). 
 
424 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Matchams departed. On that Friday night.of early autumn, 
 
 at half-past ten, the postchaise drew up, as he tore himself 
 
 from the last embraces of Emma and Horatia, in whose 
 
 bedroom he had knelt down and solemnly invoked a 
 
 blessing. George Matcham went out to see him off, and 
 
 his final words were a proffer of service to his brother-in- 
 
 law.i At six next morning he sent his ' God protect you 
 
 and my dear Horatia ' from the George at Portsmouth.^ 
 
 A familiar and pathetic excerpt from his letter-book 
 
 bears repetition : — 
 
 'Friday, Sept. 13, 1805. 
 
 'Friday night, at half-past ten, drove from dear, dear 
 Merton, where I left all that I hold dear in this world, to 
 go to serve my King and country. May the great God 
 whom I adore enable me to fulfil the expectations of my 
 country, and if it is His good pleasure that I should return, 
 my thanks will never cease being offered up to the throne 
 of His mercy. If it is His good providence to cut short my 
 days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission, rely- 
 ing that He will protect those so dear to me that I may 
 leave behind. His will be done. Amen. Amen. Amen.' 
 
 The humility of true greatness rings through this valedic- 
 tion. 
 
 He seems to have felt some foreboding — and his last 
 letters confirm it — that he would never return.^ During 
 the two days on board before he weighed anchor, each 
 moment that could be spared from business was devoted to 
 the future of Emma and his child. His thoughts travelled 
 in his letters to every cranny of his homestead. A few 
 hours after he stepped on deck, he asked Rose, come from 
 Cuflfnells, to bring Canning with him to dinner. Canning 
 was not present when Nelson engaged his friend in a 
 parting conversation about Bolton's business, and also the 
 prosecution of Emma's claims, though she maintained eight 
 
 ' Harrison, vol. ii. p. 274. In such details he is to be trusted. 
 
 2 Cf. Pettigrew, vol. ii. pp. 496-7. For Emma's feelings, cf. App. Pt. 11. C. 
 
 (I) (»)• 
 
 5 Before quitting London he called at Mr. Peddieson's, his upholsterer, v?ho 
 kept the coffin presented to him after the Nile battle by Captain Hallovfell, 
 desiring him to record its 'identity on the lid. 'For,' he added, 'I think it 
 highly probable that I may want it on my return. ' Cf. Harrison, vol. ii. p. 468. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 425 
 
 years later that she understood them to have given their 
 joint assurances on her behalf.^ He purposely embarked 
 from the bathing-machine beach to elude the populace. 
 To Davison, in sad privacy, while he was off Portland, he 
 gave his last mandate for mother and child.^ He twice 
 answered Emma's last heart-broken notes. ' With God's 
 blessing we shall meet again. Kiss dear Horatia a thousand 
 times.' — ' I cannot even read your letter. We have fair 
 wind and God will, I hope, soon grant us a happy meeting. 
 .We go too swift for the boat. May Heaven bless you and 
 Horatia, with all those who hold us dear to them. For a 
 short time, farewell.' The next day, off Plymouth, he 
 entreated her to 'cheer up,' they would look forward to 
 many, many happy years,' surrounded by their ' children's 
 children.'* There are tears, and a sense of tragedy, in all 
 these voices. 
 
 Passing the Scilly Islands, three days later, he again 
 conveyed his blessings to her and to Horatia. At that very 
 time Miss Connor wrote prettily of her young charge to the 
 mother, who had joined the William Nelsons at Canterbury. 
 ' She is looking very well indeed, and is to me a delightful 
 companion. We read about twenty times a day, as I do 
 not wish to confine her long at a time. ,. . . We bought 
 some shoes and stockings and a hat for the doll. She is 
 uncommonly quick. ... I told her she was invited to see 
 a ship launched ; every morning she asks if it is to be 
 to-day, and wanted to know if there will be any firing of 
 guns.' * How these trifles contrast with the coming doom, 
 and lend a silver lining to the dark cloud hanging over the 
 sailor-father! Poor child, there was soon to be firing of 
 guns enough, and a great soul, as well as a ship, was to be 
 launched on a wider ocean. Emma forwarded this letter 
 to Nelson : — ' I also had one from my mother, who doats on 
 her, and says that she could not live without her. What a 
 blessing for her parents to have such a child, so sweet; 
 altho' young, so amiable. . . . My dear girl writes every 
 day in Miss Connor's letter, and I am so pleased with her. 
 
 ' Rose's Diaries, vol. ii. pp. 266 et seq. 
 
 ' Eg. MS. 2240. — ' Channer knows all my plans and wishes.' 
 
 ' Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 97. * Morrison MS. S42, 843. 
 
426 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 My heart is broke away from her, but I have now had her 
 so long at Merton, that my heart cannot bear to be without 
 her. You will be even fonder of her when you return. 
 She says, " I love my dear, dear Godpapa, but Mrs. Gibson 
 told me he killed all the people, and I was afraid." Dearest 
 angel she is! Oh! Nelson, how I love her, but how do I 
 idolise you, — the dearest husband of my heart, you are all 
 in this world to your Emma. May God send you victory, 
 and home to your Emma, Horatia, and paradise Merton, 
 for when you are there, it will be paradise. My own 
 Nelson, may God preserve you for the sake of your affec- 
 tionate Emma.' ^ 
 
 It was not for that paradise that Nelson was reserved. 
 
 There is no need to recount the glories of Trafalgar. 
 Let more competent pens than mine re-describe the 
 strategy of the only action in which Nelson ever appeared 
 without his sword.^ When he explained to the officers 
 ' the Nelson touchy ' it was like an electric shock. Some 
 shed tears, all approved ' : ' it was new, it was singular, it 
 was simple.' — ' And from Admirals downwards, it was 
 repeated — it must succeed if ever they will allow us to 
 get at them.'^ Again he had been stinted in battleships. 
 
 Nelson ascended the poop to view both lines of those 
 great ships. He directed the removal of the fixtures from 
 his cabin, and when the turn came for Emma's portrait, 
 ' Take care of my Guardian Angel,' he exclaimed. In that 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 844, 845, October 4 and 8 respectively. These two letters 
 only escaped destruction because Nelson never lived to receive them. In the 
 last Emma also says : ' . . . She now reads very well, and is learning her notes, 
 and French and Italian. The other day she said at table, "Mrs. Cadoging, I 
 wonder Julia [a servant] did not run out of the church when she went to be 
 married, for I should, seeing my squinting husband come in, for . . . how ugly 
 he is, and how he looks cross-eyed ; why, as my lady says, ' he looks two ways 
 for Sunday. ' " Now Julia's husband is the ugliest man you ever saw ; but how 
 that little thing cou'd observe him ; but she is clever, is she not, Nelson ?' 
 
 ^ Cf. Beatty's Authentic Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson (1808), p. 12. 
 Beatty's account is undoubtedly authentic, being composed on the voyage home. 
 The wretched controversy about it, of 1891, disproved all allegations to the 
 contrary. A new and most striking account of the battle, in a letter from Mr. 
 A. J. Scott to his uncle, will be found in the Appendix, Part 11. F. (2). Its 
 wording seems to favour the view that the attack was made in two divisions at 
 right angles. 
 
 ^ Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. loi. ' Victory,' October i, 1805. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 427 
 
 cabin he spent his last minutes of retirement in a prayer 
 committed to his note-book. ' May the great God whom I 
 worship, grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe 
 in general, a great and glorious victory ; and may no mis- 
 conduct in any one tarnish it, and may humanity after 
 victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet! 
 For myself individually, I commit my life to Him that 
 made me, and may His blessing alight on my endeavours 
 for serving my country faithfully. To Him I resign my- 
 self, and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. 
 Amen. Amen. Amen.' 
 
 And then he entrusted to his diary that memorable last 
 codicil, witnessed by Blackwood and Hardy, recounting 
 his Emma's unrewarded services, and commending her 
 and Horatia (whom he now desired to bear the name of 
 ' Nelson' only^) to the generosity of his King and country: 
 — 'These are the only favours I ask of my King and 
 Country at this moment when I am going to fight their battle. 
 May God bless my King and Country and all those I hold 
 dear. My relations it is needless to mention ; they will, of 
 course, be amply provided for.' On his desk lay open that 
 fine letter^ to Emma, the simple march of whose cadences 
 always somehow suggests to one Turner's picture of the 
 T^m&aire : — 
 
 'My dearest, beloved Emma, the dear friend of my 
 bosom, the signal has been made that the enemies' com- 
 bined fleet is coming out of port. May the God of Battles 
 crown my endeavours with success ; at all events I will 
 take care that my name shall ever be most dear to you 
 and Horatia, both of whom I love as much as my own 
 life ; and as my last writing before the battle will be to you, 
 so I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after 
 the battle. May Heaven bless you prays your Nelson and 
 Bronte. , . .' 
 
 As in a vision, one seems to behold that huge Santis- 
 
 1 The King duly gave his licence to that effect. Morrison MS. 
 
 ^ October 19. The original is prominent this year at the British Museum 
 with Emma's indorsement : — ' This letter was found open on His desk, and 
 brought to Lady Hamilton by Captain Hardy. "Oh, miserable, wretched 
 Emma ! Oh, glorious and happy Nelson ! " ' 
 
428 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 sima Trinidad, that mighty Bucentaur, that fatal Redoubt- 
 able, the transmission of that imperishable ' Duty ' signal ; 
 the Victory nigh noon, hard by the enemy's van. One 
 hears the awful broadside — the ' warm work ' which rends 
 the buckle from Hardy's shoe — Nelson's words of daring 
 and comfort. One heeds his acts of care for others and 
 carelessness for himself. 
 
 His/four stars singled him out as a target for the death- 
 blow that ' broke his back ' fifteen minutes afterwards. He 
 fell prone on the deck, where Hardy raised him : — ' They 
 have done for me at last, Hardy.' And then, as he lies 
 below, in face of death — ' Doctor, I told you so ; doctor, 
 I am gone ' ; the whisper follows, ' I have to leave Lady 
 Hamilton and my adopted daughter Horatia as a legacy to 
 my country.' He feels 'a gush of blood every minute 
 within his breast.' His thoughts are still for his officers 
 and crew. ' How goes the day with us. Hardy ? ' His day 
 is over. ' I am a dead man . . . come nearer to me.' Over 
 his filming eyes, assured of conquest,^ hover but two pre- 
 sences, but one place. ' Come nearer to me. Pray let my 
 dear Lady Hamilton have my hair, and all other things 
 belonging to me.' And next, raising himself in pain, 
 ' Anchor, Hardy, anchor ! ' Not ColHngwood but Hardy 
 shall give the command ; ' for, if I live, / anchor.' — ' Take 
 care of my poor Lady Hamilton, Hardy. Kiss me. Hardy.' 
 — ' Now I am satisfied.' While his throat is parched and 
 his mouth agasp for air, his oppressed breathing falters 
 once more to Scott : ' Remember that I leave Lady 
 Hamilton and my daughter [now there is no 'adopted'] 
 to my country.' Amid the deafening boom of guns, and 
 all the chaos and carnage of the cockpit,^ while the surgeon 
 quits him for five minutes only on his errands of mercy, 
 alone, dazed, cold, yet triumphant, with a spirit exulting in 
 self-sacrifice, and wavering ere its thinnest thread be severed. 
 
 ' Scott's account (cf. App., Part li. F. (2)) adds a striking detail to the 
 received version. ' He died,' he says, ' as the battle finished, and his last effort 
 to speak was made at the moment of joy for victory.' 
 
 ^ Scott, whose horror at the scenes he witnessed always prevented him from 
 alluding to them, once said, ' It was like a butcher's shambles.' (From informa- 
 tion kindly and privately communicated to the writer.) 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 429 
 
 around the distant dear ones, he dies. 'Thank God', he 
 * has done his duty ' ! Can man do more, or love more, than 
 to lay down his life for his friends ? 
 
 Bound up with Britain, the son who saved, ennobled, and 
 embodied her, rests immortal. Ministers, who used him 
 like a sucked orange, might disregard his latest breath. 
 With such as these he was never popular.^ But wherever 
 unselfishness, and valour, and genius dedicated to duty, 
 are known and famed, there will he be remembered. ' The 
 tomb of heroes is the Universe.' 
 
 Sad and slow plodded the procession of fatal victory 
 over the waters homeward. Long before the flagship that 
 formed Nelson's hearse arrived, Scott, his chaplain, broke 
 the news to Emma at Clarges Street through Mrs. Cadogan : 
 — ' Hasten the very moment you receive this to dear Lady 
 Hamilton, and prepare her for the greatest of misfortunes. 
 . . . The friends of my beloved are for ever dear to me.' ^ 
 Nine days elapsed before she heard the worst.^ She was 
 stunned and paralysed by the blow. For many weeks she 
 lay prostrate in bed, from which she only arose to be re- 
 moved to Merton. Her nights were those of sighs and 
 memories ; her mother tended her, wrote for her, managed 
 the daily tasks that seemed so far away. Quenched now 
 for ever was 
 
 ' The light that shines from loving eyes upon 
 Eyes that love back, till they can see no more.' 
 
 And when at length she revived, her first thought was to 
 beseech the protection of the Government, not for herself, 
 but for the Boltons.* If George Rose could forward 
 Nelson's wishes for them, it would be a drop of comfort 
 in her misery. She kept all Nelson's letters — ' sacred,' she 
 called them — ' on her pillow.' She fingered them over and 
 
 ' Elliot wrote, ' He is not popular at St. James's.' 
 
 » Morrison MS. 849, October 27, 1805. 
 
 ' Cf. Lady H.'s letter to Rose from Clarges Street, November 29, 1805 :— 
 ' I write from my bed where I have been ever since the fatal 6th of this month,' 
 etc. Cf. Rose's Diaries, vol. i. p. 240 et seq. 
 
 * Cf. Mrs. Cadogan's letter to Rose of November 9, iSo^.—Iiid. Emma's 
 own applications even to Earl Nelson did not begin till the following year. Cf. 
 Appendix, Part 11. C. (i) (4). 
 
430 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 over again. Her heart, she told Rose, was broken. ' Life 
 to me now is not worth having. I lived but for him. His 
 glory I gloried in ; it was my pride that he should go forth ; 
 and this fatal and last time he went, I persuaded him to it. 
 But I cannot go on. My heart and head are gone. Only, 
 believe me, what you write to me shall ever be attended to.' 
 Letters purporting to be Nelson's regarding his last wishes 
 had leaked out in the newspapers. She was too weak to 
 ' war with vile editors.' ' Could you know me, you would 
 not think I had such bad policy as to publish anything at 
 this moment. My mind is not a common one, and having 
 lived as confidante and friend with such men as Sir William 
 Hamilton and dearest, glorious Nelson, I feel superior to 
 vain, tattling woman.' ^ She was desolate. She had lost not 
 only the husband of her heart and the mainstay of her 
 weakness, but herself — the heroine of a hero. She was ' the 
 same Emma' no longer, only a creature of the past. The 
 receptive Muse had now no source of inspiration left, nor 
 any commanding part to prompt or act. Yet her old 
 leaven was still indomitable. She would fight and struggle 
 for herself and her child so long as she had breath. 
 
 Messages of sympathy poured in from every quarter, but 
 she would not be comforted. Among others, Hayley, 
 writing with the new year, and before the funeral, entreated 
 her to make ' affectionate justice to departed excellence a 
 source of the purest delight.' He rejoiced in the idea that 
 his verses had ever been ' a source of good ' to her, and the 
 egotist enclosed some new ones of consolation. She told him 
 she was most unhappy, ' No,' she ' must not be so,' added 
 the sententious ' Hermit ' ; ' self-conquest is the summit of 
 all -heroism.' ^ While Rose and Louis importuned her for 
 mementoes — and Emma parted with all they asked — the 
 Abbd Campbell, writing amid the third overthrow at 
 Naples, was more delicate and sympathetic. His 'heart 
 was full of anguish ' and commiseration. ' I truly pity you 
 from my soul, and only wish to be near you, to participate 
 with you in the agonies of your heart, and mix our tears 
 together.' Goldsmid sent philosophic consolation, and tried 
 
 1 Cf. her letter to George Rose of November 29, 1805— Rose's Diaries, 
 vol, i. p. 241. ^ Pettigrew, vol. ii. pp. 556-7. 
 
PENELOPE AND ULYSSES 431 
 
 to get her an allotment in the new loan.^ Staunch Lady 
 Betty Foster and Lady Perceval did all they could to com- 
 fort her, and so too did the humbler Mrs. Lind. The Duke of 
 Clarence — Nelson's Duke — inquired after her particularly.^ 
 And later Mrs. Bolton wrote: — 'For a moment I wished 
 myself with you, and but a moment, for I cannot think of 
 Merton without a broken heart, even now can scarcely see 
 for tears. How I do feel for you my own heart can tell ; but 
 I beg pardon for mentioning the subject, nor would it have 
 been, but that I well know your thoughts are always so. 
 My dear Horatia, give my kindest love to her. The more 
 I think, the dearer she is to me.' * 
 
 At length the Victory arrived at Spithead.* Hardy 
 travelled post-haste with his dearest friend's notebooks and 
 last codicil to Rose at Cuffnells. Blackwood assured Emma 
 that he would deliver none of them to any person until he 
 had seen her ; all her wishes should be consulted.^ Scott 
 wrote daily to her all December, as he kept watch over the 
 precious remains of the man whom he worshipped. He took 
 lodgings at Greenwich,® where they now reposed. Rooted to 
 the spot, throughout his solitary vigil he was ever inquiring 
 after Emma, whom Tyson alone had seen. From the Board 
 Room of Greenwich Hospital ^ the body was deposited in 
 the Painted Chamber.* It was the saddest Christmas that 
 England had known for centuries. The very beggars, 
 Scott wrote to Emma, leave their stands, neglect the 
 passing crowd, and pay tribute to his memory by a look. 
 ' Many ' did he see, ' tattered and on crutches, shaking their 
 heads with plain signs of sorrow.' The Earl had been 
 there with young Horace, who shed tears: — 'Every 
 thought and word I have is about your dear Nelson. Here 
 lies Bayard, but Bayard victorious. ... So help me God, I 
 think he was a true knight and worthy the age of chivalry. 
 
 1 • His time was to die, and if not by a shot, you might have lost him by sick- 
 ness.' — Morrison MS. 872. 
 
 2 Cf. Morrison MS. 862. They beg her to be with them. Mrs. Lind lived 
 at Brompton, and Emma was oftener there than with her grander friends. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 881. This tends to show that she knew who Horatia really 
 was. 
 * Decembers, 1805. ° Cf. Rose's Diaries ; Morrison MS. 853, 854. 
 
 ^ 21 Park Row. ' December 23, 1805. ' December 24. 
 
432 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 One may say, lui mime fait le sihle — for where shall we 
 see another ? ' Yes, Emma should come herself and pay 
 her last farewell alone. Scott could not tear himself away ; 
 he was rowed in the same barge that bore the hero's Orient- 
 made coffin to the Admiralty. He watched by it there, and 
 thence attended it to St. Paul's. He bitterly resented being 
 parted from it by his place, next day, in the procession. 
 ' I honour your feelings,' exclaimed he, who always loved 
 her, 'and I respect you, dear Lady Hamilton, for ever.' ^ 
 
 Who can forget the scenes of that dismal triumph of 
 January the loth ? Not a shop open ; not a window 
 untenanted by silent grief. The long array of rank and 
 dignity wends its funeral march with solemn pace. But 
 near the catafalque draped with emblems and fronted with 
 the Victory's figurehead, are ranged the weather-beaten 
 sailors who would have died to save him. 
 
 Fashion and officialdom, as distasteful to Nelson living 
 as he was to them, press to figure in the pomp which cele- 
 brated the man at whom they sometimes jeered, and whom 
 they often thwarted and sought to supersede. Professed 
 and unfeigned sorrow meet in his obsequies. 
 
 Every order of the State is represented. Yet as the 
 deep-toned anthem — half-marred at first — swells through 
 the hushed cathedral, two forms are missing — that of the 
 woman ^ whom certainly he would never have forsworn 
 had her wifehood ever meant real affection,* and that of the 
 other woman who beyond measure had loved and lost him. 
 Can one doubt but that, when all was over, when form and 
 ceremony were dispersed, Emma stood there, silent, their 
 child's hand clasped in hers, and shed her bitter tears 
 beside his wreaths of laurel, into his half-closed grave ? 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 855-861. 
 
 ' Barham announced to her on November 5 her ' illustrious Partner's death. ' 
 — Eg. MS. 28,333, f. 6. By her own request she was buried in Nelson's vault ; 
 so was his nephew Horatio. It may here be noted that the marble covering over 
 Nelson's coffin was presented by the Prince Regent. It forms one of the remains 
 of the unfinished Italian splendours which Henry viiu designed for his own 
 burial-chapel. It was to have been Cardinal Wolsey's sarcophagus. 
 
 ' Mrs. Bolton writes to Emma of her at Cheltenham in June 1806: 'Dis- 
 putes even the last words of the man she once pretended to love.' — Morrison 
 MS. 882. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE IMPORTUNATE WIDOW IN LIQUIDATION 
 
 February i^od— July 1814 
 
 While the nation was to vote ;£■! 20,000 ^ to support the earl- 
 dom of the clergyman whose brother died only a Viscount 
 and Vice- Admiral, in receipt of an annual grant not exceed- 
 ing;^ 2000; while Lady Nelson, soon to wrangle over the will,^ 
 received that same annuity from Parliament, not only were 
 Emma's claims disregarded, but Nelson's own main bequest 
 to her was,as we shall soon see,rendered nominal. She retired 
 for a space to Richmond, and at once begged Sir R. Barclay 
 to be one of a committee for arranging her affairs and dis- 
 posing of Merton.* Not until the November of this year 
 did she address Earl Nelson, urging him in the strongest 
 terms, as his brother's executor, to legalise Nelson's last 
 codicil ; and nearly a year after he had received the pocket- 
 book containing it from Hardy, he returned her a civil and 
 friendly answer.* Her finances were now more straitened 
 than has been supposed. Her latest biographers represent 
 her as enjoying Hamilton's annuity of ;£'7oo, with the 
 
 ' In May 1806. On April 30 Grenville requested Earl Nelson to confer with 
 him about the ' royal desires for subsidising the Nelson family,' — Add. MS. 
 34,992, f. 132. 
 
 ^ Cf. (once more) Add. 'MS. 28,333, f. 5, and cf. Morrison MS. 882, where 
 Mrs. Bolton tells Lady H., ' The Viscountess is going to law. What a vin- 
 dictive woman,' etc. 
 
 s Cf. Appendix, Part II. C. (4). 
 
 * Add. MS. 34,989, ff. 55 and 56 ; ' Merton, November 14, 1806, and Canter- 
 bury, November 16, 1806.' Emma evidently suspected his intentions already. 
 She says, ' Whose executor you have the honour to be.' Writing to Rose about 
 the same time she says, 'The Earl you know, but a man must have great courage 
 to accept the honour of calling himself by that name.' Cf. Rose's Diaries, and 
 Appendix, Part 11. C. (i) (*) and (2). 
 
 2 E 
 
434 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 interest at five per cent, on the cost of the Piccadilly furni- 
 ture assigned to her. But it has been already shown that 
 Greville deducted income-tax from the first, while on the 
 second — less valuable than its purchase-price would imply 
 — large inroads had been made both by debt and by the 
 interrupted Merton improvements. Capital she had now 
 next to none, while her income did not exceed some ;^8oo. 
 Nelson left her by his will and codicils an annuity charged 
 on Bronte of ;£'Soo, payable half-yearly in advance ; a 
 legacy of ;£'2000 ; the Merton estate, together with the hay 
 upon it, at his decease, and the income of the ;£'4000 settled 
 for Horatia's benefit and maintenance. Had the income 
 derived from these been regularly paid, another ;£'8cx) 
 (including Horatia's ;^20o) would have been hers. But I 
 have discovered that Earl Nelson, after consulting counsel 
 and pleading the crippled state of the Bronte property, 
 never allowed her one penny till 1808, and that between 
 1808 and 1 8 14 she received her annuity intermittently, and 
 never in advance at all. Her receipt of the first payment 
 in the latter year on a legal document reciting and attesting 
 all the circumstances, still exists and is abstracted in the 
 Appendix.^ This puts a very different complexion on her 
 * extravagance.' Imprudent and improvident she con- 
 tinued ; embarrassed by anticipated expectations, eager, 
 indeed, to compound with creditors she became much 
 sooner than has hitherto been imagined.^ She remained 
 absolutely faithful to Horatia's trust up to the miserable 
 end ; and in her extremest need, just before the close, it 
 was Horatia herself who begged her uncle to yield Lady 
 Hamilton's distress a small advance on behalf of her yearly 
 income. Within three years from Nelson's death Emma 
 and Horatia were to become wanderers from house to house: 
 treasure after treasure was afterwards to be parted with or 
 distrained upon ; and the Earl, who had flattered and 
 courted Emma in her heyday, and still protested his willing- 
 ness to serve her, and his hopes that Government would 
 
 1 Part I. Note H. ; Add. MS. 34,992, f. 300. 
 
 2 Already in May 1805, during Nelson's absence, she had applied to Tyson 
 for a loan of £\y:>, as ' what money ' she had in ' her banker's hands' had ' been 
 laid out at Merton.' Cf. Appendix, Part II. C. (15). 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 435 
 
 yield her 'a comfortable pension,'^ had joined the fair-weather 
 acquaintances who left her and her daughter in the ditch. 
 On ;£'iioo a year, had her furniture produced the £6000 
 at which it was computed, she might have been com- 
 fortable, if she had been content to retire at once into decent 
 obscurity. She could not bring herself to forfeit the flat- 
 teries of worthless pensioners and cringing tradesmen ; and, 
 moreover, I cannot help suspecting that Nurse Gibson may 
 not have rested satisfied with the occasional extra guineas 
 bestowed on her, and that whether by her or by servants 
 who had guessed the secret of Horatia's birth, continual 
 hush-money may possibly have been extorted. 
 
 From December 6, 1805, when he received his brother's 
 ' pocket-book ' or ' memorandum-book ' (in the letters it is 
 named both ways) from Hardy, the new Earl held in his 
 hands the ' codicil ' on which hung Emma's fate and 
 Horatia's. 
 
 Earl Nelson's manuscript correspondence ^ in the British 
 Museum casts fresh light on its adventures,''and corroborates 
 Emma's account of his conduct, though I think that she 
 misconstrued or exaggerated its motives. 
 
 From December 6 to December 12 it seems to have been 
 kept in his own possession. He then took it to Lady 
 Hamilton's friend, Sir William Scott, at Somerset House, 
 where she was led by him to believe that its formal registra- 
 tion with Nelson's will was in favourable process. Before 
 Pitt's death in the ensuing January it was determined that 
 the memorandum-book should be sent to the Premier.* 
 Pitt died at an unfortunate moment, and Grenville became 
 Prime Minister. After consultation with Scott and others, 
 the Earl, however, resolved in February to hand it over to 
 Lord Grenville, and in Grenville's keeping it actually re- 
 mained till so late as May 30, 1806. If even, as is possible,^ 
 
 1 Cf. Add. MS. 34,992, f. 197, Earl Nelson to Davison ; ' Portman Square, 
 Monday morning, February I, 1813.' 
 
 2 Add. MS. 34,992, ff. 103-148. 
 
 2 Cf. Earl Nelson's own account, once in Pettigrew's possession, and cited by 
 him in vol. ii. p. 626, note i. 
 
 * The codicil is said to have been lodged for registration in February by 
 Emma herself. In the ' pocket-book ' or ' letter-book,' she inscribed her claim 
 to having been instrumental in getting the fleet watered in the summer of 1798. 
 
436 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the ' pocket-book ' and the ' memorandum-book ' mean two 
 separate things, and what Grenville retained was only the 
 latter, referring to the ' codicil ' in the first, still the undue 
 delay was no less shabby ; and Nelson's sisters agreed with 
 Emma, whose warm adherents they remained, in so entitling 
 it.^ Grenville was the last person in the world to act favour- 
 ably towards Emma, but of course it was for him to decide 
 from what particular source, if any. Government could 
 satisfy Nelson's petition. 
 
 Up to February 23, 1806, the Earl's letters were more than 
 friendly, and even many years afterwards they professed 
 goodwill and inclination to forward her claims for a pension, 
 but in the interval a quarrel ensued. 
 
 Emma subsequently declared that, after so long with- 
 holding the pocket-book, the Earl, as her own guest at her 
 own table, tossed it back to her ' with a coarse expression.' 
 She then registered the codicil herself She added that the 
 reason for its detention was that the Earl desired nothing to 
 be done until he was positive of the national grant to him 
 and his family. 
 
 For such meanness I can see no sufficient reason. To put 
 his motives at the lowest, self-interest would tempt him to 
 forward Emma's claims to some kind of Government pension. 
 But I do think that his course was ruled solely by a wish 
 for his own safe self-advantage. He did not choose to risk 
 offending Lord Grenville. 
 
 Earl Nelson certainly never erred on the side of gener- 
 osity. Despite his assiduous court of Emma during Nelson's 
 lifetime, and his present amicable professions, he himself, as 
 executor, went ferreting for papers at that Merton where 
 he had so often found a home, and whose hospitality his 
 wife and children still continued gratefully to erijoy;^ though 
 he was properly angered when the shrewd Mrs. Cadogan 
 proved his match there and worsted him.^ With reluctance, 
 
 1 They call his conduct 'shabby.' Mr. Jeaffreson is quite mistaken in saying 
 that the Matchams abandoned Emma. Their correspondence remains affection- 
 ate to the end, and at the very last they offered her relief. 
 
 ^ They remained devoted to Emma. Morrison MS. 918. 
 
 ' Cf. Morrison MS. 865 : ' I will not show them one bill or receipt. ... I 
 had a very canting letter from H?slewood yesterday, saying the Earl was coming 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 437 
 
 and ' with a bleeding heart,' he conceded Emma's ' right ' to 
 the ' precious possession ' of the hero's coat, as the document 
 concerning its surrender, in his wife's handwriting, still 
 attests.^ In the future, only two years after declaring, ' No 
 one can wish her better than I do,' ^ he was to begrudge one 
 halfpenny of the expenses after her death. Only a few months 
 before it, his behaviour caused her to exclaim in a letter which 
 has only this year seen the light, and which is one of the most 
 piteous yet least complaining that she ever wrote, ' He has 
 never given the dear Horatia a frock or a sixpence.' ' He 
 squabbled and haggled over Clarke and Macarthur's Life 
 of his brother.* And long after Emma lay mouldering in a 
 nameless grave, he declined to subscribe for the book of an 
 old acquaintance, on the stingy pretext that books now he 
 never bought. If Emma rasped him by overbearing de-^ 
 fiance (and she never set herself to conciliation), it would 
 excuse but not justify him, since Horatia's prospects were 
 as much concerned as Emma's in the fulfilment of the last 
 request of the departed brother, to whom he and his owed 
 absolutely everything. 
 
 The worst was yet far distant. But harassing vexations 
 already began to cluster round the unhappy woman, who 
 was denied her demands by ministers alleging long lapse of 
 time,^ and the inapplicability of the Secret Service Fund, 
 as impediments, though Rose and Canning afterwards 
 acknowledged them to be just.® Pitt's death with the dawn- 
 ing year rebuffed anew, as we have seen, the main hope of 
 
 down to-day,' etc. Mrs. Cadogan to Lady Hamilton, February 13, 1806; 
 and cf. 879. 
 
 1 Add. MS. 34,992, i. 103. 
 
 « Ibid. f. 197. 
 
 ' Cf. App., Part II. C. (10) (a). The letter is to Sir William Scott from Lady 
 Hamilton at ' The Common of St. Peter's, two miles from Calais,' and bears date 
 September 12, 1814. ' Think what I must feel,' she ejaculates, ' who was used 
 to give, God only knows [how much], and now to ask. Earl and Countess 
 Nelson lived with me seven years. I educated Lady Charlotte, and paid at 
 Eton for Trafalgar. I made Lord Nelson write the letter to Lord Sidmouth for 
 the Prebendary of Canterbury, which his Lordship kindly gave him. They have 
 never given the dear Horatia a frock or a sixpence.' Cf. post, p. 468. 
 
 * Add. MS. 34,992, f. los et seq. 
 
 ^ Cf. Rose's letter, July 3, 1806, Morrison MS. 886. He says this is 'the 
 real cause.' 
 
 " Cf. Rose's Diaries for 1806 and 1807. 
 
438 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 this unfortunate and irtiportunate widow. Hidden briars 
 beset her path also. Her once obsequious creditors already 
 clamoured, and were only staved off temporarily by the 
 delusive promises of Nelson's will. For a time one at least 
 of the Connors^ caused her secret and serious uneasiness by 
 ingratitude and slander ; while the whole of this extravagant 
 family preyed on and ' almost ruined ' her. But, worse than 
 all, the insinuations of her enemies began at length to find 
 a loud and unchecked outlet. ' How hard it is,' she wrote 
 of her detractors, during a visit to Nelson's relations, in 
 a letter of September 7, 1806, to her firm ally the departed 
 hero's friend and chaplain, 'how cruel their treatment to 
 me and to Lord Nelson! That angel's last wishes all 
 neglected, not to speak of the fraud that was acted to keep 
 back the codicil. ... It seems that those that truly loved 
 him are to be victims to hatred, jealousy, and spite. . . . We 
 have, and had, what they that persecute us never had, his 
 unbounded love and esteem, his confidence and affection. 
 ... If I had any influence over him, I used it for the good 
 of my country. ... I have got all his letters, and near eight 
 hundred of the Queen of Naples' letters, to show what I did 
 for my King and Country, and prettily I am rewarded.' 
 For glory she had lived, for glory she had been ready 
 
 ^ Ann, who, with the touch of madness peculiar to the whole family, and at 
 this time dangerous in Charles, associated herself nowVith Emma 'Carew,' 
 whose pseudonjmi she took, as Lady Hamilton's daughter. ' How shocked and 
 surprised I was, my dear friend,' writes Mrs. Bolton, from whom Emma hid 
 nothing, not even Horatia's parentage. ' Poor, wretched girl, what will become 
 of her ? What could possess her to circulate such things ? But I do not agree with 
 you in thinking that she ought to have been told before, nor do I think anything 
 more ought to have been said than to set her right. ... I am sure I would say 
 and do everything to please and nothing to fret.' — Morrison MS. 896, Friday, 
 October 11, 1806. In her 'will' of 1808 Emma records: — 'I declare before 
 God, and as I hope to see Nelson in heaven, that Ann Connor, who goes by the 
 name of Carew and tells many falsehoods, that she is my daughter, but from what 
 motive I know not, I declare that she is the eldest daughter of my mother's 
 sister, Sarah Connor, and that I have the mother and six children to keep, all 
 of them except two having turned out bad. I therefore beg of my mother to be 
 kind to the two good ones, Sarah and Cecilia. This family having by their 
 extravagance almost ruined me, I have nothing to leave them, and I pray to 
 God to turn Ann Connor alias Carew's heart. I forgive her, but as there is a 
 madness in the Connor family, I hope it is only the effect of this disorder that 
 may have induced this bad young woman to have persecuted me by her slander 
 and falsehood.'— Morrison MS. gS9- 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 439 
 
 to die. In seeking to rob her of glory by refusing to 
 acknowledge her services, and by traducing her motives, 
 her foes had wounded her where she was most susceptible 
 Pained to the quick, yet as poignantly pricked to de- 
 fiance, she uplifted her voice and spirit above and against 
 theirs : — 
 
 ' Psha ! I am above them, I despise them ; for, thank 
 God, I feel that having lived with honour and glory, glory 
 they cannot take from me. I despise them ; my soul is 
 above them, and I can yet make some of them tremble by 
 showing how he despised them, for in his letters to me he 
 thought aloud.' The parasites were already on the wing. 
 ' Look,' she resumed, ' at Alexander Davison, courting the 
 man he despised, and neglecting now those whose feet he 
 used to lick. Dirty, vile groveler [w].''^ She meets con- 
 tumely with contumely. 
 
 But her warm and uninterrupted intercourse with Nelson's 
 sisters and their families proved throughout a ray of real 
 sunshine. She stayed with them^especially the Boltons — 
 incessantly, and they with her at Merton. The Countess 
 Nelson herself, even after her husband's unfriendliness, was 
 her constant visitor. Horatia was by this time adopted 
 ' cousin ' to all the Bolton and Matcham youngsters. 
 Nothing could be further from the truth, as revealed in 
 the Morrison Autographs, than the picture of Emma, so 
 often given, as now a broken ' adventuress.' She con- 
 tinued her intercourse with men of letters, like Hayley 
 and Wolcot. She led the life of a domestic and re- 
 spected lady, as a friend of Lady Elizabeth Foster and 
 Lady Egmont. In London, Lady Abercorn begged her to 
 come and meet the persecuted Princess of Wales. But her 
 heart stayed with Nelson's kinsfolk, with Horatia's rela- 
 tions. She stifled her sorrow for a while with the young 
 people, who still found Merton a home, as Mrs. Bolton 
 tenderly acknowledged. Charlotte Nelson was still an in- 
 mate, and Anne and Eliza Bolton were repeatedly under its 
 hospitable roof. Emma's godchild and namesake. Lady 
 Bolton's daughter, was devoted to Mrs. Cadogan — they all 
 
 1 From a new letter to Mr. A. J. Scott, kindly and privately communicated, 
 Cf. App., Part II. C. (3) [l>). Scott too had his own grievances. 
 
440 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ' loved ' her and called her ' grandmama.' The Cranwich ^ 
 girls reported to ' dearest Lady Hamilton ' all their tittle- 
 tattle, the country balls, their musical progress, the matches, 
 the prosperous poultry, the proposing curates. They 
 awaited her Sunday letters — their ' chief pleasure ' — with 
 impatience. They never forgot either her birthday or Mrs. 
 Cadogan's, When in a passing fit of retrenchment she 
 meditated migration to one of her several future lodgings in 
 Bond Street,^ who so afraid for her inconvenience as her 
 dear Mrs. Bolton ? When the ministry, after Pitt's demise, 
 brought Canning to the fore, who again so glad that George 
 Rose was his friend and hers, so convinced that the ' new 
 people who shoot up ' as petitioners were the real obstacles 
 to her success ? And so in a sense it proved, for one of the 
 ministry's repeated excuses was that members of a noble 
 family had been ten years on their hands. Mrs. Bolton still 
 hoped — even in 1808 — that the ' good wishes of one who is 
 gone to heaven will disappoint the wicked.' Mrs. Matcham, 
 too, who ' recalled the many happy days we have spent 
 together,' was always soliciting a visit : ' It will give us 
 great pleasure to f^te you, the best in our power.' She 
 longed — in 1808 again — to pass her time with her, though 
 it might be a 'selfish wish.' But Emma preferred the 
 Bolton household. She and Horatia went there immedi- 
 ately after the ' codicil ' annoyances, and twice more earlier 
 in that same year alone. Emma, they repeated, ' was be- 
 loved by all.' And her affection extended to their friends 
 at Brancaster^ and elsewhere. Sir William Bolton re- 
 mained in his naval command, and Lady Hamilton kept 
 her popularity with the navy.* Anne and Eliza Bolton, to- 
 gether with their mother, hung on her lightest words, and 
 followed her singing-parties at 'Old Q.'s,' in 1807, with more 
 than musical interest. Eliza, indeed, one regrets to recount, 
 confided a dream to Emma, a dream of ' Old Q.'s ' death 
 
 " Cranswick ; but their own spelling is retained. 
 
 ^ No. 136, April 1807. This migration did not take place definitely till 1809, 
 but already in 1807 she is to be found there, haying possibly let the house in 
 Clarges Street. 
 
 ' Mrs. PeirsoH. In the striking letter to Mr. A. J. Scott of September 1806, 
 above cited, she had been staying with one of Nelson's aunts. 
 
 * This very year Duckworth assured her of his 'real regard.' 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 441 
 
 and a thumping legacy. 'There is z. feeling iot you at this 
 heart of mine,' wrote Anne Bolton, just before the crash, 
 ' that will not be conquered, and I believe will accompany 
 me wherever I may go, and last while I have life.' ^ Surely 
 in Emma must have resided something magnetic so to draw 
 the hearts of the young towards her — even when, as now, 
 she seemed to neglect them. Those who judge, or mis- 
 judge her, might have modified their censoriousness had 
 they experienced the winning charm of her friendship. 
 
 But all this while, and under the surface, Emma con- 
 tinued miserable, ill, and worried. Her importunities with 
 the Government were doomed to failure ; her monetary 
 position, aggravated by reckless generosity towards her 
 poverty-stricken kinsfolk, grew more precarious; but her 
 pride forbade her to breathe a syllable of these embarrass- 
 ments to the Boltons or the Matchams. 
 
 For a while she removed to 136 Bond Street^ as a 
 London pied-d-terre. One of her letters of this period 
 survives, addressed to Captain Rose, her befriender's son. 
 Horatia insisted on guiding Emma's hand, and both mother 
 and daughter signed the letter. ' Continue to love us,' she 
 says, ' and if you would make Merton your home, when- 
 ever you land on shore you will make us very happy.'* 
 To Merton, so long as she could, she and her fatherless 
 daughter still clung. 
 
 To carry out Nelson's wishes with regard to Horatia's 
 education was her main care, but her ideas of education 
 began and ended with accomplishments. Horatia's pre- 
 cocities both delighted and angered her. Of real mental 
 discipline she had no knowledge, and her stormy temper 
 found its match in her child's. 
 
 Her restless energy, bereft of its old vents, found refuge in 
 hiring Harrison to write his flimsy life of the hero ; in trying 
 to dispose of the beloved home, which she became hourly less 
 able to maintain ; in coping with her enemies ; in dictating 
 letters to Clarke, another of the throng of dependants with 
 
 1 For the foregoing cf. Morrison MS. 873-74, 880, 888, 891, 896, 898-99, 
 904, 911-12, 91S-16, 918, 926, 931-34, 936-37. 940. 943. 95°- 
 ^ She afterwards lived also at No. I Jo. 
 ^ Letter in possession of Mr. Robson. It is misdated ' 1813.' 
 
442 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 whom she liked to surround herself; in hoping that Hayley 
 would celebrate her in his Life of Romney. An unpublished 
 letter from her to him of June 1806 — a portion of which has 
 been already cited — depicts her as she was. She is ' very 
 low-spirited and very far from well.' She was ' very happy 
 at Naples, but all seems gone like a dream.' She is 
 ' plagued by lawyers, ill-used by the Government, and dis- 
 tracted by that variety and perplexity of subjects which 
 press upon her,' without any one left to steer her course. 
 She passes ' as much of her time at dear Merton as pos- 
 sible,' and ' always feels particularly low ' when she leaves it. 
 She tries hard to gain ' a mastery over herself,' but at present 
 her own unhappiness is as invincible as her gratitude to 
 her old friend who so often influenced her for good. She is 
 distraught, misinterpreted, the sport of chance and apathy. 
 
 ' L'ignorance en courant fait sa roide homicide, 
 L'indifF^rence observe et le hasard decide.* 
 
 Two years later again, when misfortunes were thickening 
 around her, she thus addressed Heaviside, her kind surgeon : 
 — ' . . . Altho' that life to myself may no longer be happy, yet 
 my dear mother and Horatia will bless you, for if I can make 
 the old age of my good mother comfortable, and educate 
 Horatia, as the great and glorious Nelson in his dying 
 moments begged me to do, I shall feel yet proud and de- 
 lighted that I am doing my duty and fulfilling the desires 
 and wishes of one I so greatly honoured.'^ And in the 
 same strain she wrote in that same year to Greville, who 
 had then relented towards her. She strove, she assured him, 
 to fulfil all that ' glorious Nelson ' thought that she ' would 
 do if he fell' — her 'daily duties to his memory.'^ Of 
 ' virtuous ' Nelson she writes perpetually. On him as per- 
 petually she muses. For till she had met him she had 
 never known the meaning of true self-sacrifice. In his 
 strength her weak soul was still absorbed. Remembrance 
 was now her guiding star ; but it trembled above her over 
 troubled waters, leading to a dismal haven. Nor, in her 
 
 ^ Unpublished letter from Sotheby's catalogue, autumn 1904. The letter is 
 in Mr. Sabin's possession. Cf. App., Part n. C. (J). 
 
 '^ Lady Hamilton to Greville, in a new letter undated, but, from internal 
 evidence, certainly written during November 1808. Cf. App., Part 11. C. (5) (*). 
 
The earliest amateur sketch of EmmaLyon, Laoy Hamilton. 
 
 By Miss Thomas (daughter of her firsi' employer) 
 
 AT Hawarden. 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 443 
 
 own sadness, was she ever unmindful of the misery and 
 wants of others. 
 
 Before the year 1808, which was to drive her from 'dear, 
 dear Merton,' had opened, she received one more letter 
 which cheered her. Mrs. Thomas, the widow of her old 
 Hawarden employer, the mother of the daughter who first 
 sketched her beauty, and whom Emma always remembered 
 with gratitude, wrote to condole with her on the misconduct 
 of some of the Connors. She alluded also to that old rela- 
 tion, Mr. Kidd, mentioned at the beginning of our story, who 
 from being above had fallen beyond work, but who still 
 battened on the bounty of his straitened benefactress : — 
 
 ' . . . I am truly sorry that you have so much trouble with 
 your relations, and the ungrateful return your care and 
 generosity meets with, is indeed enough to turn your heart 
 against them. However, ungrateful as they are, your own 
 generous heart cannot see them in want, and it is a pity 
 that your great generosity towards them shou'd be so ill- 
 placed. I don't doubt that you receive a satisfaction in 
 doing for them, which will reward you here and hereafter. 
 I sent for Mr. Kidd upon the receipt of your letter. I be- 
 lieve he has been much distressed for some time back. . . . 
 As he observes, he was not brought up for work.' ^ In her 
 opinion, the less pocket-money he gets, the better ; it ' will 
 onely ^ be spent in the ale-house.' The Reynoldses, too, had 
 been living upon Emma, and another relation, Mr. Nichol, 
 Kidd's connection, expected ten shillings a week. Emma 
 had provided Richard Reynolds with clothes, and a Mr. 
 Humphries with lodging. They all imagined her in clover, 
 and she would not undeceive them. When her 'extrava- 
 gance ' is brought up against her, these deeds of hidden and 
 ill-requited generosity should be remembered. She was 
 more extravagant for others than for herself. She even 
 besought the Queen of Naples to confer a pension on Mrs. 
 Grafer, though she besought in vain.* And all the time 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 930. ' Mari Thomas,' Hawarden, to Lady Hamilton, 
 Hawarden, November 27, 1807. 
 
 2 Lady H. also spells this word thus. I think that the Thomases taught her 
 spelling, 
 
 * Cf. App., Part II. C (S) (6). In a letter of the following year Mrs. Grafer 
 bitterly complained to Lady Hamilton that Maria Carolina, despite her con- 
 tinued and affectionate correspondence, refused to aid her. 
 
444 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 she continued her unceasing presents to Nelson's relations, 
 and to poor blind ' Mrs. Maurice Nelson.'^ 
 
 But these were the flickers of a wasting candle. By April 
 1808 Merton was up for sale.^ The Boltons had not the 
 slightest inkling of her disasters.* They missed the regu- 
 larity of her letters ; they had heard that she was unwell, and 
 fretting herself, but they were quite unaware of the cause. 
 Indeed, Anne Bolton was herself now at Merton with 
 Horatia, under the care of Mrs. Cadogan,* who was soon ill 
 herself under the worries so bravely withheld. 
 
 Maria Carolina, still in affectionate correspondence with 
 her friend, was, however, unable or unwilling to aid her since 
 she had written the reluctant plea on her behalf to the 
 English ministers four years previously. One of the reasons 
 indeed alleged by Lord Grenville for disregarding the sup- 
 plication of Nelson, was that its discussion might com- 
 promise the Neapolitan Queen. This, then, was the end of 
 the royal gratitude so long and lavishly professed. When 
 Emma in this year besought her, not for herself, but for 
 Mrs. Grafer (then on the eve of return to Palermo), she 
 told Greville that she had adjured her to redeem her pledge 
 of a pension to their friend ' by the love she bears, or once 
 bore, to Emma,' as well as 'by the sacred memory of 
 Nelson.' If the Queen was at this time in such straits as 
 precluded her from a pecuniary grant once promised to the 
 dependant, she might still have exerted herself for her 
 dearest friend. But 'Out of sight, out of mind.' In despair, 
 while Rose returned to his barren task of doing little 
 elaborately, Emma betook herself to Lord St. Vincent. If 
 her importunities could effect nothing with the gods above, 
 she would entreat one of them below. Perhaps Nelson's 
 old ally could melt the obdurate ministers into some regard 
 for Nelson's latest prayers ; perhaps through him she might 
 
 1 Emma evidently urged her to claim her over-due allowance from the Earl. 
 Morrison MS. 935. 
 
 ^ It was valued by ' Willock, Golden Square,' at ;^I2,930. Morrison MS. 
 938, April 4, 1808. 
 
 ' So late as September Mrs. Bolton congratulates her on the ' improvements 
 so much to her liking.'— Morrison MS. 953. 
 
 * Morrison MS. 939. Anne was recalled to Cranwich by her mother's own 
 illness. 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 445 
 
 draw a drop, if only of bitterness, with her Danaid bucket 
 from that dreary official well. 
 
 She conjures him by the 'tender recollection' of his 
 love for Nelson to help the hope reawakened in her ' after 
 so many years of anxiety and cruel disappointment,' that 
 some heed may be paid to the dying wishes of 'our im- 
 mortal and incomparable hero,' for the reward of those 
 ' public services of importance ' which it was her ' pride as 
 well as duty to perform.' She will not harrow him by 
 detailing ' the various vicissitudes ' of her ' hapless ' fortunes 
 since the fatal day when ' Nelson bequeathed herself and 
 his infant daughter, expressly left under her guardianship, 
 to the munificent protection of our Sovereign and the 
 nation.' She will not arouse his resentment 'by reciting 
 the many petty artifices, mean machinations, and basely 
 deceptive tenders of friendship' which hitherto have 
 thwarted her. She reminds him that he knows what she 
 did, because to her and her husband's endeavours she had 
 been indebted for his friendship. The widow of Lock, 
 the Palermo Consul, had an immediate pension assigned 
 of ;^8oo a year, while Mr. Fox's natural daughter, Miss 
 Willoughby, obtained one of ;£'300. Might not the widow 
 of the King's foster-brother, an Ambassador so distin- 
 guished, hope for some recognition of what she had 
 really done, and what Nelson had counted on being con- 
 ceded ? ^ 
 
 At the same time both she and Rose besought Lord 
 Abercorn, who interested himself warmly in her favour. In 
 Rose's letter occurs an important passage, to the effect that 
 Nelson on his last return home had, through him, for- 
 warded to Pitt a solemn assurance that it was through 
 Emma's 'exclusive interposition that he had obtained 
 provisions and water for the English ships at Syracuse, in 
 the summer of 1798, by which he was enabled to return to 
 Egypt in quest of the enemy's fleet'; and also that Pitt 
 himself, while staying with him at Cuffnells, had ' listened 
 favourably' to his representations.^ Rose himself now 
 assured Lady Hamilton that he was convinced of the 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 949. ^ Rose's Diaries, vol. i. p. 245. 
 
446 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 'justice of her pfetensions,' to which she ' was entitled both 
 on principle and policy.' ^ 
 
 And not long afterwards, when, as we shall shortly see, 
 kind friends came privately to her succour, she forwarded 
 another long memorial to Rose, in whose Diaries it is 
 comprised, clearly detailing both services and misadventures, 
 * This want of success,' she repeats, and with truth, ' has 
 been more unfortunate for me, as I have incurred very 
 heavy expenses in completing what Lord Nelson had 
 left unfinished at Merton, and I have found it impossible 
 to sell the place.' She might have added that Nelson 
 entreated her not to spend one penny of income on the 
 contracts ; he never doubted that this cost at least the 
 nation would defray. ' From these circumstances,' she 
 resumes, ' I have been reduced to a situation the most 
 painful and distressing that can be conceived, and should 
 have been actually confined in prison, if a few friends from 
 attachment to the memory of Lord Nelson had not inter- 
 fered to prevent it, under whose kind protection alone I am 
 enabled to exist. My case is plain and simple. I rendered 
 a service of the utmost importance to my country, attested 
 in the clearest and most undeniable manner .possible, and I 
 have received no reward, although justice was claimed for 
 me by the hero who lost his life in the performance of his 
 duty. ... If I had bargained for a reward beforehand, 
 there can be no doubt but that it would have been given to 
 me, and liberally. I hoped then not to want it. I do now 
 stand in the utmost need of it, and surely it will not be 
 refused to me. ... I anxiously implore that my claims 
 may not be rejected without consideration, and that my 
 forbearance to urge them earlier may not be objected to 
 me, because in the lifetime of Sir William Hamilton I 
 should not have thought of even mentioning them, nor 
 indeed after his death, if I had been left in a less compara- 
 tively destitute state.' 
 
 Yet the latter was the excuse continuously urged by suc- 
 cessive Governments. Both Rose and Canning, more than 
 once, admitted the justice of her claims, and even Grenville 
 
 . 1 Rose's Diaries, December 9, 1805. 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 447 
 
 never denied that she had done what she said.^ Rose 
 always avowed his promise to Nelson at his ' last parting 
 from him ' to do his best, and he did it. But he well knew 
 that the real obstacle lay not in doubt, or in lapse of time, 
 or in the quibble of how and from what fund it would be 
 possible to satisfy her claims, but solely in the royal dis- 
 inclination to favour one whom the King's foster-brother had 
 married against his will, and whose early antecedents, and 
 later connection with Nelson, alike scandalised him.^ The 
 objections raised were always technical and parliamentary, 
 and never touched the substantial point of justice at all, as 
 may be seen in the short note just appended — a note which 
 might have been considerably enlarged had every instance 
 been adduced. The sum named — £6000 or £y<yx) — would 
 have been a bagatelle in view of the party jobbing then 
 universally prevalent ; and no attentive and impartial 
 peruser of the whole correspondence from 1803-1813 can 
 fail to grasp that each successive minister — one generously, 
 another grudgingly — admitted her claims even while he 
 refused them. It was not their justice, but justice itself 
 that was denied, and the importunate widow was left 
 pleading before the unjust judge who had more advan- 
 tageous claimants to content. Pitt's death, in January 
 1806, was undoubtedly a great blow to Emma's hopes. 
 During his last illness she must often have watched that 
 
 ^ He expressly wrote to Canning, two years later, that 'though Lady 
 Hamilton's services deserved reward, yet the Foreign Secret Service Fund was 
 not the proper fund out of which that reward should come.' In this Canning 
 agreed, but continued, in his letter to Rose, ' I do think that a pension might 
 well be bestowed on Lady Hamilton.' Four years later again, Canning repeated, 
 ' I think her richly entitled to some such compensation, and shall be happy if 
 any unexceptionable mode of granting it can be devised. ' If recourse were had to 
 the Secret Service Fund, he feared that the Opposition might put 'inconvenient' 
 questions. Cf. Rose's Diaries, vol. i. pp. 260 et seq., and especially pp. 
 263, 265. 
 
 ^ Cf. inter alia. Lady H.'s own assertion in a letter of March 4, 1813, to 
 George Rose (contained in his Diaries'), the original of which was sold in July 
 1905 at Sotheby's ; and the inferences from a passage in Rose's letter of July 3, 
 1806, where he speaks of the chance of proposing to the King a small pension 
 for the child (Morrison MS. 948, July 21, 1808), where Rose again assures 
 Emma of Canning's goodwill, but hints ' insurmountable difficulties ' ; and there 
 is another letter where Lady H. says that a kind friend has explained to her the 
 reason ; another, again, to her declaring the royal disfavour to be the cause. 
 
448 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 white house at Putney with the keenest anxiety. So early 
 as the beginning of 1805, Lord Melville, whom Nelson had 
 asked to bestir himself on Emma's behalf during his absence, 
 told Davison that he had spoken to Pitt personally about 
 ' the propriety of a pension of ;£'Soo ' for her. Melville 
 himself spoke ' very handsomely ' both of her and her ' ser- 
 vices.' ^ Pitt, if he had survived more than a year and had 
 been quit of Lord Grenville, might have risked the royal 
 disfavour, as in weightier concerns he never shrank from 
 doing. The luckless Emma sank between the two stools 
 of social propriety and official convenience, while the hope 
 against hope, that no disillusionment could extinguish, con- 
 stantly made her the victim of her anticipations. 
 
 For a moment a purchaser willing to give :£'i 3,000 for 
 Merton had been almost secured. But debts and fears 
 hung round her neck like millstones. They interrupted 
 her correspondence and sapped her health, now in serious 
 danger. By June 1808 she told her surgeon, Heaviside, 
 that she was so ' low and comfortless ' that nothing did her 
 good. Her heart was so ' oppressed ' that ' God only 
 knows' when that will mend, — 'perhaps only in heaven.' 
 He had ' saved ' her life. He was ' like unto her a father, a 
 good brother.' In vain she supplicated ' Old Q.' to purchase 
 Merton and she would live on what remained : * he had 
 named her in his will, and that sufficed. With her staunch 
 servant Nanny, and her faithful ' old Dame Francis,' who 
 attended her to the end, she and Horatia retired to Rich- 
 mond, where for a space the Duke allowed her to occupy 
 Heron Court, though this too was later on to be exchanged 
 for a small house in the Bridge Road. She herself drew up 
 a will, bequeathing what still was hers to her mother for her 
 life, and afterwards to ' Nelson's daughter,' with many en- 
 dearments, and expressing the perhaps impudent request 
 that possibly she might be permitted to rest near Nelson in 
 St. Paul's, but otherwise she desired to rest near her ' dear 
 mother.' She begged Rose to act as her executor, and she 
 called on him, the Duke, the Prince, and ' any administra- 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 804, Davison to Lady Hamilton, January 6, 1805. 
 2 liiii. 951. She hoped ' ;^i5,ooo would do for everything.' ;£i8,ooo, how- 
 ever, were required. Her one wish was ' to be free and at liberty,' 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 449 
 
 tion that has hearts and feelings,' to support and cherish 
 Horatia.^ 
 
 All proved unavailing, and she resigned herself to the 
 inevitable liquidation. After a visit to the Boltons in 
 October, she returned to arrange her affairs in November. 
 
 A committee of warm friends had taken them in hand. 
 Many of them had powerful city connections. Sir John 
 Perring was chairman of a meeting convened in his house 
 at the close of November. His chief associates were Gold- 
 smid, Davison, Barclay, and Lavie, a solicitor of the highest 
 standing, and there were five other gentlemen of repute. 
 
 A full statement had been drawn up. Her assets 
 amounted to ;£'i7,5oo, 'taken at a very low rate,' and 
 independent of her annuities under the two wills and her 
 'claim on the Government,' which they still put to the 
 credit side. Her private debts, of which a great part were 
 on account of the Merton improvements,^ amounted to 
 ;^8ooo, but there were also exorbitant demands on the part 
 of money-lenders, who had made advances on the terms of 
 receiving 'annuities.' To satisfy these, ;^io,ooo were 
 required. 
 
 Everything possible was managed. All her assets, in- 
 cluding the prosecution of those hopeless claims, were 
 vested in the committee as trustees, and they were realised 
 to advantage. Goldsmid himself purchased Merton.* 
 ;£'3700 were meanwhile subscribed in advance to pay off 
 her private indebtedness. 
 
 At this juncture Greville reappears unexpectedly upon 
 the scene. In her sore distress he thawed towards one 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 959, October 16, 1808. 
 
 ^ This is likely from the fact that, including the annuities, which were un- 
 acknowledged, and exorbitant obligations on advances, which amounted to 
 ;^io,ooo, she herself had declared that if the Duke bought Merton for ;^i5,ooo, 
 she would be clear. Her current debts, therefore, were ;i^Sooo, and most of this 
 must have referred to the extensive alterations at Merton. Afterwards, however, 
 ;^30OO more of her private debts made their appearance. These were paid off 
 by immediate subscription. 
 
 ' Lysons's Environs of London, Supplement (1811), p. 46, and Morrison 
 MS. 965, Mrs. Bolton to Lady H., April 23, 1809 : 'I am glad to hear a 
 Goldsmid has purchased Merton rather than any stranger. You, I hope, will 
 feel more easy now it is gone. Perhaps you and I may one day have a melan- 
 choly pleasure in tracing former times in these walks.' 
 
 2 F 
 
4SO EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 whom his iciest reserve and most pettifogging avarice had 
 never chilled. He had evidently asked her to call, though 
 he never seems to have offered assistance. She answered, 
 in a letter far more concerning her friend Mrs. Grafer's 
 affairs than her own, that an interview with her ' trustees ' 
 must, alas ! prevent her : — ' I will call soon to see you, and 
 inform you of my present prospect of Happiness at a 
 moment of Desperation ' ; you who, she adds, ' I thought 
 neglected me, Goldsmid and my city friends came forward, 
 and they have rescued me from Destruction, Destruction 
 brought on by Earl Nelson's having thrown on me the Bills 
 for finishing Merton, by his having secreted the Codicil of 
 Dying Nelson, who attested in his dying moments that I 
 had well served my country. All these things and papers 
 ... I have laid before my Trustees. They are paying my 
 debts. I live in retirement, and the City are going to bring 
 forward my claims. . . . Nothing, no power on earth shall 
 make me deviate from my present system^ '^ she concludes, 
 using the very word which Greville used concerning his 
 methods with womankind in the first letter which she ever 
 received from him. Goldsmid had been an 'angel'; friends 
 were so kind that she scarcely missed her carriage and 
 horses. 
 
 Emma had every reason to be grateful. She was clear 
 of debt. She could still retain the valuables that were out 
 of Merton. With Horatia's settlement, she could count on 
 about ;£'90O a year when the 'annuities' had been dis- 
 charged. Somehow they never were, and they again figure 
 largely during her last ddbdcle. The mysteries of her 
 entanglements baffle discovery; so does her sanguine im- 
 providence which, to the end, alternated with deep depres- 
 sion. In a few years she and Horatia, like Hagar and 
 Ishmael, were to go forth into the wilderness ; but even 
 then she was still buoyed up with this mirage of an oasis 
 in her tantalising desert. 
 
 Relieved for the moment, she resumed the tenor of her 
 way at Richmond. She frequented concerts, and some- 
 times dances,^ in the fashionable set of the Duke and the 
 
 1 Cf. App., Part n. C. (S) (b). 
 
 ^ E.g. Lady Rushe's, Morrison MS. 963, February 14, 1809. 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 451 
 
 Abercorns. In June 1809 Lord Nbrthwick begged her to 
 come to the Harrow speeches,^ and afterwards meet a few 
 ' old Neapolitan friends ' and her life-long friend the Duke 
 of Sussex at ' a f^te in his house.' The fame of Horatia's 
 accomplishments added the zest of curiosity. All were 
 eager to meet the ' interesting ileve whom Lady Hamilton 
 has brought up ' with every grace and every charm. The 
 Duke of Sussex looked forward to the encounter with 
 pleasure ; Emma had not yet lost her empire over the 
 hearts of men. Of this invitation Emma took advantage 
 to do a thoughtful kindness for an unhappy bride who had 
 just married the composer Francesco Bianchi. A fort- 
 night later she was still trying to heal the breach between 
 them.^ 
 
 The Bohemians, therefore, were always with her. She 
 continued to receive the Italian singers as well as their 
 patrons ; she still saw Mrs. Denis and Mrs. Billington, 
 whose brutal husband, Filisan, was now threatening her 
 from Paris ; while Mrs. Grafer,^ on the very eve of return 
 to Italy, continued to beset her with importunities. Nor 
 did her old friends, naval, musical, and literary, spare the 
 largeness of her hospitality or the narrowness of her purse. 
 
 But, in addition to these diversions, she still overtasked 
 herself with Horatia's education — so much so, that Mrs. 
 Bolton wrote beseeching her to desist.* Sarah Connor had 
 now transferred her services to the Nelson family, and 
 Emma eventually took the musical but far less literate 
 Cecilia for Horatia's governess.^ 
 
 ' Old Q.,' her patron, now in the last year of his self- 
 indulgent life, was busy making a new will every week." 
 His friendship for Emma, however, had been truly dis- 
 interested, and even calumny never coupled their names 
 together. When he died next year, he left her an annuity 
 
 1 Some six years before, she and Nelson had attended the Eton 4th of June 
 festivities to see the young Horatio. 
 
 2 Cf. Morrison MS. 971, 973. 
 
 ' In August 1809 she writes to Emma, ' I am on my last Ieggs,'-^/i;V. 979. 
 * Morrison MS. 965, April 23, 1S09. 
 
 ^ Meanwhile she engaged a Mile. Roulanch. The Bolton girls hoped that 
 Sarah would stay with them at the end of May iSog.—Iiid. 967, 968. 
 6 Hill. 967, May. 
 
452 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 of ;^SOo, which, however — such was her persistent ill luck — 
 she never lived to receive, for the old voluptuary's will 
 was contested for many years after Lady Hamilton had 
 paid the debt of nature. Even if she had survived the 
 litigation, it would probably have absorbed a great part of 
 the legacy., 
 
 The autumn of 1809 saw, too, the end of Greville. Since 
 his mean and heartless treatment bf her after Hamilton's 
 death, Emma, save for the glimpse of reconciliation afforded 
 by the remarkable communication of 1808 just quoted, had 
 never so much as breathed- his name in any of her surviving 
 letters. The collector of stones had, till that moment of 
 compunction, himself been petrified. In 1812 his crystals, 
 for which he had so long ago exchanged Emma, together 
 with the paintings which his cult of beauty at the expense 
 of the beautiful had amassed, were sold at Christie's. ' The 
 object of this connoisseur,' writes M. Simond, an eye- 
 witness of the auction, ' was to exhibit the progress of the 
 art from its origin by a series of pictures of successive ages 
 — many of them very bad.' ^ And perhaps the faultiest of 
 his pictures had been himself 
 
 From 1 8 10, when they left Richmond, onwards, Emma 
 and Horatia owned no fixed abode. They moved from Bond 
 Street to Albemarle Street,^ thence for a few months to 
 Piccadilly once more,* thence to Dover Street,* thence to 
 two separate lodgings at the two ends again of Bond Street, 
 where Nelson for a brief space after Sir William's death 
 had also lodged. Lady Bolton, with her daughter, the 
 godchild Emma, who had failed to find her at the opening 
 of the year, expressed their keen disappointment : ' You 
 cannot think how melancholy I felt when we passed the gate 
 at the top of Piccadilly, thinking how often we had passed 
 it together. . . . Emma sends her best love and kisses to 
 you, and Horatia, and Mrs. Cadogan. When I told her 
 just now how if we had gone two houses further we should 
 have seen you, she looked very grave. At last she called 
 out: "Pray, Mama, promise me to call as we go back to 
 Cranwich." . . . My love to Mrs. Cadogan, Miss Connor, 
 
 ' SiraonA'% Journal of a Tour and Residence, etc. (1817), vol. i. p. 114. 
 
 ^ No. 36. ^ Cf. Morrison MS. 998. ^ November 16.— Ibid. 1018. 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 453 
 
 and my- dear Horatia. . . . God bless you, my dear Lady 
 Hamilton.' 1 
 
 But the worst blow was yet to fall. By the opening of 
 the new year her mother lay on her deathbed. 
 
 Her old admirer, Sir H. Fetherstonehaugh — and nothing 
 is more curious in this extraordinary woman's life than the 
 way in which the light lover of her first girlhood re-emerges 
 after thirty years as a respectful friend — began a series of 
 sympathising letters. He was much concerned for her 
 health, and ill as she was, she forgot her own ailments in 
 the terrible trial of her mother's malady. 'As I am alive 
 to all nervous sensations,' he wrote, ' be assured I under- 
 stand your language.' — ' I trust you will soon be relieved 
 from all that load of anxiety you have had so much of 
 lately, and which no one so little deserves.' ^ 
 
 Mrs. Cadogan died on the same day as the date of this 
 letter, and Emma with Horatia now drifted forlorn and alone 
 in a pitiless world. Emma's mother had endeared herself 
 to all the Nelson and Hamilton circle, as well as to her 
 own humble kindred. 'Dear Blessed Saint,' wrote Mrs. 
 Bolton to Lady Hamilton, ' was she not a mother to us all ! 
 How I wish I was near you!'* She was buried in that 
 Paddington churchyard which she and Emma had known 
 so well in the old days at Edgware Row.* 
 
 Emma was paralysed by the blow. More than a year 
 afterwards she wrote that she could feel 'no pleasure but 
 that of thinking and speaking of her.' In sending to 
 Mrs. Girdlestone — whose family still possesses so many 
 relics of Nelson — the box which the Duke of Sussex had 
 presented to Mrs. Cadogan in Naples, the bereaved daughter 
 concluded a touching letter as follows : ' Accept then, my 
 dear Friend, this box. You that are so fond a mother, and 
 have such good children, will be pleased to take it as a 
 token of my regard, for I have lost the best of mothers, my 
 wounded heart, my comfort, all buried with her.' ^ 
 
 ' Endeavour,' wrote Mrs. Bolton, 'to keep up your spirits: 
 after a storm comes a calm, and God knows you have 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 987, January 3, i8lo. ^ Ibid. 989, January 14, 1810. 
 
 ' Ibid. 991, January 27, 1810. * Cf. Annual Register, 1810. 
 
 5 Cf. App., Part II. C. (6) (a). 
 
454 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 had storm enough, and surely the sun must shine some- 
 times.' ^ 
 
 The sun was never to shine again. This very year two 
 more staunch friends made their exit, the old Duke and 
 Abraham Goldsmid, who, in despair at the failure of the 
 recent Government loan, died by his own hand at Morden, 
 while his associate. Baring, also committed suicide. It was 
 a year of tumult. The din and riot of Burdett's election 
 endangered the streets ; abroad it was the year of Napoleon's 
 second marriage, of the great battle of Wagram preluding 
 the Russian campaign. Maria Carolina was an exile once 
 more. Austria and the allies were worsted and rabid. 
 Whichever way Emma's distraught mind turned, despair 
 and misery were her outlook, and Nelson seemed to have 
 died in vain. 
 
 The sum raised for her relief had been soon exhausted. 
 In removing to Bond Street she intended really to retrench, 
 but everything was swallowed up by the crowd of parasites 
 who consumed her substance behind her back.^ Her land- 
 lady, Mrs. Daumier, pressed for payment. And yet Lady 
 Hamilton's own requirements seem to have been modest 
 enough.^ It was Mrs. Bianchi, Mrs. Billington, Clarke, her 
 secretary, who seems to have filched her papers from her 
 afterwards, and the battening Neapolitans that rendered 
 economy impossible and swarmed around her to the close. 
 Nor would old dependants of Nelson believe that she 
 was impoverished. One, ' William Nelson,' continued to 
 importune her from Bethnal Green ; Mr. Twiss, Mrs. 
 Siddons's nephew, urged her influence for his solicitations 
 to gain a 'commissionership of Bankruptcy'* — an ominous 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 993, February 12, 1810. 
 
 ^ Cf. Sarah Connor's letter of September 10, 1810, Morrison MS. 1000 : 
 ' Mrs. Francis and her husband came yesterday from Merton to fetch the parrots. 
 You must excuse my freedom in the remark I am about to make, namely, in your 
 being obliged to pay for the board when all will be away, excepting only servants, 
 when I sett off. That has fretted me staying in town, as I thought it made you 
 pay the same as when all was at home, but find that my absence nor [sic] yours 
 makes any difference. ' And cf. looi (from the same), ' What do you mean to 
 do about coals ? ' etc. 
 
 ' 'This,' wrote Sarah Connor, alluding to the circumstances, 'alters the plan 
 of cheapness greatly, for there never has been extravagant dinners, but good 
 plain joints for you.' * Morrison MS. 1013, January 20, 181 1. 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 455 
 
 word for Emma.i The Kidds, Reynoldses, and Charles 
 Connor still lived on, the girl Connors with her. Their 
 conduct ill contrasted with that of the once ' poor little 
 Emma'; for the unacknowledged Emma 'Carew,' after 
 disdaining dependence on her prosperity, was now, in 
 adversity, bidding her a last and loving farewell.^ Sir 
 William Bolton still entreated her good offices with the 
 royal dukes for ' poor Horace ' ; ^ so did Mrs. Matcham with 
 Rose.* She could not even now refrain from maintaining 
 appearances, and keeping open house. She could not bring 
 herself to let those debonair royal dukes know that one 
 whom they fancied all song and sunshine was on the brink 
 of beggary. She could not hold the promise, repeated to 
 her befrienders, of living in tranquillity and retirement. 
 Nor would she desist from making presents.^ She still 
 visited fashionable resorts like Brighton.* She still enjoyed 
 the friendship of the Duchess of Devonshire,^ so soon herself 
 to become a widow. She still flattered herself, and listened 
 to the flatteries of others. She still trusted to chance — to 
 her elusive claims and her elusive legacy. 
 
 The old Duke had left Sarah Connor a legacy also,* but 
 all his bequests proved barren gifts. While Mrs. Matcham 
 was congratulating Emma on accessions of fortune, while 
 elderly, complimentary, Frenchified Fetherstonehaugh re- 
 joiced at the Queensberry ' mite out of such a mass of 
 wealth,' forwarded her ' envoies de gibier ' and promised her 
 ' a view of old Up Park dans la belle saison,' ^ the widow's 
 cruse was wellnigh drained. Nor, after Greville's death, 
 was his brother, as trustee, always regular in his payments 
 of her forestalled revenue. With reason, as well as with 
 excuses. Lord Mansfield warned her not to increase her 
 expenditure till her ' affairs were settled.' ^* Sir Richard 
 Puleston, inviting her from Wrexham to revisit the scenes 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 998, July 23, 1810. ^ Cf. Appendix, Part i. Note C. 
 
 3 Morrison MS. 1034. ^ Ibid. 1035-1037. 
 
 i* Ibid. 1006, December 6, 1810. At the close of this self-same year Anne 
 Bolton thanks her and Horatia for a gown and a brooch. ^ 
 
 ^ Morrison MS. 1023, which gives an amusing letter from her old Neapolitan 
 acquaintance Coxe. 
 
 ' Cf. Fetherstonehaugh's allusion, ibid. 1030, December 1811. 
 
 » Morrison MS. loio. » Ibid. ICXD9. " Ibid. 1014. 
 
456 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 of her childhood, could still gloat over her ' fairy palace in 
 Bond Street.' ^ 
 
 In extreme need, she revived her desperate petitions to 
 the new Government. Her fashionable friends called her 
 ' a national blessing,' and cried shame on the deniers of her 
 suit.2 But Mrs. Bolton well said to her that she feared the 
 friendly Rose was 'promising more than he could procure' ; 
 and amid these dubious hopes two tell-tale pieces of paper 
 in the Morrison Collection speak volumes. They are bills 
 drawn on Emma by a Neapolitan, Carlo Rovedino, for 
 £1^0 each.^ 
 
 Even Cecilia Connor, with whom she had quarrelled but 
 who owed her everything, dunned ' her Ladyship ' for the 
 salary due for such education as she had given ' dear 
 Horatia.' * This was the last straw. 
 
 The Matchams and Boltons invited her yet again, but 
 she did not come. She concerted fresh petitions with a fresh 
 man of the pen.^ He hastened at Emma's bidding from 
 his ' Woodbine Cottage ' at Wootton Bridge. He worked 
 ' like a horse.' During his absence his wife was ill. Emma 
 could not rest for thinking of her. She inquired of her 
 from a common friend.® She wrote to her herself : ' You do 
 not know how many obligations I have to Mr. RusSell, and 
 if I have success it will be all owing to his exertions for me. 
 Would to God you were in town. What a consolation it 
 would be to me,' All smiles to the world, full of wretched- 
 ness within, she could not, as she wrote so many years ago, 
 'divest' herself 'of her natural feelings.' But her uniform 
 love of excitement — of which these hazardous petitions 
 were a form — peeps out at the close of this little note : ' It 
 must be very dull, alltho' your charming family must be 
 such a comfort to you.' '' 
 
 The crash came suddenly with the opening of the new 
 year, and just as Miss Matcham was begging her to repose 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 1027, September 25, 1811. 
 
 ^ Puleston, among others ; Morrison MS. 1032. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 1018, 1019; May 13 and 14, 1811. * Ibid. 1024. 
 
 "Mr. Russell, an acquaintance of the Perrys, who now lived in the Isle of 
 Wight. " Morrison MS. 1033. 
 
 ' Letter in Clarke's hand, and franked by Eeckford, of December 28, 1812 ; 
 in Mr. Sabin's possession. 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 457 
 
 herself with them at Ashfield Lodge. Horatia had whoop- 
 ing-cough. Emma, who was never without a companion, 
 had replaced Cecilia Connor by a Miss Wheatley. For the 
 sixth time she had failed in moving the ministers, but her 
 tenacity was inexpugnable. She owed it to her kind com- 
 mittee, to Nelson's memory, to Horatia, to herself. The 
 creditors, however, at last perceived that the asset on which 
 they had built their hopes had vanished. In vain she 
 prayed for time ; the royal dukes would not see her 
 draggled in the dust. Royal dukes, however, were not cash, 
 thought the creditors, when thisy promptly arrested her for 
 debt. It was the first time such a calamity had even 
 entered her mind, but it was not to be the last, as we 
 shall soon discover.^ She implored none of her grand 
 friends. From the disgrace of prison she saved herself. 
 Ill, with the ailing Horatia, she found a scant lodging 
 at 12 Temple Place, within the rules of the King's Bench. 
 To her old Merton friend, James Perry, afterwards pro- 
 prietor of the Morning Chronicle, and through thick and 
 thin her warm upholder, she addressed the following 
 scrawl : — 
 
 ' Will you have the goodness to see my old Dame Francis, 
 as you was so good to say to me at once at any time for 
 the present existing and unhappy circumstances you wou'd 
 befriend me, and if you cou'd at your conveaneance call on 
 me to aid me by your advice as before. My friends come 
 to town to-morrow for the season, when I must see what 
 can be done, so that I shall not remain here ; for I am so 
 truly unhappy and wretched and have been ill ever since I 
 had the pleasure of seeing you on dear Horatia's birthday,^ 
 that I have not had either spirits or energy to write to you. 
 You that loved Sir William and Nelson, and feel that I 
 have deserved from my country some tribute of remunera- 
 tion, will aid by your counsel your ever affectionate and 
 gratefull. . . .' 
 
 ^ Pettigrew, and others following him, make no mention of more than one 
 arrest. But Emma's own letter to Perry of April 22 in the next year (Morrison 
 MS. 1054) leaves no doubt as to this point. She says she has been in Temple 
 Place for nine months. 
 
 ' Always celebrated on October 29, as it had been registered. 
 
4S8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 And to the Abbd Campbell, who had just left for 
 Naples : — 
 
 '. . . You was beliaved and honour'd by my husband, Nelson, 
 and myself; knew me in all my former splendours ; you I 
 look on as a dear, dear friend and relation. You are going 
 amongst friends who love you ; but rest assured none 
 reveres you nor loves more than your ever, etc. P.S. — 
 Poor Horatia was so broken-hearted at not seeing you. 
 Tell dear Mr. Tegart ^ to call on me, for I do indeed feil 
 truly forlorn and friendless. God bless you. As glorious 
 Nelson said. Amen, Amen, Amen.' ^ 
 
 Her stay in these purlieus was not long. Perry, and 
 probably the Mertonite Alderman Smith, must have bailed 
 her out. But during these few weeks of restricted liberty 
 she slaved at new petitions, was visited by friends, and 
 continued her correspondence with the Boltons and the 
 Matchams, who begged hard for Horatia, whom they would 
 meet at Reigate if Emma ' could not manage to come with 
 her.' ^ They forwarded her presents of potatoes and turkeys 
 from the country, and their letters evidently treat her just 
 as if she were at large. 
 
 All her energies were bent on the two final memorials so 
 often referred to in these pages — that to the Prince Regent, 
 and that to the King. Rose now at last espoused her cause 
 with real warmth, and Canning favoured her, despite his 
 pique at her exaggerated account of what Nelson under- 
 stood from their last interview. All, however, ended in 
 smoke. Perceval, whom she had persuaded into benefiting 
 one of Nelson's nephews, had been shot in the previous 
 year, and Lord Liverpool trod in the footsteps of Lord 
 Grenvillei 
 
 Whither she repaired on liberation is unknown, though 
 by the summer of the year she managed to reinstate herself 
 in Bond Street.* There is no heading to the strange 
 
 1 A doctor who, with Dr. Watson, ^ain tends her in 1814. Cf. Morrison 
 
 MS. I0S4- 
 " Cf. Morrison MS. 1042, January 3, 1813 ; 1043. 
 
 2 Cf. Morrison MS. 1044, January 25, and for the other fact Rose's Diofies, 
 vol. i. pp. 265 and 266. 
 
 * No. 150. This is manifest from the inventory and sale catalogues of the 
 following July sold at Sotheby's on July 8, 1905. , 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 459 
 
 remonstrance which the distressed mother penned, in one 
 of her fitful moods, to Horatia on ' Easter Sunday ' ^ of 
 this year : — 
 
 ' Listen to a kind, good mother, who has ever been to 
 you affectionate, truly kind, and who has neither spared 
 pains nor expense to make you the most amiable and 
 accomplished of your sex. Ah ! Horatia, if you had grown 
 up as I wished you, what a joy, what a comfort might you 
 have been to me! For I have been constant to you, and 
 willingly pleas'd for every manifestation you shew'd to learn 
 and profitt of my lessons. . . . Look into yourself well, cor- 
 rect yourself of your errors, your caprices, your nonsensical 
 follies. ... I have weathered many a storm for your sake, 
 but these frequent blows have kill'd me. Listen then from 
 a mother, who speaks from the dead. Reform your conduct, 
 or you will be detested by all the world, and when you shall 
 no longer have my fostering arm to sheild you, woe betide 
 you, you will sink to nothing. Be good, be honourable, 
 tell not falsehoods, be not capricious.' She threatened to 
 put her to school — a threat never executed. ' I grieve and 
 lament to see the increasing strength of your turbulent 
 passions ; I weep, and pray you may not be totally lost ; 
 my fervent prayers are offered up to God for you. I 
 hope you may become yet sensible of your eternal welfare. 
 I shall go join your father and my blessed mother, and may 
 you on your deathbed have as little to reproach yourself as 
 your once affectionate mother has, for I can glorify, and say 
 I was a good child. Can Horatia Nelson say so ? I am 
 unhappy to say you cannot. No answer to this! I shall 
 to-morrow look out for a school for your sake to save you, 
 that you may bless the memory of an injured mother. 
 P.S. — Look on me as gone from this world.' 
 
 Six months later she again blamed her for her 'cruel 
 treatment' It may well be that the poor young girl, 
 bandied about with Emma's fortunes, and with her driven 
 from pillar to post, complained of hard treatment. ' If 
 my poor mother,' once more exclaimed Emma, who 
 had, at any rate, been a most dutiful daughter, ' If my 
 poor mother was living to take my part, broken as I am 
 » April 18, 1813. Cf. Morrison MS. 1047. 
 
'460 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 with greif and ill-health, I should be happy to breathe my 
 last in her arms. I thank you for what you have done 
 to-day. You have helped me nearer to God, and may God 
 forgive you.' In two days 'all will be arranged for her 
 future establishment.' She will summon Colonel and Mrs. 
 Clive, Colonel and Mrs. Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Denis, Dr. 
 Norton, Nanny the old servant, Mr. Slop, Mr. Sice, Annie 
 Deane, all the gossips from Richmond, to ' tell the truth ' if 
 she ' has used her ill.' ' Every servant shall be on oath.' 
 ' The all-seeing eye of God ' knows ' her innocence.'^ 
 
 Of these two ebullitions, it is impossible not to discern in 
 the first a fear lest her own errors should be repeated in her 
 daughter. And it should not be forgotten that, through 
 the connivance of Haslewood, Nelson's solicitor, Horatia to 
 the last refused to believe that Lady Hamilton, whom she 
 tenderly nursed and comforted at the close, was her real 
 mother. Some such denials of Emma's motherhood may 
 have caused these outbursts, proportioned in their violence 
 to the intense and unceasing love that Emma fostered for 
 Nelson's child, on her real relationship to whom she here 
 — and here only within four walls — laid such vehement 
 stress. 
 
 She had been compelled to part with Horatia's christening- 
 cup. Nelson's own gift, to a Bond Street silversmith.* Sir 
 Harris Nicolas declared that he had seen a statement in 
 her handwriting to the effect that ' Horatia's mother ' was 
 ' too great a lady to be mentioned.' It has been assumed 
 that this ambiguous phrase pointed to the Queen of Naples, 
 who so late as 1808 was in friendly correspondence with 
 Emma. This, however, remains uncertain. Nelson's own 
 action had constrained her to envelop their joint offspring 
 in mystery, for Horatia's benefit as well as their own. It is 
 just as probable that the words 'too great a lady' were 
 used of herself, for the same words are used of her by Mrs. 
 Bolton in 1809.^ 
 
 Things went rapidly from bad to worse. The smaller 
 fry of her creditors were emboldened by the complete 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 1051, October 31, 1813. 
 
 2 Mr. Salter. 
 
 ' ' Were I a certain great lady,' etc. Morrison MS. 984. 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 461 
 
 neglect of her last 'memorials' into renewed action. At 
 the instance of an exorbitant coach-builder,^ with a long 
 bill in his hands, she was re-arrested, and in Horatia's 
 company she found herself, towards the end of July 1813, 
 for the second time in the bare lodgings at Temple Place. 
 All her remaining effects in Bond Street were sold. The 
 articles offered were by no means luxurious, and included 
 the remnants of Hamilton's library ; many of them were 
 bought by the silversmith, whom she still owed, and by 
 Alderman Smith, her most generous benefactor. The city 
 remained her champion. 
 
 She could still see her friends, Coxe and George Matcham 
 among them,^ and she was permitted, such was her miserable 
 health, to drive out on occasion. But the game, spiritedly 
 contested to the last, was now up. Mrs. Bolton's death in 
 the preceding August added one more to the many fatalities 
 that thronged around her. The Matchams, themselves poor, 
 were unwearying in their solicitude, and eventually a small 
 windfall enabled them to contribute ;£^ioo to her dire neces- 
 sities. Alderman Smith came for the second time to the 
 rescue, and once more stood her bail.® 
 
 But before even this alleviation was vouchsafed, and while 
 she had been for three months confined to her bed, a crown- 
 ing trouble beset her. Through the perfidy of some 
 dependant* Nelson's most private letters to her had been 
 abstracted some years before, and were now published to 
 the world. This is the invaluable correspondence on which 
 these pages have so frequently drawn. It was not their 
 revelation of the ' Thomson ' letters that prejudiced her : 
 her enemies were always willing to insinuate even that she 
 had foisted Horatia on Nelson, It was the revelation of the 
 Prince of Wales episode of 1801, that scandalised the big 
 world, and destroyed the last shred of hope for any future 
 'memorials.' It was insinuated that she herself had pub- 
 
 ' Much of his claim was said to be fictitious, and he was only the stalking- 
 horse for the annuitants who had advanced her money. 
 
 2 Morrison MS. 1053. 
 
 s Cf. Mrs. and Miss Mateham's letter of November 21, 1813, Morrison MS. 
 1052, November 21, 1813. 
 
 * Perhaps Harrison, or more probably her secretary, Clarke, whom and 
 whose wife she had supported. 
 
462 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 lished the volume. 'Weather this person,' she told Mr. 
 Perry, ' has made use of any of these papers, or weather they 
 are the invention of a vile mercenary wretch, I know not, 
 but you will oblige me much by contradicting these false- 
 hoods.' 1 'I have taken an oath and confirmed it at the 
 altar,' the much^harried Emma was to write to the press in 
 the following year, after she had crossed the Channel, ' that 
 I know nothing of these infamous publications that are 
 imputed to me. My letters were stolen from me by that 
 scoundrel whose family I had in charity so long supported. 
 I never once saw or knew of them. That base man is 
 capable of forging any handwriting, and I am told that he 
 has obtained money from the [Prince of Wales] by his 
 impositions. Sir William Hamilton, Lord N., and myself 
 were too much attached to hi« [Royal Highness] ever to 
 speak ill or think ill of him. If I had the means I would 
 prosecute the wretches who have thus traduced me.'^ In 
 still another of her last letters she is even more specific 
 on this sore subject. ' I again before God declare,' she 
 avers, ' I know nothing of the publication of these stolen 
 letters.' » 
 
 These statements point to Emma's truthfulness. All 
 that she asserts is her ignorance of the contents of the 
 volume, and how they came to be published. The Prince 
 of Wales letters in this collection are undoubtedly genuine, 
 corroborated, as they are, by many of their companions in 
 the Morrison Manuscripts. The letters had been purloined 
 by a rascal, and their publication blasted her last chances 
 with the Prince whom in her will she had begged to protect 
 Horatia after she was gone, while it also disclosed for the 
 first time her dishonour of her husband. 
 
 Her sin had found her out ; but her sin had been born 
 of real devotion, and surely it should not harden us against 
 her lovableness, or alienate us from charity towards the 
 
 ' Cf. her indignant note of April 26, 1814, to Perry, Morrison MS. 1054. She 
 begs Perry to contradict falsehoods or inventions. She has not seen the volume. 
 
 2 Add. MS. 34,992, f. 129. A copy ; cf. Appendix, Part II. C. (10). This 
 document also is there transcribed for the first time. 
 
 * From the letter to Sir William Scott of Sept. 12, 1814, sold at Messrs. 
 Sotheby's, July 8, igoj. 
 
IMPORTUNITY AND LIQUIDATION 463 
 
 weight of her temptations, and from pity for the tragedy of 
 her lot. 
 
 She had abstained from reading the book. If she meant 
 to deny the authenticity of these letters, then indisputably 
 she must be taken to have lied. But even so, she was 
 driven to bay and at the end of her tether. The perjury 
 would have been exceptional. It would not have been 
 Plato's ' lie in the soul ' : it would have been a lie in defence 
 of the dead and the living. 
 
 'The lips have sworn : unsworn remains the soul.' * 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FROM DEBT TO DEATH 
 
 July 1 8 14 — January 1815 
 
 Short and evil were the few days remaining. ' What shall 
 I do ; God, what shall I do ! ' had been her exclamation 
 thirty-two years ago to Greville. As she began, so she 
 closed. 
 
 Mrs. Bolton's death in the late summer of 1813 left her 
 more desolate than ever at Temple Place. The Matchams 
 resumed their warm invitations ; alas ! she could not leave ; 
 she was still an undischarged bankrupt. The Matchams 
 themselves were breaking up the last of their many estab- 
 lishments. They all wished to join Emma and Horatia, 
 when possible, in some ' city, town, or village abroad.' ^ 
 This proposal doubtless suggested the idea of retiring to 
 Calais when her present ordeal in the stale air of stuffy 
 Alsatia should come to an end. 
 
 But even in tribulation she had celebrated, as best she 
 could, the 'glorious ist of August.' I have seen a letter 
 inviting a few even then — not ' pinchbeck,' she calls them, 
 ' but true gold ' — round that little table in Temple Place, 
 to drink for the last time to the hero's memory. 
 
 The few surviving records unite in proving her genuine 
 anxiety that through her no creditor should suffer. Though 
 imprudence, as she confessed, had not a little contributed, 
 her main disasters were due to a crowd of worthless on- 
 hangers whom she had recklessly maintained. She herself 
 had gone bail ' for a person ' whom she thought ' honour- 
 able.' This 'person' was probably one Jewitt, a young 
 friend of the Russells, in whom she had taken a warm 
 
 • Morrison MS. 1053, April 18, 1814. 
 
FROM DEBT TO DEATH 46S 
 
 interest. ' I should be better,' she had written to her ' kind, 
 good, benevolent Mr. and Mrs. Russell,' ' if I could know 
 that this unfortunate and, I think, not guilty young man 
 was saved. He has been a dupe in the hands of villains. 
 ... I have never seen him, for I could not have borne to 
 have seen him and his amiable wife and children suffer as 
 they must.'^ She employs the same phrase — 'dupe of 
 villains ' — about herself in a long epistle of this very date 
 to Rose. 
 
 All her property was surrendered ; with the exception 
 of a few sacred relics, everything unseized had been sold, 
 even Nelson's sword of honour.^ Her just creditors lost 
 not a penny. The sole extortioners she would not benefit 
 were those annuitant Shylocks who had preyed upon her 
 utmost need, and who had well secured themselves by 
 insuring her life in the Pelican Insurance Company.* 
 
 James Perry and Alderman Smith exerted themselves to 
 the utmost on her behalf. A small further sum was col- 
 lected for her in the city, and by the last week of June 
 1 8 14 her full discharge was obtained from Lord Ellen- 
 borough. She was now free — with less than fifty pounds in 
 her pocket. 
 
 But she soon gleaned the fact that these merciless 
 'annuitants' purposed her re-arrest. Without dishonour, 
 she prepared for exodus to France.* 
 
 It was a flight requiring management and secrecy to elude 
 the new writs about to be issued : it was her last thrill. 
 How different from that memorable flight to Palermo 
 sixteen years earlier, which had earned the admiration of 
 
 1 Cf. extract from an undated letter (about 1813) in Sotheby's catalogue for 
 May 17, 1905, given in the Appendix. The name is there misprinted ' Jematt,' 
 for I have seen another letter to a Mrs. Jewitt which tallies with its allusions. 
 
 "^ There was a dispute in more recent years about its authenticity. 
 
 ' For the preceding, inter alia, cf. Rose's Diaries, vol. i. p. 271 (July 4, 
 1814); Add. MS. 34,992, f. 199 (September 14, 1814); Morrison MS. 1054 
 (April 22, 1814), 1055 (September 21, 1814), 1066 (February 8, 1815). 
 
 * ' Mr. Smith got me the discharge from Lord EUenborough. I then begged 
 Mr. Smith to withdraw his bail, for I wou'd have died in prison sooner than 
 that good man should have suffered for me. ' — Lady H. to George Rose ; Calais, 
 July 4 ; Rose's Diaries, vol. i. p. 271. For the small sum with which she 
 landed in France, cf. App., Part 11. (10) (a). She went away with £,t,o, out of 
 which she had to defray all the travelling expenses. 
 
 2 G 
 
466 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Nelson, the gratitude of a court, and the praise of 
 Britain ! 
 
 About the last day of June she and Horatia, unattended, 
 embarked at the Tower. The stormy passage thence to 
 Calais took three days. Her single thought was for 
 Horatia's future, but she still buoyed herself up by believing 
 that an ungrateful ministry would at length provide for her 
 daughter. Sir William Scott, she wrote, assured her that 
 there were ' some hopes ' for her ' irresistible claims.' She 
 fancied, moreover, that she had some disposing power over 
 the accumulations of arrears on her income under her 
 husband's will, so long withheld and intercepted by greedy 
 annuitants. ' If I was to die,' she told Greville's brother 
 and executor, imploring him at the same time for ;^ioo on 
 account, ' I should have left that money away, for the 
 annuitants have no right to have it, nor can they claim it, 
 for I was most dreadfully imposed upon by my good 
 nature. . . . When I came away, I came with honour, as 
 Mr. Alderman Smith can inform you, but mine own in- 
 nocence keeps me up, and I despise all false accusations 
 and aspersions. I have given up everything to pay just 
 debts, but [for] annuitants, never will.' ^ 
 
 She at first lodged at Dessein's famous hotel — the inn 
 where Sterne (of whom Romney, his first portrayer, must 
 have often told her) had started on his Sentimental Journey, 
 by the confession over a bottle of Burgundy that there 
 was ' mildness in the Bourbon blood ' ; and where the 
 ' Englishman who did not travel to see Englishmen ' had 
 inspected, in his host's company, the ramshackle d^sobli- 
 geante which was to be the vehicle of his whimsies. 
 
 Dessein's, however, was expensive^ as well as senti- 
 mental. It was not long before she inhabited the smaller 
 'Quillac's'^ and looked out for a still humbler abode. 
 Her ' Old Dame Francis ' was soon to join her as house- 
 keeper. 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 1055, Lady H. to Hon. R. F. Greville, September 21, 
 1814. 
 
 ^ In the letter to Rose from ' Dessein's ' above cited, she speaks of the benefit 
 to her health from ' change of climate, food, air, larger rooms, and liberty.' 
 
 3 Cf. Mrs. Ward's (Horatia) account of her mother's last days, in her two 
 letters to the Times of 1874. 
 
FROM DEBT TO DEATH 467 
 
 She thus describes their manner of life to George Rose: — 
 
 ' . . . Near me is an English lady, who has resided here for 
 twenty-five years, who has a day-school, but not for eating 
 or sleeping. At eight in the morning I take Horatia, fetch 
 her at one ; at three we dine ; she goes out till five, and 
 then in the evening we walk. She learns everything — 
 piano, harp, languages grammatically. She knows French 
 and Italian well, but she will still improve. Not any girls, 
 but those of the best families go there. Last evening we 
 walked two miles to a fite champHre pour les bourgeois. 
 Everybody is pleased with Horatia. The General and his 
 good old wife are very good to us ; but our little world of 
 happiness is ourselves. If, my dear Sir, Lord Sidmouth 
 would do something for dear Horatia, so that I can be 
 enabled to give her an education, and also for her dress, it 
 would ease me, and make me very happy. Surely he owes 
 this to Nelson. For God's sake, do try for me, for you do 
 not know how limited I am. ... I have been the victim of 
 artful, mercenary wretches.' ^ 
 
 Dis aliter visum ; it was not to be. Nothing but the 
 pittance of Horatia's settlement remained. Rose bestirred 
 himself, but Lord Sidmouth continued impervious to the 
 importunate widow,^ herself slowly recovering from the 
 jaundice. 
 
 When ' Dame Francis ' arrived, they tenanted a farm- 
 house two miles distant in the Commune of St. Pierre — 
 ' Common of St. Peter's,' as Lady Hamilton writes it — and 
 from this farmhouse, not long afterwards, they again re- 
 moved to a neighbouring one.^ It belonged to two ladies 
 who had lost a large sum by the refusal of their sons to join 
 
 ^ Cf. Rose's Diaries, vol. i. p. 272 ; and cf. Morrison MS. 1055. ' Horatia 
 is improving in person and education every day. She speaks French like a 
 French girl, Italian, German, English,' etc. — September 21. 
 
 2 On March 6, 1813, he had repulsed her 'Prince Regent' application 'after 
 a full communication with Lord Liverpool.' It was ' very painfull ' for him to 
 do so; he regretted her 'embarrassments.' But, 'on comparing them with 
 representations now before him of difficulty and distress in many other quarters, 
 and upon view of the circumstances with which they are attended,' he found it 
 ' impossible to administer the scanty means of relief and assistance^ etc. This 
 model of officialism is transcribed in Rose's Diaries; the original is in the 
 writer's possession. 
 
 ' Cf. Mrs. Horatia Nelson Ward's account in the Times of 1874. 
 
468 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Napoleon's invading army. Its rooms were large, its garden 
 extensive. She could at length take exercise in a pony-cart. 
 She and Horatia were regular in church attendance: the 
 French prayers were like their own. Provisions were 
 cheap: turkeys two shillings, partridges fivepence the brace; 
 Bordeaux wine from five to fifteen pence.^ Occasionally 
 a stray visitor passed their way. Lord Cathcart, Sir 
 William's old friend and relative, had visited them, and 
 spied out the nakedness of the land. It was well known at 
 Calais that the celebrated Lady Hamilton was in retreat : 
 a real live ' milord ' must have fluttered the farmhouse 
 dovecote. For a time there was a brief spell of cheerful 
 tranquillity, but the gleam was transient. It was only a 
 reprieve before the final summons. ' If my dear Horatia 
 were provided for,' she wrote to Sir William Scott, ' I should 
 dye happy, and if I could only now be enabled to make 
 her more comfortable, and finish her education, ah God, 
 how I would bless them that enabled me to do it ! ' She was 
 teaching her German and Spanish ; music, French, Italian, 
 and English she ' already knew.' Emma ' had seen enough 
 of grandeur not to regret it ' ; ' comfort, and what would 
 make Horatia and myself live like gentlewomen, would be 
 all I wish, and to live to see her well settled in the world.' 
 It was of no avail that her illness was leaving her. ' My 
 Broken Heart does not leave me.' ' Without a pound in ' 
 her 'pocket,' what could she do? — 'On the 21st of October, 
 fatal day, I shall have some. I wrote to Davison to ask 
 the Earl to let me have my Bronte pension quarterly 
 instead of half-yearly, and the Earl refused, saying that he 
 was too poor. . . . Think, then, of the situation of Nelson's 
 child, and Lady Hamilton, who so much contributed to the 
 Battle of the Nile, paid often and often out of my own 
 pocket at Naples . . . and also at Palermo for corn to save 
 Malta. Indeed, I have been ill used. Lord Sidmouth is a 
 good man, and Lord Liverpool is also an upright Minister. 
 Pray, and if ever Sir William Hamilton's and Lord Nelson's 
 services were deserving, ask them to aid me. Think what 
 I must feel who was used to give God only knows [how 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 1055 ; other information from a late letter. 
 
FROM DEBT TO DEATH 469 
 
 much], and now to ask ! ' ^ Such was the plight of one who 
 had gladly lavished care and money on the son and 
 daughter of Earl Nelson. That new-made Earl, who had 
 canvassed her favour, and called her his ' best friend,' was 
 now calmly leaving her to perish, and his great brother's 
 daughter to share her carking penury and privation. 
 
 Lawyers' letters molested even the seclusion of St. Pierre. 
 The English papers published calumnies which she was 
 forced to contradict.^ Their little fund was fast dwindling, 
 and as late autumn set in they were forced to transfer their 
 scanty effects to a meagre lodging in the town itself. 
 
 In the Rue Fran9aise — No. 106 — and even there in its 
 worst apartments, looking due north, the distressed fugitives 
 found themselves in the depth of a hard winter. 
 
 They were not in absolute want,^ but, had their suspense 
 been protracted, they must ere long have been so. At the 
 beginning of December the ' annuitants' ' attorneys were in 
 close correspondence with the Honourable Colonel Sir R. 
 Fulke Greville. Proceedings, indeed, were being instigated 
 in Chancery, which were only stopped by Lady Hamilton's 
 
 • Lady Hamilton to Sir William Soott — September 12, 1814. Cf. App., 
 Part II. (10) (o). 
 
 2 Cf. her letter (September 14, 1814) from ' Village of St. Pierre, near Calais,' 
 Add. MS. 34,992, f. 199, to the editor of the Morning Herald. ' I was sur- 
 prised to observe that the Morning Herald, with other newspapers, had pub- 
 lished that I fled from my bail. This is false. I had Lord EUenborough's 
 discharge, and Alderman Smith . . . never lost a shilling by me. I have left 
 in England all I possessed to pay my creditors, retaining only sufficient for 
 Horatia and myself to subsist upon at a farmhouse.' 
 
 ' Cf. Mrs. Ward's letters to the Times (1874). The legend, repeated both by 
 Pettigrew and Mr. Calton (in his Calais) from the supposed eye-witness of the 
 benevolent Mrs. Hunter, then of Brighton, but formerly of the ' Grande Place,' 
 Calais, is disproved. According to her, she learned from a • M. Rheipns,' ' in- 
 terpreter,' that Emma and her child were in need even of the scraps which 
 the butcher gave to dogs. But though these are exaggerations, she and M. 
 Rheims may have befriended the unfortunates. Mrs. Hunter's account of the 
 funeral, however, is an ascertained myth. Among other doubtful traditions 
 may be also mentioned the babble of the old gardener, Ward, who had been a 
 lad at Merton when Nelson quitted it for the last time, and who died some 
 twenty-five years ago. He used to relate how Lady Hamilton asked Nelson, 
 when they met him on one of their last walks together, to give him a shilling. 
 Asked by an interviewer who brought a pretty lady with hiin, if Emma were as 
 lovely as she is painted, the old man answered, with a sly side-glance at the 
 young lady, ' I 've seen many as pretty as her.' 
 
470 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 unexpected demise.^ An embargo was laid on every penny 
 of Emma's income. Even Horatia's pittance was not paid 
 in advance, till she herself begged for a trifle on account 
 from her uncle, Earl Nelson. 
 
 Under the strain of uncertainty, Emma, worried out of 
 her wits, and drawn more closely than ever to the daughter 
 who absorbed her fears, her sorrow, and her affection, at 
 length collapsed. The strong and buoyant spirits, which 
 had brought her through so many crises, including Horatia's 
 own birth, and the coil of its consequences, failed any 
 longer to support her. A dropsical complaint, complicated 
 by a chill, fastened upon her chest. By New Year's 
 Day 1815, her state of pocket, as well as of health, had 
 become critical. Some ten pounds, in English money, her 
 wearing apparel, and a few pawn tickets for pledged pieces 
 of plate,^ were the sole means of subsistence until Horatia's 
 next quarter's allowance should fall due. At Horatia's in- 
 stance the Matchams had forwarded the little they could 
 spare. Her mother, denuded of all, had asked for nothing ; it 
 was for Horatia that she cared. At her d^but, Greville had 
 noticed that she would starve rather than beg : it proved 
 so now. Only seven years ago she had implored the Duke 
 not to let their 'enemies trample upon them.' Those 
 enemies had trampled on them indeed. A new creditor 
 was knocking at her door, the last creditor — Death. 
 
 One can picture that deserted death-scene in the Calais 
 garret, where the wan woman, round whom so much bril- 
 liance had hovered, lay poverty-stricken and alone. Where 
 now were the tribes of flatterers, of importuners for promo- 
 tion, or even the crowd of true and genial hearts? Her 
 still lingering beauty had formed an element of her age, 
 but now only the primitive elements of ebbing life remained 
 intact — the mother and her child. By her bedside stood a 
 crucifix — for she had openly professed her faith.* Over her 
 bed hung, doubtless, the small portraits of Nelson and of 
 
 » Cf. Morrison MS. 1056, 1061, 1063, 1065, 1066. 
 
 '^ Cf. Pettigrew's risumi of the Juge de Paix's inventory, vol. ii. p. 636. 
 
 ' Cf. Mrs. Horatia Nelson Ward's account in the Times oixZ'je,; and Mr. 
 Cadogan's list of funeral expenses, including ' priests' and ' candles,' Morrison 
 MS. 10,068. 
 
FROM DEBT TO DEATH 471 
 
 her mother — ^remnants from the wreck. Nelson was no 
 longer loathed at Calais ; a Bourbon sat on the throne, and 
 not even wounded pride angered the French against the 
 man who had delivered the sister — now dead herself — of 
 Marie Antoinette. Perhaps Emma is trying to dictate a 
 last piteous entreaty to the hard-hearted Earl, and sad 
 Horatia writing it at the bare table by the attic casement. 
 Perhaps, while she gasps for breath, and calls to mind the 
 child within her arms, she strives but fails to utter all the 
 weight upon her heart. Horatia sobs, and kisses again, 
 may be, and again that ' guardian ' whom now she loves 
 and trusts with a daughter's heart. Sorrow unites them 
 closely ; here ' they and sorrow sit' 
 
 Of her many tragic ' Attitudes ' (had Constance ever been 
 one?) the tragedy of this last eclipses all. She, whose 
 loveliness had dazzled Europe, whose voice and gestures 
 had charmed all Italy, and had spellbound princes alike 
 and peasants ; whose fame, whatever might be muttered, 
 was destined to re-echo long after life's broken cadence 
 had died upon the air ; she whose lightest word had been 
 cherished — she now lay dying here. Nelson, her mother, 
 her child, these are still her company and comfort, as 
 memories float before her fading eyes. Ah 1 will she find 
 the first again, and must she lose the last ? 
 
 A pang, a spasm, a cry. The priest is fetched in haste. 
 She still has strength to be absolved, to receive extreme 
 unction from a stranger's hands. Weeping Horatia and old 
 ' Dame Francis ' re-enter as, in that awful moment, shrived, 
 let us hope, and reconciled, she clings, and rests in their 
 embrace. 
 
 It had been her wish to lie beside her mother in the 
 Paddington church. This, too, was thwarted. On the 
 next Friday she was buried. The hearse was followed 
 by the many naval officers ^ then at Calais to the cheerless 
 cemetery, before many years converted into a timber-yard. 
 
 ' Cf. Pettigrew's information from Mr. Rothery, Mr. Henry Cadogan's rela- 
 tive, given in his note to vol. ii. p. 636. The Morrison MSS. confirm his 
 surmise as to how the funeral expenses were defrayed. From them it also 
 appears that her body, like Nelson's, was preserved in spirits. 
 
472 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Had she died a Protestant — -such was the revival of 
 Catholicism with monarchy in France — intolerance would 
 have refused a service : only a few months earlier, a blame- 
 less and charming actress had been pitched at Paris into 
 an unconsecrated grave. It was these circumstances that 
 engendered the fables, soon circulated in England, of Emma's 
 burial in a deal box covered by a tattered petticoat.^ 
 
 Earl Nelson and the Mr. Henry Cadogan,^ who has 
 been mentioned earlier, came over before the beginning of 
 February — the former to bring Horatia back, the latter to 
 pay, through Alderman Smith's large-heartedness,® the last 
 of the many debts owing on the score of Lady Hamilton. 
 None of them were defrayed by the Earl, who had never 
 given his niece so much as 'a frock or a sixpence.' It 
 was soon known that the ' celebrated Emma ' had passed 
 away. Polite letters were exchanged between Colonel 
 Greville and the ' Prefect of the Department of Calais ' as 
 to the actual facts, and Greville's executor was much 
 relieved to feel that Emma's departure had spared him the 
 bother of a long lawsuit.* 
 
 Horatia owed nothing to her uncle Nelson's care : she 
 stayed with the Matchams until her marriage, in 1822, to 
 the Reverend Philip Ward of Tenterden. She became the 
 mother of many children, and died, an octogenarian, in 
 1881. 
 
 The research of these pages has tried to illumine Lady 
 Hamilton's misdeeds as well as her good qualities, to in- 
 terpret the problems and contrasts of a mixed character 
 and a mixed career. It has tracked the many phases and 
 vicissitudes both of circumstance and calibre that she 
 underwent. We have seen her as a girl, friendless and 
 forsaken, only to be rescued and trained by a selfish pedant, 
 who collected her as he collected his indifferent pictures 
 
 1 Cf. not only Mr. Hunter's account repeated by Pettigrew and Calton, but 
 Emma's obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine, where the instance of the actress 
 is also chronicled. 
 
 '^ He was possibly her mother's relative. 
 
 2 Cf. Morrison MS. 1064, Mr. Henry Cadogan's receipt from Alderman 
 Joshua Jonathan Smith for the funeral expenses, amounting to £2?>, los. 
 
 * Cf. Morrison MS. 1059-1061. 
 
FROM DEBT TO DEATH 473 
 
 and metallic minerals. We have seen her handed on to the 
 amiable voluptuary whose torpor she bestirred, and for 
 whose classical taste she embodied the beautiful ideal. We 
 have seen her swaying a Queen, influencing statesmen and 
 even a dynasty, exalted by marriage to a platform which 
 enabled her to save, more than once, a situation critical 
 alike for her country, for Naples, and for Europe. We 
 have seen her rising not only to, but above, the occasions 
 which her highest fortunes enabled. We have followed her 
 conspicuous courage, from its germs in battling with mean 
 disaster, to a development which attracted and enthralled the 
 most valiant captain of his age. We have marked how her 
 resource also enhanced even his resourcefulness. We have 
 watched her swept into a vortex of passionate love for the 
 hero who transcended her dramatic dreams, and sacrificing 
 all, even her native truthfulness, for the real and unshaken 
 love of their lives. We have shown that she cannot be 
 held to have detained him from his public duty so long as 
 history is unable to point to a single exploit unachieved. 
 And eventually, we have found that the infinite expressive- 
 ness which throughout rendered her a muse both to men 
 of reverie and of action, rendered herself a blank, when 
 the personalities she prompted were withdrawn and could 
 no more inspire her as she had inspired them. We have 
 viewed her marvellous rise, and we have traced her melan- 
 choly decline, from the moment of the prelude to Horatia's 
 birth to the years which involved its far-reaching and inevit- 
 able sequels. We have found that, despite all the result- 
 ing stains which soiled a frank and fervid but unschooled 
 and unbridled nature, she never lost a capacity for devo- 
 tion, and even self-abandonment ; while her kindness and 
 bounty remained as reckless and extravagant as the wilful- 
 ness of her moods and the exuberance of her enthusiasm. 
 We have found her headstrong successively, and resolute, 
 bold and brazen, capricious and loyal, vain-glorious, but 
 vainer far for the glory of those she loved ; strenuous yet 
 inert, eminently domestic yet waywardly pleasure-loving ; 
 serviceable yet alluring, at once Vesta and Hebe. We have 
 tracked her, as catastrophe lowered, tenaciously beating the 
 air, and ever sanguine that she could turn stones — even 
 
474 EMMA; LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the stones flung at her — to gold. We have tracked also 
 the cruelty and shabbiness of those that were first and fore- 
 most in throwing those stones, whose propriety was 
 prudence, and whose virtue was self-interest. We have 
 marked how long this woman of Samaria's wayfare was 
 beset by bad Samaritans. We have felt the falsities to 
 which they bowed as falser than the genuine idolatry which 
 held her from a nobler worship, and from an air purer than 
 most of her surrounders ever breathed. It was in Nelson's 
 erring unselfishness that her salvation and her damnation 
 met. And in her semi-consecration of true motherhood, 
 springing at first from wild-animal devotion to her first 
 child, we can discern the refinement of instinct which at 
 length led the born pagan within the pale of reverence. 
 Astray as a girl, she had found refuge in her own devotion, 
 with which she invested Greville's patronage. An outcast 
 at the close, she turned for shelter to a worthier home. 
 And above all, implanted in her from the first, and in- 
 eradicable, her unwavering fondness for her mother has half- 
 erased her darkest blots, and made her more beautiful than 
 her beauty. May we not say, at the last, that because she 
 loved much, much shall be forgiven her: quia multum amavit. 
 The site of her grave has vanished, and with it the two 
 poor monuments rumoured to have marked the spot ; the 
 first (if Mrs. Hunter be here believed) of wood, ' like a 
 battledore, handle downwards ' ; the second, a headstone, 
 which a Guide to Calais mentions in 1833.^ Its Latin 
 inscription was then partially decipherable : — 
 
 '. . . Quae 
 . . . Calesiae 
 
 Vis. in Gallic£l vocati 
 
 Et in domo C.VI. obiit 
 
 Die XV. Mensis Januarii. a.d. mdcccxv. 
 
 ^tatis suae Li.' ^ 
 
 It was perhaps erected by some officer of that navy 
 which, long after she had gone, always remembered her 
 unflagging zeal and kindness with gratitude. 
 
 Her best epitaph may be found in the touching lines 
 indited by Nelson's Doctor Beatty, who had himself known 
 
 ' Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 636. The ' battledore ' bore the inscription, ' Emma 
 Hamilton, England's friend.' ''■ i.e. In the fifty-first year of her age. 
 
FROM DEBT TO DEATH 475 
 
 and liked her, after visiting her grave on his return from 
 attending William IV, and his wife in Germany. They were 
 published in 1831 : — 
 
 ' And here is one — a nameless grave — the g^rass 
 Waves dank and dismal o'er its crumbling mass 
 Of mortal elements — the wintry sedge 
 Weeps drooping o'er the rampart's watery edge ; 
 The rustling reed — the darkly rippling wave — 
 Announce the tenant of that lowly grave. 
 
 . . . Levelled with the soil, 
 The wasting worm hath revelled in its spoil — 
 The spoil of beauty ! This, the poor remains 
 Of one who, living, could command the strains 
 Of flattery's harp and pen. Whose incense, flung 
 From venal breath upon her altar, hung, 
 A halo ; while in loveliness supreme 
 She moved in brightness, like th' embodied dream 
 Of some rapt minstrel's warm imaginings. 
 The more than form and face of earthly things. 
 
 Few bend them at thy bier, unhappy one 1 
 All know thy shame, thy mental sufferings, none. 
 All know thy frailties — all thou wast and art ! 
 But thine were faults of circumstance, not heart. 
 Thy soul was formed to bless and to be bless'd 
 With that immortal boon — a guiltless breast. 
 And be what others seem — had bounteous Heaven 
 Less beauty lent, or stronger virtue given ! 
 The frugal matron of some lowlier hearth. 
 Thou hadst not known the splendid woes of earth : 
 Dispensing happiness, and happy — there 
 Thou hadst not known the curse of being fair ! 
 But like yon lonely vesper star, thy light — 
 Thy love — had been as pure as it was bright. 
 I Ve met thy pictured bust in many lands, 
 I 've seen the stranger pause with lifted hands 
 In deep, mute admiration, while his eye 
 Dwelt sparkling on thy peerless symmetry. 
 I 've seen the poet's— painter's — sculptor's gaze 
 Speak, with rapt glance, their eloquence of praise. 
 I 've seen thee as a gem in royal halls 
 Stoop, like presiding angel from the walls. 
 And only less than worshipp'd ! Yet 'tis come 
 To this ! When all but slander's voice is dumb. 
 And they who gazed upon thy living face. 
 Can hardly find thy mortal resting-place.' 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 PART I.— NOTES 
 A. — Evidences as to the date of Lady Hamilton's birth. 
 
 Greville, writing in May 1785, tells Sir William Hamilton that 
 she was only twenty years of age (Morrison MS. 137). As her 
 birthday was admittedly on April 26, he evidently believed her 
 birth to have occurred in the same year as the copy of her baptismal 
 register which he possessed, and to which I have alluded in the 
 text. He was also in full possession of her ' past ' ; so that when 
 he received her in 1782 he can have seen nothing improbable in 
 the previous events having happened in a short space of time to a 
 girl sixteen years old. Sir William Hamilton himself, writing in May 
 1789, speaks of 'the difference between 22 and 57' {Ibid. 177). 
 But Sir William is constantly very slipshod in dates. This would 
 make himself born in 1732, whereas he was born in 1730, or at 
 earliest (from other indications in other letters) 1729; while it 
 would make Emma born in 1767, which is obviously, in view of her 
 baptismal register, impossible. Writing in 1802 to Bowen, Lady 
 Hamilton (as I have quoted in the text) observes that she only 
 began her education at seventeen years of age : this refers to her asso- 
 ciation with Greville in the spring of 1782, and therefore keeps to 
 1765 as the date of her birth {Ibid. 689), The Calais record of 
 her death (about January 15, 1815) calls her '51,' and adheres 
 therefore to the same date 1765 (her birthday being in April). 
 
 When we take all these evidences in conjunction with the 
 marriage register of her parents in 1764, given for the first time in 
 my text, and with the exact baptismal register of May 1765 (differ- 
 ing from that sent to Greville only in the name), there can be no 
 doubt that she was born April 26, 1765, unless we assume, without 
 evidence or even rumour, that she was an illegitimate child. 
 
 B. — Dr. James Graham. (1745- 1794). 
 
 The son, it is said, of a saddler, this singular empiric was born 
 in the Cowgate, Edinburgh. He attended its university, but it is 
 doubtful if he qualified there as physician. In 1770 he married at 
 Pontefract a Miss Pickering; and soon afterwards migrated to 
 
 476 
 
APPENDIX: NOTES 477 
 
 America. From 1772 to 1774 he seems to have practised at 
 Philadelphia as an oculist. But his inborn itch for notoriety, 
 oddity, and gain, led him from an early period to anticipate the 
 modern American cult of advertisement, just as his real skill, 
 debased by his quack methods, anticipated the modern acceptance 
 of mud-baths, massage, and galvanism. In 1774 he was advertis- 
 ing his miracles at Bristol; in 1775, after a brief sojourn at Bath, 
 he appears as a full-blown trumpeter and showman in Pall Mall 
 'opposite St. James's Palace,' where he was subsequently to re- 
 appear about 1781 in a far greater blaze of puffery. At Bath, in 
 the former year, he met Mrs. Catherine Macaulay, the authoress. 
 He had already established his 'magnetic throne,' and advocated 
 electricity and massage. 1111778-1779 he conceived, and prepared 
 for, his grand venture of the 'Temple of ^sculapius,' in the 
 Adelphi Terrace. Garrick had just died there, and it seems 
 probable that it was Garrick's house which, so soon as he could 
 scrape money enough together, he acquired. Adelphi Terrace was 
 already mortgaged to the banking house of Drummond, and was 
 by no means in request, owing to the muddy Thames water which 
 periodically flooded its cellars. The nature of his gorgeous and 
 tinsel show there has been sketched in my text. It was a blend 
 of imposture and truth advertised with persistent and unblushing 
 effrontery, and enhanced by all the ritual of a sham prophet. He 
 was always religious in his professions, and he trusted much to 
 music and painting as appeals to the senses. In the early part of 
 1779 he was at Newcastle superintending the manufacture of his 
 ' crystal pillars ' and the glass apparatus of his electrical machines. 
 In the same year he was at Paris, where he met Franklin, and at 
 Aix, where he found countenance from Georgina, Duchess of 
 Devonshire and other distinguished patronesses whom his electric 
 system really benefited. He inaugurated his temple in the autumn, 
 where he professed to cure sterility, repair the degeneration of a 
 declining race, teach the elements of natural health, and prolong 
 life. He charged a crown admittance, but the ' Celestial Bed ' cost 
 ;^5o a lodging; and all his days were spent in consultations. He 
 hired ' giant footmen ' in sumptuous liveries, fine musicians, and 
 tolerable artists. The performance closed at ten each night. It 
 soon became the talk of the town. Horace Walpole found him a 
 'dull' mountebank; Colman produced (1780) a play satirising the 
 show as ' The Genius of Nonsense.' Graham sought in vain to 
 start legal proceedings against him for portraying him as 'the 
 Emperor of Quacks." He himself had a clever if scurrilous knack, 
 which he exercised in his lectures. One excerpt will suffice :— 
 
 'This curious, most eccentric, and most cordially concentric 
 lecture is begun with enumerating the safest and most efficacious 
 ways and means of producing a Numerous, a Healthy, a Beautiful, 
 and a Virtuous offspring, and is closed with a glowing, brilliant, 
 and supremely delightful description of the structure, and most 
 irresistibly genial influences of the Celestial Bed. The whole 
 
478 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 illustrated and embellished by a just and spirited Review of the 
 Candour of Newspapers, of the present Professors and Adminis- 
 trators of Politics, Law, Physics, and Divinity, and with a Naked 
 Exhibition of Asses stuffed of their ermine, viz. of County Just- 
 asses, Mares, Alderwomen and Whippers-in, by James Graham, 
 M.D., President of the Council of Health, Sole Proprietor and 
 Principal Director of the Temple of Health in Pall Mall near the 
 King's Palace.'^ This, of course, refers to his reception by Respecta- 
 bility ; in another, he ' looks down ' on ' the curious faculty ' with 
 'smiles of ineffable and sovreign contempt,' reminding one of 
 Miss Squeers's attitude towards Nicholas Nickleby. 
 
 If Lady Hamilton 'posed' for him as 'Hygeia,' it must have 
 been at the very end of 1780; for in the spring of 1781 he 
 removed on a reduced scale to Schomberg House, Pall Mall (where 
 also was Gainsborough's studio), and opened his exhibition as the 
 ' Temple of Hymen,' with ' Hebe Vestina ' as high priestess. Had 
 ' Miss Hart ' ever appeared in that character the free satire on the 
 show of 'II Convito Amoroso,' published in 1782 and mentioned 
 in my text, would most probably have referred to her, for she was 
 then already known, and was being painted by Romney and 
 Reynolds. It contains, however, no allusion to her. 
 
 Ini 783 the enterprising but luckless ' Doctor ' was in Edinburgh, 
 where his 'high priestess' read lectures to ladies on their true 
 position in society and the world. These lectures were repeated 
 in Graham's London house during the summer of that year, and 
 found a listener in Mrs. Curtis, the youngest sister of Mrs. Siddons. 
 By December the ' woman's rights ' tack was relinquished, and he 
 is found advertising how to be a centenarian. Up to 1786 silence 
 reigns respecting him, and it may be inferred that he practised 
 without notoriety as a physician, in order to repair his embarrassed 
 fortunes. That year sees him in Paris once more, and afterwards 
 in Newcastle and Edinburgh. In 1789, at Bath, he speaks of 
 himself as having toned down the exuberances of youth, and as 
 basking in an 'autumn, intellectual sun.' But already in 1787 
 he had turned ' Christian Philosopher,' and proclaimed himself 
 'Servant to the Lord Omnipotence, Wisdom, and Love.' He 
 desired a 'New Christian Church,' and he combined his new 
 heavenly with his old earthly wisdom of mud-baths, to which he 
 added the gospel of open air and the wickedness of curtains and 
 coverings. In 1790 he and his lady assistant, with their heads 
 magnificently dressed and powdered, might have been seen at 
 Bath immersed in earth up to their chins, and looking like ' two 
 cauliflowers.' At the same time and place he advocated ' A new 
 Christian Church.' He pressed his prayers on the pillow of the 
 King, whose brain was softening. He pressed on the scapegrace 
 Prince of Wales his version of the Book of Wisdom, recommend- 
 
 1 1780. 'Sold at the Temple of Health; at the Pamphlet Shop under the 
 Front Piazza of the Royal Exchange ; and at Mr. Rich's Pamphlet Shop opposite 
 Anderson's Coffee House, No. 55 Fleet Street, price 2s. 6d.' 
 
APPENDIX: NOTES 479 
 
 ing Wisdom to his serious notice as ' a beautiful and spotless 
 virgin princess of imperial descent.' In 1793 total abstinence 
 (then an absolute novelty) had become his hobby. But it does 
 not seem to have agreed with him, for in 1794 he died suddenly 
 opposite the Archers' Hall, Edinburgh.^ Throughout he appears to 
 have united the frenzies of a Fifth Monarchy man to the orgies 
 rampant in France and America just before the Revolution of the 
 one, and just after the Rebellion of the other. Good ideas were 
 clothed by him in disgusting attire, licence was exploited under 
 the name of liberty ; and while he duped idleness and curiosity, 
 he was often able to cure disease. 
 
 C. — Emma ' Carew.' 
 
 Emma ' Carew,' alias ' Connor,' seems to have been the 'little 
 Emma' born in the early part of 1782, and the object of Emma's 
 delighted fondness in the summer of 1784, as her Park Gate letters 
 of that year in the Morrison autographs copiously illustrate. Mr. 
 JeafTreson took the view, which lacks any authentic foundation, 
 that she was an older ' Emma.' The evidence is all the other way, 
 as I have indicated in my text. The mere fact that mentions of her 
 then and afterwards may sometimes seem applicable to an older 
 child, is no proof apart from corroboration. Like her mother, and 
 like Horatia afterwards (about whose age there is no doubt), she 
 may well have appeared and behaved in advance of her years (cf. 
 Morrison MS. 125-129). ' Little Emma ' was allowed for a space 
 by Emma's entreaty to remain under the Edgware Row roof-tree at 
 the close of 1784, but Greville insisted that she should be brought 
 up apart, though he was ready to aid in the expenses of a proper 
 education, and did so aid until after Emma's marriage, when Sir 
 William and Lady Hamilton defrayed the charges between them. 
 Our knowledge on this subject is wholly derived from the Morrison 
 MS. Without entering into tedious details, these letters prove^ 
 
 (i) That Emma was sent to a home and school ^ kept by a Mr. 
 and Mrs. Blackburn, of whom Greville approved, somewhere near 
 Manchester, where Lady Hamilton's mother visited her in 1791, 
 and again in 1801 (causing the nine years old girl to wonder once 
 more as to her origin, and recalling early recollections. Emma 
 and Greville allude to her both in 1796 and 1797, while Emma 
 further alludes to her in a letter to Greville of 1793, and is 
 exercised for her 'settlement' in 1794).^ So early as 1788 there is 
 
 1 The foregoing facts, with many material additions, however, are based on 
 the excellent article in the Dictionary of National Biography, as well as on 
 independent researches. 
 
 2 The bills were regularly forwarded by Greville to Naples. Her maintenance 
 cost about ;^ioo a year, and she was really well educated. It is pretty clear that 
 Sir William knew all about her, though in one letter Greville professes ignor- 
 ance as to her ' history ' ; by ' history ' he probably means ' paternity. ' 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 221, 250. 
 
48o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 an allusion in one of Emma ' Hart's ' letters which seems applic- 
 able to her solicitude for her (Morrison MS. 172). 
 
 (2) That Emma was probably for a time afterwards with Lady 
 Hamilton's maternal aunt and cousins, the Connors, one of whom, 
 'Anne,' used about 1806 to aver herself falsely to be Lady 
 Hamilton's child, and to call herself ' Carew ' ; ^ but there was mad- 
 ness in the Connor family, and Charles Connor went mad. This 
 led Emma, who was then known as 'Connor,' to style herself 
 ' Carew.' 
 
 (3) That she soon came to reside with a Mrs. Denis, n'ee Lind, 
 who had been in Naples, sang well herself, and was in the singing 
 set of Mrs. Billington and Mrs. Lind, which Anne and Sarah Connor 
 frequented from 1804 onwards. 
 
 (4) That the true reason for her being kept in the background 
 by her mother was that — as appears in my text — she had never in- 
 formed Nelson of her existence in 1798 (though all else of her past 
 she told him), and, therefore, shrank from making a clean breast of 
 this secret afterwards. 
 
 (5) That about 1806 — despite Lady Hamilton's tenderness for 
 her — she resented her non-recognition and reception as acknow- 
 ledged daughter at Merton, rendered practically impossible, per- 
 haps, after Horatia's first appearance there, took to some indepen- 
 dent livelihood by her own exertions, and eventually went abroad, 
 possibly with Mrs. Denis, to Italy — after which she recedes 
 pathetically from sight. The only note of hers which remains is 
 her parting one in the Morrison MS. (1003), which does her so 
 much honour that it is here transcribed. It was written in 18 10, 
 and preserved by Lady Hamilton : — 
 
 'Sunday Morning. 
 
 ' Mrs. Denis's mention of your name, and the conversation she had 
 with you, have revived ideas in my mind which an absence of four 
 years has not been able to efface. It might have been happy for 
 me to have forgotten the past, and to have begun a new life with 
 new ideas ; but for my misfortune, my memory traces back circum- 
 stances which have taught me too much, yet not quite all I could 
 have wished to have known.^ With you that resides, and ample 
 reasons, no doubt, you have for not imparting them to me. Had 
 you felt yourself at liberty so to have done, I might have become 
 reconciled to my former situation, and have been relieved from the 
 painful employment I now pursue. It was necessary as I then 
 stood, for I had nothing to support me but the affection I bore 
 you ; on the other hand, doubts and fears by turns oppressed me, 
 and I determined to rely on my own efforts, rather than to submit 
 to abject dependence, without a permanent name or acknowledged 
 parents. That I should have taken such a step shows, at least, that 
 I have a mind misfortune has not subdued. That I should per- 
 severe in it is what I owe to myself and to you, for it shall never 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 896, 959. " i.e. paternity. 
 
APPENDIX : NOTES 481 
 
 be said that I avail myself of your partiality or my own inclination, 
 unless I learn my claim on you is greater than you have hitherto 
 acknowledged. But the time may come when the same reasons 
 may cease to operate, and then, with a heart filled with tenderness 
 and affection, will I show you both my duty and attachment. In 
 the meantime, should Mrs. Denis's zeal and kindness not have 
 over-rated your expressions respecting me, and that you should 
 really wish to see me, I may be believed in saying that such a meet- 
 ing would be one of the happiest moments of my life, but for the 
 reflection that it may also be the last, as I leave England in a few 
 days, and may, perhaps, never return to it again.' 
 
 D. — Lady Hamilton's letter in French to the Countess 
 of Lichtenau} 
 
 ' Naples, 29M March 1791. 
 'Trfes-chbre amie, je desire vivement savoir des vos chores 
 nouvelles et comme va votre sante, et quand vous reviendrez chez 
 nous. Le bon et bienfaisant Ld. Bristol est au desespoir sans vous, 
 et vous attend avec le mfime empressement, que les juifs attendent 
 Notre Seigneur chez eux.^ Men mari vous salue de tout son cceur. 
 La bonne & sincere Denis ne parle que de vous et vous embrasse, 
 & nous joignons nos pribres pour que vous ne voyez pas la . . . 
 k Rome qui a ete trfes-mechante et ddshoneree ici ; mais les choses 
 sont trop longues pour vous les center. Je crois qu'il ne lui sera 
 jamais permis de rentrer ici. La noble famille chez qui elle a ete 
 cherie elle I'a trahie, et y a mis un trouble qu'il sera difficile de 
 pouvoir calmer, et votre bon cceur souffrirait de la voir. Adieu chbre 
 comtesse : Aimez votre sincere et attachee amie, 
 
 Emma Hamilton.' 
 
 E. — Some new inferential evidence for Lady Hamilton's 
 general services to England in 1794- 1795. 
 
 This particular claim is merely one of general usefulness. That 
 from the time of Nelson's first visit to Naples, Lady Hamilton never 
 lost an opportunity of receiving British sailors and assisting them 
 is generally conceded and abundantly proved. In whatever Sir 
 William did, his wife shared, while she often suggested and ex- 
 ceeded it. In a letter of April 1794 Sir William expressly tells 
 Greville, ' I am employed in sending Mortars and other Artillery 
 stores of which Lord Hood is in want, for the attack of Bastia.' ^ 
 
 ' Mimoires de Wilhdmina, Comtesse de Lichtenau. Colbouin, 1809, vol. ii. 
 
 p. 54- 
 
 ' A mot of the blasphemous old bishop used of Emma in a letter from him 
 to her. 
 
 ' Morrison MS. 238, April 10, 1794. 
 
 2 H 
 
482 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 But says Mr. JeafFreson.i begrudging Lady Hamilton even a shred 
 of veracity, any assistance rendered to Hood from Naples was 
 merely in pursuance of the Anglo-Sicilian treaty which had been 
 signed on July 20, 1793. This very letter, however, proves most 
 plainly that the discovery of a fresh conspiracy to murder the King 
 had stopped the despatch of all extra supplies. ' I question,' he 
 adds, ' if this Government will venture to part with more of its 
 forces than what it is obliged to do by its treaty.^ Moreover, the 
 Acton correspondence proves that in 1 794 Acton was reluctantly 
 constrained to deny Hotham supplies.^ It is clear, therefore, that 
 the requisite was extras ; and, in furnishing them, nobody conver- 
 sant with Emma's letters and character can doubt her part. She 
 may have exaggerated it, but her consistent course, directly she 
 became paramount with the Queen, proves that it must have been 
 substantial. Moreover, the mere Anglo-Sicilian compact never 
 turned the Queen into an Anglo-maniac. Her adoration of Eng- 
 land dates from Nelson's visit two months afterwards, and Emma's 
 ardour and Sir William's awakening. 
 
 In the year 1813, when she was pressing her last series of claims, 
 she thus addressed a naval peer, presumably either Lord Hood or 
 Lord St. Vincent,^ once associated with the then dead Nelson ; and 
 it is inconceivable that she could so have addressed him had she 
 been conscious of falsifications in her accompanying memorial. 
 She alludes to damaging statements regarding it printed by a 
 section of the press : — 
 
 ' 150 Bond Street, February 7, 1813. 
 
 ' My Lord, — I had a letter written to your Lordship with a copy 
 of my memorial and narrative to H.R.H. the Prince Regent, when 
 to my surprise I saw the letter published in the newspapers, which 
 very much disconcerted my way of proceeding ; my desire being 
 that of laying my case before H.R.H., the Ministers, your Lord- 
 ship, and a select few of the chief nobles and gentlemen of Parlia- 
 ment, who are noted for attention to public business. ... I am 
 sure of your Lordship's potent protection as far as you will see it 
 deserving. 
 
 ' My story is told truly as the circumstances rose to my memory. 
 And with a safe conscience I can say, whatever is omitted I believe 
 to be to my own disadvantage, as all my actions were guided by a 
 Heart and Soul devoted like your Lordship's own to our dear, dear 
 Country. — Forgive me this intrusion, but Nelson loved you, and I 
 am alone and feel forlorn in the world, and his spirit, if it cou'd 
 
 1 In his Queen of Naples and Lord Nelson. 
 
 = Add. MS. 2639, f. 217. 
 
 ' It isjust possible, however, that it may have been to Lord Sidmouth, to whom, 
 as Addington, her first memorial of 1803 had been addressed ; for, writing to 
 George Rose in this very month, and inclosing the memorial, she also sends ' a 
 letter I sent to Lord Sidmouth' (Rose's Didries, vol. i. p. 270). But this is 
 highly improbable, for Addington had been hostile from the first, and by no 
 means friendly with Nelson. He was now Home Secretary. 
 
APPENDIX: NOTES 483 
 
 look down, would bless you for your kindness and attention to his 
 last wishes in the moment of death and victory to your Lordship's 
 ever obliged and most grateful!, Emma Hamilton.' ^ 
 
 F. — Lady Hamilton's claim concerning the King of Spain's 
 secret letters in the spring of 1795 and autumn of 1796 
 further considered. 
 
 My reasons for believing that Lady Hamilton's main claim 
 regarding these applies to September 1796 have been given in 
 my text. Professor Laughton, in his long article in Colburn's 
 United Service Magazine for April 1889, tries to show that they 
 concern a series of letters which conveyed information sent by the 
 Queen to Lady Hamilton, and transmitted by her husband to 
 Grenville during the spring of 1795, though he also gives the 
 succeeding despatches of Hamilton in the June and September 
 following. All of these merely refer to the preparations by Spain 
 for a peace with France, and not for their formal offensive alliance 
 iri the succeeding year which was to be the crucial issue, long 
 disguised. The preparations for peace, on the other hand, were 
 more or less known at St. James's throughout 1795. Lady 
 Hamilton in asserting her claim speaks of Sir William's illness 
 as one of the reasons for her exceptional exertions, and she may 
 have confused his severe illness in April 1795 in the long train of 
 information forwarded to her by the Queen, which culminated in 
 the discoveries which she was thus enabled to make, with some 
 slighter indisposition in September 1796; or she may merely have 
 mixed, so far as her husband's illness was concerned, the two years 
 together. 
 
 Lady Hamilton's claim relates to an exceptional discovery. In 
 writing to Lord Grenville on July 4, 1795, after the series relating 
 to 'Galatone's cipher' in April, Sir William says that another of 
 June 16 'was communicated to me as usual.' This shows, and 
 indeed all his despatches, as well as the Queen's letter to Lady 
 Hamilton, join in showing, that throughout 1795 secret informa- 
 tion was habitually transmitted to him through his wife to be 
 forwarded to Lord Grenville. 
 
 But as regards 1795 Professor Laughton has misinterpreted the 
 documents which he quotes from a double error. In the first 
 place, he does not seem to have consulted the originals, or their 
 copies when the originals were forwarded, of the Queen's own 
 letters to Lady Hamilton ; and in the second, he has not discerned 
 that Emma's main service in 1795 was in having procured not only 
 the long ciphered despatch by ' Galatone ' from Madrid, but also the 
 key by which alone the cipher could be unriddled. 
 
 On April 30, 1795, Sir William, still very unwell, forwarded a 
 
 ' From the original autograph in possession of Mr Sabin. 
 
484 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 long 'secret' despatch to Lord Grenville, following two other 
 less important ones dated April 21 and April z 8 respectively, in 
 the latter of which he enclosed a letter from the Queen to Lady 
 Hamilton promising her ' three papers ' after the King had held 
 his Council. In this despatch of April 30 Hamilton forwards 
 further information, inclosing three documents received through 
 his wife from the Queen: — (i) a copy of the last deciphered 
 despatch from Galatone; (2) a letter from the Queen to Lady 
 Hamilton of April 28; (3) a letter from the Queen to Lady 
 Hamilton of April 29 ; and he says that he thinks them of such 
 importance that he is sending 'this packet' by 'one of his 'own 
 servants ' as far as Rome, where a ' Mr. Jenkins ' will forward it to 
 London. This by no means implies the special messenger by 
 whom Lady Hamilton claimed to have herself forwarded her far 
 more important communication direct to London in the following 
 year, as I think ; and indeed Hamilton on several occasions used 
 means of communication similar to these. 
 
 Of these inclosures (2) — the Queen's letter of April 28 
 (unnoticed by Professor Laughton as the successor of one 
 announcing the capture of Bilbao, and the Spanish minister 
 Alcudia's prophecy that these losses would not last)^ does not 
 quite tally with Professor Laughton's rendering of it. The Queen 
 forwards a ' letter in cipher come from Spain from Galatone,' which 
 must be returned ' avant vingt^quatre heures ' (Professor Laughton 
 has it 'by 12 o'clock 'I) 'afin que le roi le retrouve'^ (Professor 
 Laughton has it ' so that the King may have it ' !). She adds that 
 in it are ' matters very interesting for the English Government,' 
 and, as will be seen from her next note, she has promised to for- 
 ward shortly the 'cipher' itself, which is the due to Galatone's 
 ' letter in cipher.' 
 
 These variations from the original are important. If the Queen 
 had really written that she must have Galatone's 'letter in cipher' 
 back by midday, there would not have been time to apply the key 
 which she transmitted on the following morning. If the Queen 
 had really written ' so that the King may have it,' it would not be 
 clear that Galatone had sent the information for the King alone, 
 and that by some means or other the Queen had obtained, and 
 was lending, the King's private information. What she does say is 
 • in order that the King may find it again.' 
 
 Now let us see what the Queen writes to Emma on the next day.^ 
 She sends her not a 'letter' but the 'promised cipher' — the 
 elite, ' too happy in being able to render a service.' She begs for 
 the return of the 'cipher' also, but this time 'at the chevalier's 
 
 1 Eg. MS. 1617, f. 3. 
 
 " Cf. Eg. MS. 1615, f. 22. This is Lady H.'s copy of the letter in question. 
 Her indorsement on it runs: — 'A cop^ of the Queen's letter, April 28, 1795. 
 Sir William was obliged to send the original to England with the cypher Her 
 Majesty mentions.' 
 
 ' This is accurately transcribed by Mr. JeafFreson in his Queen of Naples, 
 vol. i. p. 289. 
 
APPENDIX: NOTES 485 
 
 convenience'; the King, be it marked, will not miss the ^cipher' 
 as he must have missed the ' letter.' She warns Emma, ' above all 
 to take care' that she is not 'compromised.'* 'There is no 
 atrocity which Spain, who hates me already, would not be capable 
 of against me.' ^ 
 
 These confusions have caused Professor Laughton to suppose 
 that the further inclosure of the long ' chiffre regu de Galatone ' 
 about the French proposals of peace ^ refers to the 'promised 
 dpher' mentioned in the Queen's letter to Emma of April 29, 
 instead of, as really, to ' the letter in cipher come from Spain from 
 Galatone ' mentioned in her letter of the day before. He has not 
 perceived the manifest distinction between the 'cipher' and the 
 'letter in cipher' at all, nor discerned that what Emma then 
 obtained was the key by which the ' letter ' could be translated. 
 
 On May 16 Sir William forwarded to Grenville 'a continuation 
 of the ciphered despatches ' which he was now able to decipher, 
 and after again warning the minister 'against compromising the 
 Queen, he incloses another note from her to his wife with the three 
 'very curious papers' accompanying it, which are really con- 
 firmatory of previous information. It should be noticed that 
 this Queen's letter of May is one in ordinary course, and not one 
 for official inspection. These always begin ' Chbre Miledy ' ; this 
 begins 'Ma chere amie.' And finally, after a further and im- 
 material despatch of July 4, 1795, Sir William forwards one of 
 September i, in which he ' loses no time in communicating ' that 
 the peace negotiations have ' commenced.' He again transmits 
 this by a je/«/-special messenger. His despatches of October are 
 irrelevant to the points at issue. 
 
 One word more with regard to the crucial discovery of September 
 1796, which in the text, I maintain, was due to Emma. 
 
 The ' letter ' from Charles of Spain to Ferdinand of Naples was 
 not in cipher. Emma describes it as 'a private letter/ and Sir 
 William Hamilton as 'written in Spanish.' It is important also 
 to observe that Sir William's ' secret ' despatch to Lord Grenville of 
 September 21, 1 796,* forwarding the information, does «(7^ inclose 
 the copy of the original, or any document at all. My inference is, 
 in view of other and ampler evidence urged in the text, that the 
 reason for its unusual absence is that Emma had herself forwarded 
 
 ' These requests that her name should not be mentioned recur perpetually. 
 There was a striking instance in 1799 (July 14), when Sir William, writing on 
 i^s Fimdroyant to Grenville a ' separate and secret ' despatch, and inclosing as 
 usual the Queen's letters to Emma, observes, ' . . . I have prevailed on my wife 
 to allow me to entrust to your Lordship the most interesting . . . but not with- 
 out a solemn promise from me that they should be restored to her by your 
 Lordship on our arrival in England. . . .' Cf. P.R.O., Sic. Papers, vol. iv., 
 quoted by Gutteridge, Nelson and the Neapolitan Jacobins, p. 317. 
 
 ^ On the following day she again wrote. She was leaving for Cardiletto, 
 when she would be absent all the day. ' Vous seriez bien occup^ pour moi.' 
 
 ^ Dated March 31, I79S, and translated from the Italian given by Professor 
 Laughton in his article on p. 652. 
 
 * Transcribed by Professor Laughton at p. 659. 
 
486 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 her copy of the original by ' the Count of Munster's courier ' to 
 London, as afterwards both she and Nelson, on several occasions, 
 claimed that she had done. 
 
 G. — Lady Hamilton's claim to have procured the watering of 
 the British Fleet in the summer of lygZ further considered. 
 
 Professor Laughton's criticism ^ is largely exercised on circum- 
 stances. He, of course, doubts the dramatic scenes either of 
 Emma's dictating a letter to the Queen, or as to the ' talisman,' 
 given respectively by Pettigrew and Harrison, while he omits 
 another in one of Emma's memorials about her supplication with 
 tears. That such dramatic scenes as these are not of themselves 
 improbable is shown by the dramatic scene of herself haranguing 
 the Queen, in her new letter to Nelson of October 24, 1798, 
 transcribed in this Appendix. 
 
 But when he asserts that on June 1 7 the fleet was not short of 
 water, he is, as I hope to have made quite clear in my text, beside 
 the point, which was the necessity that must arise afterwards, and 
 against which Nelson's instructions from the Government had 
 expressly guarded, in a long and uncertain pursuit of the formid- 
 able French fleet. Neither the ministerial instructions in allowing 
 force, if necessary, to obtain refreshment, nor the limited rights for 
 four vessels at a time to be in harbour, under the Franco-Neapolitan 
 engagement, could possibly prevent delay, and delay it was that 
 Nelson most dreaded. As it happened, he was enabled to set sail 
 from Syracuse in July two days earlier than he had anticipated. 
 
 The Professor's long excursions to prove that Nelson's ' I have 
 kissed the Queen's letter ' was not an answer to any letter from Lady 
 Hamilton in the June of 1798, have been nullified by the decisive 
 discovery of the actual letter which it answered, transcribed both 
 in the text and this Appendix. Nor has he, I venture to think, in 
 the many despatches that he quotes, and in view of the several 
 important letters that he omits, sufficiently discriminated between 
 official and private communications. Nor, again, has he apparently 
 been aware of the Austrian negotiations for a defensive pact with 
 Naples, and the instructions by the Neapolitan ministers to the 
 governors of ports that, pending those negotiations 'a show of 
 resistance must be made,' which explains so much of what happened 
 in July. Of Acton's manuscript correspondence, with the light cast 
 by it on the Councils held on June 17 and 22, and many other 
 subsequent points, he has manifestly taken no cognisance. 
 
 But what I wish here to emphasise is the relevance to the argu- 
 ment of the draft in Hamilton's handwriting ^ (hitherto uncited) 
 of the famihar despatch to Lord Grenville of June 18, 1798.^ 
 
 • Nelson's Last Codicil, Colbum's United Service Magazine, May 1880. 
 "^ Eg. MS. 2638, f. 287. 
 
 * Clarke and Macarthur, vol. ii. p. 64. 
 
APPENDIX : NOTES 48; 
 
 This despatch, despite its date, cannot have been forwarded till 
 about three days later, since the draft is dated 'June 20.' I 
 append a material extract, with its interlineations and erasures. It 
 begins with Troubridge's arrival at the Embassy in the early morn- 
 ing of June 17 : — 
 
 ' Naples, /««« 20, 1798. 
 
 'Captain Troubridge of the CuUoden came to me from the 
 admiral for intelligence . . ., and for a clear and positive answer 
 whether the Ports of H.S.M.'s dominions . . . were open without 
 
 woud be 
 limitation or not for the King's Ships of war and whether they weje- 
 alow'd to supply themselves, &c. I shew'd him the official answer 
 A copy of which you will have received by the last Messenger. 
 I had received from the Marquis Gallo. a But as Capt. Troubridge 
 seem'd to be 
 
 was- in a great hurry to join the admiral & pursue the Enemy 
 now that he had been that the armament was off Malta 
 
 who wore as we informed by th e last account of the loth 
 instant thought it best to carry him 
 
 off Malta, I carri e d him directly to General Acton, and we did 
 more real business in half an hour than we shou'd have done in the 
 
 in a week. and home 
 
 usual official way A Troubridge put strong A questions to General 
 Acton who answered them fairly, but as I saw that what Capt. 
 
 was most anxious to obtain 
 Troubridge wished f or— moat wag, - as he expected an immediate 
 
 to all the Governors in Sicily 
 action with the french fleet was an order of His S. Majesty A — to 
 
 of British be 
 
 allowA theA sick and wounded toA put on shore . . . — and also 
 
 " fresh 
 
 that they might be allow'd to get a provisions for the fleet from 
 I prevailed upon G. Acton to give in his own hand and in the 
 these Ports. A This order -iH-A the King's name was immodiatoly 
 
 directly and he 
 given by Gl. Acton to Troubridge A -^rfie-went off to join the adm'. 
 in high good humour with the genl. whom more than he said was a good man of 
 business. He did not stay two hours on shore. 
 
 A immediately. And hardly stay'd two hours &n shor e . . . . He 
 expressed only a wish to get sight of Buonaparte. . . . 
 
 I'.S. — This Court, as you may perceive, is in great distress.' 
 
 It will be observed in this ungrammatical jumble that what the 
 formal despatch lacks entirely is here supplied. The despatch, after 
 mentioning that Hamilton ' prevailed ' upon Acton to write himself 
 an order 'in the name of H.S.M.,' says simply that Troubridge 'put 
 it in his pocket,' and that his 'face brightened.' He 'did not stay 
 two hours on shore,' ' and went off perfectly contented with General 
 Acton, who, he said, was a true man of business rarely to be met 
 with.' 
 
488 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 But in the draft Hamilton first omitted, and added afterwards, that 
 the order was in Acton's handwriting as well as in the ' King's name ': 
 it is evident that the King himself did not sign the document. He 
 seems to have had more than this set of circumstances in his mind. 
 He makes no mention either here or in the official despatch of the 
 difficulties that we now know from Acton's own manuscripts were 
 raised by the chicaning and delaying Gallo in the Council, and 
 above all, he erases ' was immediately given by General Acton,' 
 retaining only ' was given to Troubridge directly.' He does not 
 specify who gave Troubridge the order. There is throughout an 
 undertone of difficulty and of vagueness. 
 
 Hamilton could not mention in an official despatch anything 
 that might have been effected in the meanwhile, behind the backs 
 both of King and Council, by Emma and the Queen, and the 
 summary from Acton's manuscript letters of Gallo's part in this 
 Council — igiven in my text — proves that the ' order ' or ' roving 
 mandate ' was not so satisfactory after all. 
 
 Hamilton in his despatch to Lord Grenville of August 4 ex- 
 pressly says, in explanation of the circumstances which caused 
 Nelson's anger and disappointment at Syracuse a fortnight earlier, 
 ' The whole mystery was that the Court of Naples could not with- 
 out risk throw off the mask until it had received the ratified treaty 
 with the Emperor of Germany.' 
 
 These diplomatic circumstances, as I have shown, form the key 
 to the Governor of Syracuse's letter, but they also tend to show 
 that the order in the King's name could not of itself surmount 
 delays in provisioning vessels, and point (under the circumstances 
 that happened) to the probability of the Queen having intervened, 
 unknown to her husband, who would have been furious. 
 
 Nelson's official accounts of what transpired are naturally guarded 
 and reserved. It was the same with his account of the flight to 
 Palermo. But all along he was in constant private communica- 
 tion With the Hamiltons; the Queen's letters to Emma even 
 during the week before Nelson's arrival in the bay of Naples show 
 that the news of these letters was regularly reported to her by her 
 friend.^ 
 
 Bearing all the circumstances in mind, and discounting ex- 
 aggerations and concealments on either side, it seems to me 
 that Emma and the Queen bore a much more active part in these 
 transactions than Hamilton or Acton. So Nelson held, and he 
 knew. The King and Acton were probably never informed of what 
 happened without their knowledge. But Nelson, at Syracuse, was 
 perfectly aware of the change that came over the scene there in 
 two days, and I think that he ought to be believed. 
 
 1 Cf. Eg. MS. 1618, f. 7 ; 161S, f. 102, and afterwards (June 29) the Queen 
 follows Nelson's movements with anxiety. Ibid. f. 107. 
 
APPENDIX : NEW LETTERS 489 
 
 H. — An Abstract of the legal document of May 6, 1814, 
 whereby Lady Hamilton received her first payment in 
 advance of Lord Nelson's annuity.'^ 
 
 It is signed ' Emma Hamilton,' and recites that ' Lord Nelson 
 bequeathed to me an annuity of ;^5oo charged on Bronte by the 
 codicil to his will of 19th February 1804, to be paid half-yearly in 
 advance during my life, and by a postscript directed the first half- 
 year ' to be first paid after the interest was received.' ' And whereas 
 no arrear of rent was received by his executors until September 
 1806, and no rent accruing after his [Nelson's] decease was received 
 by Earl Nelson, now Duke of Bronte, for his own use until January 
 1808, and whereas Earl Nelson was advised by Counsel that, under 
 these events the said annuity was not payable half-yearly in advance, 
 and therefore it has not hitherto been paid. But a different 
 opinion having been expressed by persons consulted by me,' it 
 acknowledges that ' the Earl having thereupon consented to pay a 
 half-annuity in advance,' she receives 'in full (deducting property 
 tax) ;^22S up to 2ist of April last.' 
 
 PART II.— NEW LETTERS 
 
 A. — Lady Hamilton's Correspondence with Admiral (and 
 afterwards) Lord Nelson in September and October 1798.^ 
 
 (i) Lady Hamilton to Admiral Nelson. 
 
 \\1thjune 1798.] 
 My dear Admiral, — I write in a hurry as Captain T. Carrol 
 stays on Monarch. God bless you and send you victorious, and 
 that I may see you bring back buonaparte with you. pray send 
 Captain Hardy ^ out to us, for I shall have a fever with anxiety. 
 The Queen desires me to say everything that 's kind and bids me 
 say with her whole heart and spul she wishes you victory. God 
 bless you, my dear sir. I will not say how glad I shall be to see 
 you. Indeed I cannot describe to you my feelings on your being 
 so near us. — Ever, ever, dear Sir, your affte. and gratefuU 
 
 Emma Hamilton. 
 
 [Addressed, ' Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson.' 
 Indorsed, 'Lady Hamilton, 17th June '98.' 
 
 '] 
 
 1 Add. MS. 34,992, f. 300. 
 
 * Add. MS. 34,989, ff. 1-32. This series was acquired in 1896. 
 
 ' This shows that Hardy arrived after Troubridge. 
 
490 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 (2) Lady Hamilton to Admiral Nelson. 
 
 [Same date, similar paper, written very hurriedly. '\ 
 Dear Sir, — I send you a letter I have received this moment 
 from the Queen. Kiss it, and send it me back by Bowen, as I am 
 bound not to give any of her letters. — Ever yrs., Emma. 
 
 (3) The same to the same. 
 
 \This letter is written, as was Lady Hamilton's frequent habit, on 
 several successive days.} 
 
 Naples, Septembers, 1798. 
 
 My dear, dear Sir,— How shall I begin, what shall I say to 
 you. 'tis impossible I can write, for since last Monday ^ I am 
 delerious with joy, and assure you I have a fevour caused by 
 agitation and pleasure. God, what a victory ! Never, never has 
 there been anything half so glorious, so compleat. I fainted when 
 I heard the joyfuU news, and fell on my side and am hurt, but now 
 well [?] of that. I shou'd feil it a glory to die in such a cause. 
 No, I wou'd not like to die till I see and embrace the Victor of 
 the Nile. How shall I describe to you the transports of Maria 
 Carolina, 'tis not possible. She fainted and kissed her husband, her 
 children, walked about the room, cried, kissed, and embraced every 
 person near her, exclaiming, Oh, brave Nelson, oh, God bless and 
 protect our brave deliverer, oh. Nelson, Nelson, what do we not owe 
 to you, oh Victor, Savour of Itali, oh, that my swolen heart cou'd 
 now tell him personally what we owe to him t 
 
 You may judge, my dear Sir, of the rest, but my head will not 
 permit me to tell you half of the rejoicing. The Neapolitans are 
 mad with joy, and if you wos here now, you wou'd be killed with 
 kindness. Sonets on sonets, illuminations, rejoicings; not a 
 French dog dare shew his face. How I glory in the honner of my 
 Country and my Countryman ! I walk and tread in air with pride, 
 felling I was born in the same land with the victor Nelson and his 
 gallant band. But no more, I cannot, dare not, trust myself, for 
 I am not well. Little dear Captain Hoste will tell you the rest. 
 He dines with us in the day, for he will not sleep out of his ship, 
 and we Love him dearly. He is a fine, good lad. Sir William is 
 delighted with him, and I say he will be a second Nelson. If he 
 is onely half a Nelson, he will be superior to all others. 
 
 I send you two letters from my adorable queen. One was 
 written to me the day we received the glorious news, the other 
 yesterday. Keep them, as they are in her own handwriting. I 
 have kept copies only, but I feil that you ought to have them. If 
 you had seen our meeting after the battle, but I will keep it all for 
 your arrival. I coo'd^ not do justice to her feiling nor to my own, 
 
 ' September 3, when the private news of the Nile battle first reached her. 
 
 2 She usually spells this correctly. It perhaps echoes the burr of her Cheshire 
 accent in her excitement. The letters throughout are unpunctuated, and the 
 stops are inserted by me. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 491 
 
 with writing it ; and we are preparing your appartment against you 
 come. I hope it will not be long, for Sir William and I are so 
 impatient to embrace you. I wish you cou'd have seen our house 
 the 3 nights of illumination. 'Tis, 'twas covered with your glorious 
 name. Their were 3 thousand Lamps, and their shou'd have been 
 3 millions if we had had time. All the English vie with each other 
 in celebrating this most gallant and ever memorable victory. Sir 
 William is ten years younger since the happy news, and he now 
 only wishes to see his friend to be completely happy. How he 
 glories in you when your name is mentioned. He cannot contain 
 his joy. For God's sake come to Naples soon. We receive so 
 many Sonets and Letters of congratulation. I send you some of 
 them to shew you how your success is felt here. How I felt for 
 poor Troubridge. He must have been so angry on the sandbank, 
 so brave an officer ! In short, I pity those who were not in the 
 battle. I wou'd have been rather an English powder-monkey, or 
 a swab in that great victory, than an Emperor out of it, but you 
 will be so tired of all this. Write or come soon to Naples, and 
 rejoin your ever sincere and oblidged friend, 
 
 Emma Hamilton. 
 
 The Queen [h]as this moment sent a Dymond Ring to Captain 
 Hoste, six buts of wine, 2 casks, for the officers, and every man on 
 board a guinea each. Her letter is in English and comes as from 
 an unknown person, but a well-wisher to our country, and an 
 admirer of our gallant Nelson. As war is not yet declared with 
 France, she cou'd not shew herself so openly as she wished, but 
 she [h]as done so much, and rejoiced so very publickly, that all the 
 world sees it. She bids me to say that she longs more to see you 
 than any woman with child can long for anything she may take a 
 fancy to,^ and she shall be for ever unhappy if you do not come. 
 God bless you my dear, dear friend. 
 
 My dress from head to foot is alia Nelson. Ask Hoste. Even 
 my shawl is in Blue with gold anchors all over. My earrings are 
 Nelson's anchors ; in short, we are be-Nelsoned all over. I send 
 you some Sonets, but I must have taken a ship on purpose to send 
 you all written on you. Once more, God bless you. My mother 
 desires her love to you. I am so sorry to write in such a hurry. 
 I am affraid you will not be able to rea.d this scrawl. 
 
 [Here, I am half disposed to think, ought to follow the passage in 
 No. (8) be^nning ' My dear little fatherless FadyP[ 
 
 (4) Lady Hamilton to Lady Nelson. 
 
 Naples, October 7., 1798. 
 I hope your Ladyship received my former letter with an account 
 of Lord Nelson's arrival, and his reception by their Sicilian 
 
 ' This curious illustration alludes to Maria Carolina's own daughter-in-law, 
 the Princess Clementine's then condition. 
 
492 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Majesties J and allso the congratulations and compliments from 
 this amiable Queen to your Ladyship which I was charged with and 
 wrote a month back, but as the posts were very uncertain, you may 
 not have received that letter. Lord Nelson is gone to Leghorn 
 with the troops of the King of Naples, and we expect him soon 
 Back, as the King is gone to Rome with his army ; and he beg'd of 
 my Lord Nelson to be as much in and about Naples as he cou'd, 
 not only to advise and consult with her Majesty, who is Regent for 
 the good of the common cause, but, in case of accident, to take 
 care of her and of her familly. 
 
 Lord Nelson is adored here, and looked on as the deliverer of 
 this country. He was not well when first he arrived, but by nursing 
 and asse's milk he went from Naples quite recovered. 
 
 The King and Queen adore him, and if he had been their 
 Brother, they cou'd not have shewn him more respect and atten- 
 tions. I need not tell your Ladyship how happy Sir William and 
 myself are at having an opertunity of seeing our dear, respectable, 
 brave friend return here with so much honner to himself, and glory 
 for his country. We only wanted you to be completely happy. 
 Lord Nelson's wound is quite well. Josiah ^ is so much improv'd 
 in every respect, we are all delighted with him. He is an excellent 
 officer and very steady, and one of the best hearts in the world. I 
 Love him much, and allthough we quarrel sometimes, he loves me 
 and does as I wou'd have him. He is in the way of being rich, for 
 he has taken many prizes. He is indefatigable in his line, never 
 sleeps out of his ship, and I am sure will make a very great officer. 
 Lady Knight and her amiable daughter ^ desire to be remembered 
 to your Ladyship. I hope you received the ode I sent ; it is very 
 well written, but Miss Knight is very clever in everything she 
 undertakes. Sir William desires his kind compliments to your Lady- 
 ship and to Lord Nelson's respected father. 
 
 The King is having his picture set with dymonds for his Lord- 
 ship, and the Queen has ordered a fine set of china with all the 
 battles he has been engaged in, and his picture painted on china. 
 Josiah desired his duty to your Ladyship, and says he will write as 
 soon as he [h]as time, but he has been very busy for some time 
 past. 
 
 God bless you and your's, my dear Madam, and believe me your 
 Ladyship's very sincere friend, Emma Hamilton. 
 
 Sir William is in a rage with [the] ministry for not having made 
 Lord Nelson a Viscount, for, sure, this great and glorious action — 
 
 ' Nisbet, Lady N.'s son and Lord N.'s stepson, to whom, as a lad. Lady 
 Hamilton had been kindness itself at Naples in 1793, but whom she grew to dis- 
 like as Lady Nelson's suspicions and coldness increased. He took to drink, was 
 often insubordinate, and gave the stepfather, who advanced him in every way, 
 great fature trouble. He had saved Nelson's life in 1796. 
 
 ' Miss Cornelia. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 493 
 
 greater than any other — ought to have been recognised more. Hang 
 them, I say.i 
 
 [Addressed to the ' Right Honourable Lady Nelson, Roundwood, 
 near Ipswich, Suffolk ' ; sealed in red with : 
 
 Nelson, 
 
 I August 
 1798. 
 
 Indorsed in Lady Nelson's handwriting, ' Lady Hamilton's letter 
 to Lady Nelson, Naples, October 2, 1798.'] 
 
 (5) Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton ^ 
 [Much interlined and corrected,'] 
 
 Oct. 3, 1798. 
 My dear Madam, — The anxiety which you and Sir William 
 Hamilton have always had for the happiness and welfare of their 
 Sicilian Majesties, was also planted [in me] in the five years past. 
 And I can safely say, that on every occasion which have [sic] 
 offered (which have been numerous), I have never failed to mani- 
 fest my sincere regard for the felicity of these kingdoms. Under 
 this attachment, I cannot be an indifferent spectator to what has 
 been and is passing in the two Sicilies, nor to the misery which, 
 without being a politician, I cannot but see plainly is now ready 
 to fall on these very kingdoms now so loyal, bj^ the worst of all 
 policies, that of procrastination. 
 
 Since my arrival in these seas in June last I have seen in the 
 Sicilians the most loyal people to their sovreign, with the utmost 
 detestation of the French and their principles. Since my arrival 
 at Naples I have found all ranks, from the very highest to the 
 lowest, eager for war with the French, who, all know, are preparing 
 an army of Robbers to plunder these kingdoms and destroy the 
 monarchy. I have seen the minister of the insolent French pass 
 over in silence manifest breach[es] of the 3rd article of the treaty 
 between their Sicilian Majesties and the French Republic. 
 
 Ought not this extraordinary conduct to be seriously noticed ? 
 Have [sic\ not the uniform conduct of the French been to lull the 
 Government into a fatal security, and been to destroy them. As I 
 have before stated, is it not known to every person that Naples is 
 the most marked object for plunder — with their knowledge, and 
 that His Sicilian Majesty has an army ready (I am told, to march 
 into a country ready to receive them with the advantage of carrying 
 on the war from the cncmica country, ^ instead of waiting for it at 
 
 ' These words are written very small. 
 
 ^ This sketch of policy and project for the royal safety is the first draft for 
 another and more formal document which has been published (cf. Laughton's 
 Despatches, pp. 171-173). It was intended to be shown to the ministers. It is 
 included here with Lady Hamilton's letters, so as not to break the series. 
 
 ' Erased in the original. 
 
494 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Home). I am' all astonishment that the army has not marched a 
 month ago. I trust the arrival of General Mack will induce the 
 Government not to lose any more of the favourable time, which 
 Providence has put in their hands. For, if they do, and wait for 
 an a.ttack in the country instead of carrying the war out of it, it 
 requires no gift of prophecy to pronounce that these kingdoms will 
 be divided, and the monarchy destroy'd. But shou'd, unfortun- 
 ately, this miserable Ruinous system of procrastination be persisted 
 in, I wou'd recommend that all your property and persons are ready 
 to embark at a very short notice. It will be my duty to look and 
 provide for your safety, and with it (I am sorry to think it will be 
 necessary), that of the amiable Queen of these kingdoms and her 
 family. I have read with admiration her dignified and incompar- 
 able letter of September 1796. May the councils of this kingdom 
 ever be guided by such sentiments of dignity, honour, and justice. 
 And may the words of the great Mr. Pitt be instilled into the 
 ministry of this country, — ' The Boldest measures are the safest^ is 
 the sincere wish of your Ladyship's, &c. 
 
 P.S. — Your Ladyship will, I beg, receive this letter as a pre- 
 paritive \sic\ for Sir William Hamilton, to whom I am writing with 
 all respect the firm and unalterable opinion of a British Admiral, 
 anxious to approve himself a faithful servant to his sovreign by 
 doing everything in his power for the Happiness and Dignity of their 
 Sicilian majesties and their kingdom. 
 
 [This paper shows, (i) That so early as October 3 Nelson was 
 urging flight, probably against the grain both of the Queen, Acton, 
 and Hamilton ; (2) that Lady Hamilton was the intermediary both 
 with her and Sir William, before anything could be done. 
 
 Indorsed, 'My letter to Lady Hamilton, 3 Oct. 1798,' but not in 
 Nelson's or Lady H.'s handwriting.] 
 
 (6) Lady Hamilton to Lord Nelson. 
 
 Caserta, October zq, 1798. 
 My dear, respectable ^ Friend, — We have this moment had a 
 letter from Troubridge to say the Flora cutter is going to join you, 
 and I fell so happy to have an opertunity to write, alltho' but a 
 line, to our dear, dear Admiral to say how miserable we were for 
 some days,^ but now hope of your return revives us. We are 
 oblidged to live here now till her Royal Highness' ^ squaling, and 
 thank God, her . . .,* so all the ladies in the pallace say. I know 
 
 1 This adjective, so often used by the Queen also, means, of course, in eighteenth 
 century parlance, 'venerated.' 
 
 2 Nelson left Naples for Malta, October 16. With the exception of a brief 
 return, after which he started for Leghorn, he was not back till early November. 
 
 ' Princess Clementine (arch-duchess, cousin and wife of the Neapolitan heir- 
 apparent) was expecting her first confinement. 
 
 f The words are difficult to ascertain, and in any case they are too plain 
 spoken for transcription. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 495 
 
 nothing about it. Yesterday we heard of nothing but the ' Pancia 
 Caduta,' which is a sign that she will soon Bring Forth. Then we 
 go to Naples, for it is impossible here [to] be happy, when our 
 ships are there, and my anxiety for news is such I have no rest. 
 However, here we go on with vigour, and I flatter myself We Spur 
 them, for I am allways with the Queen, and I hold out your 
 energick language to her. Mack ^ is writing. He does not go to 
 visit the frontiers, but is now working night and day, and then goes 
 for good. And I tell her Majesty, /o?- Go£s sake, for the Country's 
 sake, and far your own sake, send him of\f\ as soon as possible, no 
 time to be lost, and I believe he goes after to-morrow. The rebel- 
 lion in Ireland being finished, and the French troops taken, [h]as 
 given them fresh courage. I translate from our papers for her to 
 inspire her, or them, I should say, with some of our spirit and 
 energy. How delighted we Booth were to sit and speak of you. 
 She loves, respects, and admires you. For myself, I will leave you 
 to guess my feilings. Poor dear Trowbridge staid that night ^ to 
 comfort us. What a good, dear soul he is ! I have not time to 
 say more, and not being in Naples, I have nothing to send you. 
 How provoking! The Queen desires her kindest complements, 
 and thanks you for leving Trowbridge. He is to come down soon, 
 and I am to present him. She says she shou'd not feil happy if 
 she had not one English ship here, to send of[f] her poor children. 
 Give my compliments to good, dear Tyson. I love him for his 
 real attachment to you. Remember me to Hardy and Mr. 
 Cummins [?] ; he is a worthy, good man, I am sure, and his pro- 
 fession must give him respect allways ; and shake little Fady and 
 Woodin by the hand for me. I hope your doctor is satisfied with 
 your health. How do you do for your cook ? The dog, I will have 
 him taken as a deserter, but all is for the best, perhaps. Your 
 steward is better with John Bull's roost and boil than the Italian 
 spoil-stomach sauce of a dirty Neapolitan. God bless you ! How 
 we abused Gallo ^ yesterday ! How she hates him ! He won't 
 reign long; so much the better! Write to me, and come soon,/^r 
 you are wanted at Caserta. All their noddles are not worth your's. 
 — Ever, ever your's, Emma. 
 
 [Indorsed- — at top of last page — ' Oct. 20, — 98.'] 
 
 (7) The same to the same. 
 
 October 26, 1798. 
 
 My dear Friend, — I must say one word more to you. We have 
 
 just had another letter. The Turk Signor has written to the King 
 
 of England to beg his permission that you may wear the order or 
 
 feather that he took out of his own Turban to decorate you, and 
 
 1 The Austrian General now in command of the Neapolitan troops. 
 ^ October 16. 
 
 * The petit mattre, delaying, anti - English Foreign Minister — Nelson's 
 aversion. 
 
496 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 which is the sign of sovrainty. I do not exactly know how many 
 thousand piastres it's worth, but unprecedented is the present. 
 ' Viva il Turco,' says Emma. 
 
 If I was King of England I wou'd make you the most noble 
 present, Duke Nelson, Marquis Nile, Earl Aboukir, Vicount 
 Pyramid, Baron Crocodile, and Prince Victory, that posterity might 
 have you in all forms. Pray if the Turkish frigate comes to you, 
 I beg you to bring it here, that I may have the pleasure of enter- 
 taining the good Turban soul, and sending him home satisfiedj and 
 convinced that an English woman has a soul, for I fancy they don't 
 beli[e]ve we have one, and shewing him our gratitude for the justice 
 his master has done to the friend of our hearts, for so Sir William 
 and I call you. Once more, God bless you, and beli[e]ve me ever 
 your gratefull Emma Hamilton. 
 
 (8) Lady Hamilton to Lord Nelson. 
 
 Casbrta, October h^ 1798. 
 
 My dear Sir, — We have had our good Trowbridge here a day 
 and a half. He is gone to Naples to send a frigate to you. I 
 cannot let the first opertunity pass without writing to our dear, 
 respectable Admiral, and we have been so happy with Trowbridge, 
 in having such an occasion to speak of you as you deserve. 
 
 I presented him and Captain Waller to the Queen. We staid 
 with her two hours. Poor, dear Trowbridge was affected in seeing 
 her with her children. He thought of his own. We dined with 
 General Acton. 
 
 How you are beloved, for not merely with her Majesty, but of 
 the General's [party ?] you was our theme, and my full heart is fit to 
 Burst with pleasure, when I hear your honoured name, but enough 
 now for the day. 
 
 I received yesterday a letter from Spencer Smith.^ Your present 
 is a pelicia of Gibelini with a feather for your hat of Dymonds, 
 large, most magnificent, and 2 thousand Zechins for the wOunded 
 men, and a letter to you from the Grand Signor, God bless him ! 
 There is a frigate sent of[f] on purpose. We expect it here. I 
 must see the present. How I shall look at it, smel it, taste it, 
 to[uJch it, put the pelice over my own shoulders, look in the 
 glas, and say. Viva il Turk! And by express desire of his 
 imperial Majesty, you are to wear these Badges of Honner, so we 
 think it is an order he gives you, for you are particularly desired to 
 wear them, and his thanks to be given to all the officers. God 
 bless, or Mahomet bless, the old Turk ; I say, no longer Turk, but 
 good Christian. The Queen says that after the English, she loves 
 the Turks, and she [h]as reason ; for as to Viena, the ministers" 
 
 • This letter is printed in its order of arrangement by the British Museum. 
 "^ English Consul at Constantinople, and brother of the Admiral. 
 ' This refers to the merely defensive alliance with Naples, signed by Austria, 
 July 16. 
 
APPENDIX : NEW LETTERS 497 
 
 deserve to be hanged ; and if Naples is saved, no thanks to the 
 Emperor,^ for he is kindly leving his Father ^ in the lurch. 
 
 We. have been 2 days desperate on account of the weak and cool 
 acting of the Cabinet of Viena. Tugood ^ must be gained. But 
 the Emperor, oh, but he is a poor sop, a machine in the hands of 
 his corrupted ministers. The Queen is in a rage, Belmonte,* 
 expected back, not having been permited to go on their arrival 
 here. Sunday last, 2 Corriers, one from London, one from Viena ; 
 the first with the lovely news of a fleet to remain in the Mediter- 
 ranean ; a treaty ^ made of the most flattering kind for Naples. In 
 short, everything amicable, friendly, and most truly honnerable. 
 T'other from their dear son and daughter, cold, unfriendly, mis- 
 trustful, frenchified, and saying plainly, help yourselves. How the 
 dear Maria Carolina cried for joy at the one, and rage at the other. 
 But Mack is gone to the army to prepare all to march emediately. 
 ^nd I %tter myself, I did much. For whilst the passions of the 
 Queen [were] up and agitated, I got up, put out my left arm like you, 
 spoke the language of truth to her, painted the drooping situation 
 of this fine country, her friends sacrificed, her husband, children, 
 and herself led to the Block; and eternal dishonour to her memory, 
 after for once having been active, doing her duty in fighting 
 bravely to the last, to save her Country, her Religion, from the 
 hands of the rapacious murderers of her sister, and the Royal 
 Family in France, that [sic] she was sure of being lost, if they were 
 inactive, and their was a chance of being saved if they made use 
 now of the day, and struck now while all minds are imprest with 
 the Horrers their neighbours are suffering from these Robbers. In 
 short, their was a Council, and it was determined to march out and 
 help themselves; a,nd, sure, their poor fool of a son will not, 
 cannot, but come out. He must bring a hundred and fifty thousand 
 men in the Venetian State. The French cou'd be shut in between 
 the two armys, Italy cleared, and peace restored. I saw a person 
 from Millan yesterday, who says that a small army wou'd do, for 
 the Milanese have had enough of Liberty, whilst the nobihty are 
 starving at home, and ladies of the first fashion without a gown to 
 their backs. Their are 2 hundred French common w — s, the 
 finest clooths, coaches, sadle-horses, and attendants dancing and 
 w — ing every evening, and puting virtue out of countenance by 
 their infamous publick prostitution and Libertinage. So you see, 
 a little wou'd do. Now is the moment ; and endeed everything is 
 going on as we cou'd wish. The King is [to] go in a few days, not to 
 return.* The regency is to be in the name of the Prince Royal, 
 
 ^ Son-in-law of Maria Carolina. ^ i.e. father-in-law. 
 
 ' Count Thugut, who in 1797 had negotiated the treaty of Campoformio 
 for Austria with France. 
 
 * i.e. 'Galatone,' Prince Belmonte. He had been minister for Naples at 
 Madrid in 1796. Had negotiated the Franco-Neapolitan peace at Paris, after 
 long delays, in 1797. He was always a. persona grata. 
 
 ^ Signed in December, and in marked contrast to Lord Grenville's recent 
 attitude. ° This is a hitherto unknown historical fact. 
 
 2 I 
 
498 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 but the Queen will direct all. Her head is worth a thousand. I 
 have a pain in my head, and must go take an airing. 
 
 3 o'clock. Allegramente, Sir, am tres bien with Acton. The 
 Emperor [h]as thought better, and will assist them. The war is to 
 be declared Religious,! but he will tell you more, for I am to go to 
 the Palace,^ and this must go off to-night. We are tied by the feet 
 here. The Princess is got well again, after being in pain all one 
 night; and we all dressed in Gal[l]a 24 hours. So we must wait 
 with patience. The King says it will not be these ten days. How 
 should he know? Prince Ventimiglia^ desires his kind compli- 
 ments. The King and Queen beg'd to be most kindly remembered 
 to you. And Prince Leopold was yesterday contriving to escape, 
 to get aboard a ship, to come to you, and cried himself sick because 
 they wou'd not let him. But how every body loves and esteems 
 you. 'Tis universal from the high to the low; and, do you know, 
 I sing now nothing but the Conquering Hero. I send it you 
 alter'd by myself and sang.* It comes very fine and affecting. I 
 sang it twice to Trowbridge and Waller yesterday. God bless you, 
 prosper and assist you in all you undertake; and may you live 
 Long, Long, Long, for the sake of your country, your King, your 
 familly, all Europe, Asia, Affrica, and America, and for the scorge 
 of France, but particularly for the happiness of Sir William and 
 self, who Love you, admire you, and glory in your friendship. 
 Complements to Hardy, Tyson, and Mr. Commins. 
 
 My dear little fatherless Fady ; tell him to keep his head clean, 
 and when he comes back I will be his mother as much as I can, 
 comb, wash, and cut his nails, for with pleasure I lov'd to do it all 
 for him. In London you are not abus'd. AUtho' 'tis known you 
 are returned to Syracuse, you are called the Gallant Admiral, but 
 their is not an idea that you will meet with them.^ What a day 
 
 ^ This happened next year with Cardinal Ruffo as the General. 
 " Some of her letters (cf. one in Sotheby's catalogues for May 1905) are headed 
 ' Palazzo,' and were written there. 
 ' One of the King of Sardinia's court. 
 * Her version is given in f. 25 of this series : — 
 
 ' See the conquering Hero comes ! 
 Sound the trumpets, beat the drums, 
 Spoils prepare, the Laurel bring, 
 Songs of Triumph to him sing. 
 
 See our gallant Nelson comes, 
 Sound the trumpet, beat the drums. 
 Sports prepare, the Laurel bring. 
 Songs of Triumph, Emma, sing 1 
 Myrtle-Wreath and roses twine 
 To deck the Hero's brow divine. ' 
 
 •Nelson's arrival from Egypt as conqueror.' 
 ' i.e. the French. The London papers received by this time had not yet 
 got wind of the victory of August i. This portion of the letter is therefore 
 perhaps put in wrong order in the British Museum. It should follow, I am 
 inclined to think, on No. (3), though from the allusions to the Queen it seems 
 of a date subsequent to Nelson's arrival, and just before Lady H.'s letter to 
 Lady Nelson. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 499 
 
 will it be to England when the glorious news arrives ! Glad shou'd 
 I be to be there for one moment. Your statue ought to be made 
 of pure gold and placed in the middle of London. Never, never 
 was there such a battle, and if you are not regarded as you ought, 
 and I wish, I will renounce my country and become either a 
 Mameluch or a Turk. The Queen yesterday said to me, the more 
 I think on it, the greater I find it, and I feil such gratitude to the 
 warrior, the glorious Nelson, that my respect is such that I cou'd 
 fall at his honner'd feet and kiss them. You that know us booth, 
 and how alike we are in many things, that is, I as Emma Hamil- 
 ton, and she as Queen of Naples — imagine us booth speaking of 
 you. We touch ourselves into terms of rapture, respect, and ad- 
 miration, and conclude their is not such another in the world. I 
 told her Majesty, we onely wanted Lady Nelson to be the female 
 triajuncta in uno, for we all Love you, and yet all three differently, 
 and yet all equally — if you can make that out. Sir William laughs 
 at us, but he owns women have great Souls, at least his has. I 
 wou'd not be a lukewarm friend for the World. 
 
 I am no one's enemy, and unfortunately am difficult, and cannot 
 make friendships with all. But the few friends I have, I wou'd die 
 for them. And I assure you now, if things take an unfortunate 
 turn here, and the Queen dies at her post, I will remain with her. 
 I feil I owe it to her friendship uncommon for me. Thank God, 
 the first week in November^ is near.^ I write in such a hurry, I am 
 affraid you will be out of patience. But take the will for the deed, 
 if I fail. Love Sir WiUiam and myself, for we love you dearly. 
 He is the best husband, friend, I wish I could say father allso ; but 
 I shou'd be too happy if I had the blessing of having children, so 
 must be content. God bless you, prays most sincerely, 
 
 Emma Hamilton. 
 
 [The whole is difficult to read, being in faint and faded ink. 
 Addressed to 'Rear Admiral Sir* Horatio Nelson, K.B., &c.. 
 Vanguard.'] 
 
 (9) Lady Hamilton to Lord Nelson. 
 
 Casbrta, Friday, November 2, 1798. 
 God knows whether this will meet you, my dear admiral. How- 
 ever, I will risk and send you the latest papers. The King marches 
 the 8th, thank God. I hope you will be here soon, and therefore 
 will not say more, only love and compliments to all, and beli[e]ve 
 me ever, my dear, dear Admiral, your ever oblidged and sincere 
 
 E. Hamilton. 
 The Princess is not brought to bed. Oh dear ! what can the 
 matter be ! God bless you. 
 
 1 Nelson returned to Naples from Leghorn, November 6, 1798. 
 
 2 These lines in the text are written within the sheet containing the address. 
 
 ' His peerage had not yet been gazetted, but, as mentioned, I take all this latter 
 part of the letter to be misplaced in order and to follow No. (3). 
 
500 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 (lo) Lady Hamilton to Lord Nelson. 
 
 Saturday Evening, November 2^, 1798. 
 My dearest Lord,i — How unhappy we are at the bad weather. 
 How are you toss'd about ? Why did you not come back ? We 
 have not slept these 2 nights thinking on all your sufferings. God 
 protect you ! I find some of the ships are this moment come to 
 anchor, but what are these to us ? If you was to come back, we 
 are affraid you will be sick. Pray keep yourself well for our sakes, 
 and do not go on shore 0/' Leghorn. There is no comfort Their for 
 you. The army is marched. The Queen is in town, praying for 
 their success. I have not seen her, for I have not been out since 
 you went, nor can I for 2 or 3 days yet, as I have been ill, but am 
 now getting better. As Sir William sends you a manifesto of the 
 King, I will not. Your dear venerable father is to be made a 
 bishop.^ Oh, how happy I am at every mark of honour shewn 
 you ! Why did Trowbridge go out in such weather ? He knew it 
 was not good. How is Tyson ? Compliments to all friends. 
 May God bless you, my dear Lord. Ever your's sincerely and 
 affectionately, Emma. 
 
 (11) The same to the same. 
 
 Sunday Evening.^ 
 
 I write you 2 lines more to say I am better, but how are you ? 
 Oh, this weather ! If we cou'd know how you are, and w[h]ere 
 you are, we shou'd be happy. 
 
 The King is to sleep at Frascati to-night, and to-morrow enters 
 Rome. We have had 2 or 3 skirmishes. Moliterni, the prince 
 with one eye, [hjas cut to pieces 2 hundred Poles. The clever 
 Saxe [h]as taken Terrisena. To-day is to be the great battle of 
 Velletria. God prosper them ! You have shewn them the example. 
 The[y] perhaps may date their downfall from the glorious first of 
 August, Everybody here prays for you. Even the Neapolitans 
 say mass for you, but Sir William and I are so anxious that we 
 neither eat, drink, nor sleep, and tell \sic\ you are safely landed 
 and come back, we shall feel much [more mad ?]. We have been 
 beset to tell the secret, but I wou'd have my flesh torn off by red- 
 hot pinchers sooner than betray my trust. We send you one of 
 your midshipmen left here by accident, Mr. Abrams ; pray don't 
 punish him. Oh, I had forgot I wou'd never ask favours; 
 but you are so good, I cannot help it. I write in such a hurry, I 
 am affraid you will not be able to read. We have got Josiah ; how 
 glad I was to see him! Lady K., Miss K.,* and Carrol, and 
 Josiah dined to-day with us, but, alas, your place at table was 
 occupied by Lady K. I cou'd have cried, I felt so low-spirited. 
 
 1 The first address to him in this series by his new title of baron. 
 
 "^ A canard in the English papers. 
 
 ' i.e. November 25. * Knight. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 501 
 
 For God's sake, turn back soon. Pray, do you have no occasion 
 to go on shore at Leghorn. 
 
 God bless, protect and keep you from all danger, and restore 
 you, my dear Lord, to your ever sincere and affectionate 
 
 Emma Hamilton. 
 
 Sir William's Love to you. 
 
 (12) The same to the same. 
 
 [No date. End of November.^ 
 I congratulate you on the sword.^ I beli[e]ve Mack is taken for 
 sure. How are the generals? I have taken a Bath, am a little 
 better. God protect you, my dear Lord ; ever your's sincerely, 
 
 E. Hamilton. 
 Make haste back. Emma and Sir William esteem you. 
 
 B. — Lady Hamilton's Correspondence with Mrs. William 
 Nelson in February and March 1801,^ and in the 
 following November; together with two extracts from 
 letters addressed to Lady Hamilton by Mrs. William 
 Nelson (afterwards Sarah, Countess Nelson) in 1804 
 and 1805 respectively. 
 
 (i) 
 
 Piccadilly, February ig, 1801. 
 My dear Mrs. Nelson, — I am so ill with a headaich that I 
 cannot move, and I feil I cou'd not take leive of you and Mr. 
 Nelson ; it wou'd be too much for my heart. I will send by the 
 coach all your things and paps. Write to me, and beli[e]ve me, 
 my dearest, ever dear friend, your's sincerely, Emma. 
 
 Friday, Noon [indorsed February 20, 1801]. 
 
 I have been ill in bed, my dearest Mrs. Nelson ; I cou'd not 
 take Leave of you. My soul was torn in pieces. It is such a pain 
 
 ' Given by the Grand-Duke of Tuscany. 
 
 ' Add. MS. 34,989, ff. 34-52. Sir William had wished to invite the Prince 
 of Wales to dinner to hear Emma sing. Nelson and she both resolved not to 
 allow this, and in the end she prevailed. At Nelson's request she sent for Mrs. 
 William Nelson, his sister-in-law, to bear her company. She made two visits, 
 as the correspondence opens when she returned to Hillborough for the first time. 
 Eventually Nelson came up himself, and Emma describes his three days' sojourn 
 in London before starting for the Baltic. The subsequent letters refer to 
 Nelson's stay at Merton on his return. The whole episode, which had material 
 bearings on her life-story, is described in my text. 
 
502 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to part with dear friends, and you and I Liked each other from the 
 moment we met ; our souls were congenial. Not so with Tom Tit,^ 
 for their was an antipathy not to be described. I am laying down, 
 writing to you, so it is not Legible, but my heart says everything 
 that 's kind to you and good, honest Mr. Nelson. I received yes- 
 terday Letters from that great adored being, that we all so Love, 
 esteem, and admire. The more one knows him, the more one 
 wonders at his greatness ; his heart, his head, booth so perfect. 
 He says he is coming to Spithead soon, he hopes. I am sorry you 
 was in such a hurry to go. Trowbridge comes to town to-day, as 
 one of the Lords.^ So he is settled for the present. But depend 
 on it, my dear friend, this poor patched up party ^ can never hold 
 Long. A new coat will bear many a lag-tag, as the vulgar phrase 
 is, but an old patched mended one must tear. So 'tis a remedy 
 for the moment. Oh, my dear Mrs. Nelson, I wish their was a 
 peace, and all Partys settled to their Liking. I know w[h]ere you 
 and I would be ; tom tit might go to the dtvil for what I care. I 
 am so unwell that We cannot have his Royal Highness to dinner on 
 Sunday, which will not vex me. Addio, mia Cara amica. You 
 know, as you are learning Italian, I must say a word or so. How 
 dull my bedroom Looks without you. I miss our little friendly 
 confidential chats, but in this world nothing is compleat. If all 
 went on smoothly, one shou'd regret quitting it, but 'tis the many 
 little vexations and crosses, separations from one's dear friends, 
 that makes one not regret leaving it. Give my Love to Mr. 
 Nelson, Mrs. Denis,* the Duke and Lord William,^ and believe me 
 ever, ever your attached Emma Hamilton. 
 
 (3) This letter was written during the three day^ leave of absence 
 before Nelson left for the battle of Copenhagen. 
 
 London, Tuesday [February 24].' 
 My dearest Friend, — Your dear Brother arrived this morning 
 by seven o'clock. He stays only 3 days ; so by the time you wou'd 
 be here, he will be gone. How unlucky you went so soon. I am 
 in health so so, but spirits to-day excellent. Oh, what real pleasure 
 Sir William and I have in seeing this our great, good, virtuous 
 Nelson. His eye is better. Tom tit does not come to town.^ 
 
 1 Lady Nelson, so called at this time by all her husband's family. 
 
 " Of the Admiralty. 
 
 " Addington was trying to edge in, but as he was unable to form an admini- 
 stration, Pitt returned to power. 
 
 * The wife of a French settler at Naples ; an intimate of Emma's. She had 
 been a Miss Lind, and the Linds were early friends. She sang well. She 
 afterwards took care of Emma ' Carew.| 
 
 ' Duke of Queensberry, and Lord William Douglas, the versifier. 
 
 ' Indorsed 'Tuesday, February 24, 1801,' in Lady H.'s hand ; addressed iti 
 Nelson's to ' Mrs. Nelson, Hillborough, Brandon, Norfolk.' 
 
 ' From Brighton. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 503 
 
 She offered to go down, but was refused. She only wanted to go, 
 to do mischief to all the great Jove's 1 relations. 'Tis now shewn, 
 all her ill-treatment and bad heart. Jove has found it out. 
 Apropo, Lady Nelson is at Brighton yet. The King, God bless 
 him, is ill, and their are many speculations. Some say it is his old 
 disorder. I can only say to you, God bless you. I will write 
 Longer to-morrow. Ever, ever yours, etc. 
 
 (4) 
 
 [/wdo^-jet^ 'February 25, 1801.'] 
 London, Wednesday, Noon. 
 
 I have only time to say, how are you ? Your good dear Brother 
 has just left me to go to pay a visit to Mr. Nepean, but is coming 
 back to dinner with Morice, his brother,^ whom he brings with him, 
 and Trowbridge allso. We shall be comfortable, but more so if you 
 had been here. Oh, I wish you was, and how happy would Milord * 
 have been to have had that happiness, To have walked out with 
 Mrs. Nelson. How unfortunate it was ! His Majesty still re- 
 mains in the same way, constant fever. Our dear Nelson is very 
 well in health. Poor fellow, he travelled allmost all night, but you 
 that know his great, good heart will not be surprised at any act of 
 friendship of his. I shall send for Charlotte* to see him before he 
 goes, and he has given 2 guineas for her. Give my love to Mr. 
 Nelson, and believe me ever, ever, my dearest, best friend, etc. 
 To-morrow will write more. 
 
 (5) 
 
 [Indorsed ' February 26, 1801.'] 
 
 Yesterday I cou'd not, my dearest friend, write much, and 
 milord was not yet returned from the admiralty time enough to 
 frank your Letters, and sorry I was you shou'd pay for such trash 
 that I sent you, but I thought you wou'd be uneasy. We had a 
 pleasant evening [and night (erased)]. I often thought on you, 
 but now the subject of the King's illness gives such a gloom to 
 everything, 'tis terrable — all turned upside down. Mr. Addington 
 is not minister, for his commission was not signed before the King 
 was taken ill, so Mr. Pitt is yet first Lord of the T — . What odd 
 circumstances ! His Majesty is the same as yesterday, in short — 
 y ou know what / mean.^ Their are thousands of coaches every 
 day in the Park to enquire — the Willises are there. Our good 
 
 1 The name given to Nelson, after the derivation of Bront^ (thunder) — the 
 thunderer. 
 
 2 Maurice Nelson, for whose 'wife' (Mrs Ford), 'poor blind Mrs. Nelson,' 
 Nelson and Emma so tenderly cared. Maiuice died in the next year. 
 
 3 Maria Carolina's word. 
 
 ^ Afterwards Lady Bridport. From 1802 onwards, and after Nelson's death, 
 she was constantly at Merton with Lady H. She was at present 'finishing' 
 her education with a Mrs. VoUer in London. Her father always called her his 
 'jewel ' or ' dearie ' to Lady H. " i.e. madness. 
 
504 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Lord Nelson is lodged at Lothian's. Tom tit at same place, 
 Brighton. The Cubi is to have a frigate, the Thalia; the Earl 2 
 gives, 'tis settled so. I suppose he will be up in a day or 
 so. I onely hope he does not come near me. If he does, not 
 at home shall be the answer. I am glad he is going, I hope 
 
 never To ! Milord has only Allen ^ with him. We supped 
 
 and talked politicks till 2. Mr. East [Este], who is a pleasant man, 
 was with us. Do you wonder his M — y's head shou'd be turned 
 
 with all these things?* 'Tis enough to turn . Oh, my dearest 
 
 friend, our dear Lord is just come in. He goes off to-night and sails 
 immediately. My heart is fit to Burst quite with greef. Oh, what 
 pain, God only knows ! I can only say, may the AUmighty God 
 bless, prosper, and protect him. I shall go mad with grief. Oh, 
 God only knows what it is to part with such a friend, such a one. 
 We were truly called the ' Triajuncta in uno,' for Sir William, he, 
 and I have but one heart in three bodies. My beloved friend, I can 
 only say, may God bless you ! ffe, our great Nelson, sends his 
 love to you. Give mine to Mr. Nelson. My greif will not let me 
 say more. Heaven bless you. Answer your afflicted 
 
 Emma Hamilton. 
 [Addressed, in Nelson's hand, to 'Mrs. Nelson, Hillborough, 
 Brandon, Suffolk.' 'London, February 26, 1801.'] 
 
 (6) 
 March 2, 1 801. {Indorsed ^e same day.] 
 
 My dearest Friend, — Anxiety and heart-bleedings for your 
 dear brother's departure has made me so ill, I have not been able 
 to write. I cannot eat or sleep. Oh, may God prosper and bless 
 him ! He has wrote to Lord Eldon for Mr. Nelson.^ You will 
 have him at Yarmouth in 2 days.^ 
 
 Oh, how I envy you. Oh God, how happy you are to be with 
 that great, good, virtues man ! My spirits and health is bad 
 endeed. The King is worse to-day, yesterday was better. Tom 
 tit is at B[righton]. She did not come up, nor did he go. Jove — 
 for such he is, quite a Jove, — knows better than that. Morrice 
 means to go to Yarmouth. The cub dined with us, but I never 
 asked how tom tit was. Love to Mr. Nelson, and believe me ever, 
 ever yours sincerely, &c. 
 
 Oh, how I long to see you! Do try and come. For God's 
 sake do ! 
 
 [Addressed by Lady H., sealed with the Hamilton arms.] 
 
 1 Josiah Nisbet. ^ St. Vincent. 
 
 ' The servant whom Nelson called 'a great liar' and dismissed, but pitied 
 and helped. Yet afterwards he fabricated a new story about Horatia's parentage. 
 
 * i.e. the Northern confederation, his son's conduct, etc. 
 
 ' Bishopric, as usual. 
 
 5 Mr. and Mrs. W. Nelson came to see him there, and he (Nelson wrote) 
 ' bored ' him. Nelson had hoped that Sir W. and Lady Hamilton would also 
 have come, but the project failed. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS SOS 
 
 (7) 
 
 Wednesday, Noon, March 4, i8or. 
 
 I am sorry, my dearest friend, to make you pay for such a short 
 letter, but I have been so very Low-spirited and ill ever since the 
 best and greatest man alive went away, I have had no spirit to do 
 anything. Oh, if you cou'd come to town, what happiness for 
 your poor friend, and beside, Mr. Nelson's affairs require it. Let 
 me take your old lodgings for you. Pray do, and then we can 
 walk and talk, and be so happy together, and you will hear all the 
 news of my Hero, great, great, glorious Nelson. 
 
 I shall go to Charlotte to-morrow as I have bought something 
 for [her]. Give my love to Mr. Nelson, and beg him to bring you. 
 God bless you, my dearest friend ! Your ever affectionate, but 
 Low-spirited, E, Hamilton. 
 
 The King is better; Tom Tit in the country. The Cub called 
 yesterday, but I did not see him, thank God. They are a vile set, 
 Tom Tit and Cub, hated by every body. 
 
 {Addressed by Lady H. to Hillborough, and sealed with the 
 'Nile' seal, 
 
 (8) 
 
 [March 20? 1801.]' 
 
 My dear Mrs. Nelson, — I have been so ill all night. I cannot 
 go out this morning, which vexes me much, as I wish'd to have had 
 the pleasure of your agreable company for a shoping party. Sir 
 William desires his Comphments to you and Mr. Nelson, and say 
 [the same from me ?] to my charming ^ Mr. Nelson, not forgetting 
 little Horatio,^ &c. 
 
 [Written in a very shaky hand. Addressed, 'Stafford Street, 
 Dover Street.'] 
 
 (9) 
 
 London, Monday morning, ten o'clock 
 [Mid- November, 1 801 . ] * 
 
 We are arrived here early, stoped at Whiteland's, and Lord 
 
 * There is no date, but the references to this visit in the Morrison MS. show 
 this to have been about the date ; so do those in the Nelson Letters, vol. ii. 
 
 ^ Four years later, the reverse. 
 
 ^ Their son, who so often made Merton his home. 
 
 * The internal evidence shows that this was written soon after Nelson's return 
 from his Baltic Channel exploits to Merton in the last week of October. 
 Charlotte was with them all at Merton both for a space in November and 
 in December. There is another printed letter of November saying that her 
 holidays are near. This is her only letter from Merton of the series. They 
 have all driven in from Merton to London for the day. 
 
5o6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Nelson, Sir William and self went out with dear Charlotte, and 
 Milord beg'd a Holoday to-morrow, and Miss Nelson, permited 
 to give tea. She, Miss V[oller], with a good grace gave permission. 
 
 1 saw Miss Fuss, more stupid than ever, I think, but all girls pall 
 when near Charlotte. She Loses no lessons by coming on Monday 
 morning, for she is their by a little after nine. 
 
 I am sorry to tell you I do not think our Dear Lord well. He 
 has frequent sickness, and [is] Low, and he throws himself on the 
 sofa tired and says, I am worn out, but yet he is better, and I hope 
 we shall get him up. He has been very, very happy since he 
 arrived, and Charlotte has been very attentive to him. Indeed 
 we all make it our constant business to make him happy. Sir 
 William is fonder than ever, and we manage very well in regard to 
 our establishment, pay share and share alike, so it comes easy to 
 booth partys. When will you come ? Pray do as soon as possible, 
 for we Long to see you. 
 
 We were all at church,^ and Charlotte turned over the prayers 
 for her uncle. As to Sir William, they are the greatest friends in 
 the world; and our next door neighbour, Mr. Halfhide. and his 
 familly, they wou'd give us half of all they have; very pleasant 
 people. 
 
 And I like Mr. and Mrs. Newton allso, but like Mrs. Halfhide 
 very much indeed, and she sent Charlotte grapes, &c. &c. We 
 cotid have plenty of visiting in the neighbourhood, but we none of 
 us like it. Sir William and Charlotte caught 3 large pike. She 
 helps him and milord with their great coats on; so now I have 
 nothing to do. Lord Nelson says he never saw such a difference, 
 such an improvement as in Charlotte. He is quite proud of her, 
 and as to you, he Loves you better than his own sisters. He has 
 wrote you a few Lines, but in a day or two he will write his brother 
 a Long Letter. Dear Horace, he shall soon come. Sir William 
 and milord are gone into the town to do all their business, and at 
 
 2 o'clock we go down to dinner to Merton. All the town of 
 Merton was illuminated for him.^ 
 
 (10) B 
 
 [Summary of a letter from ' Sarah, wife of the Reverend William 
 Nelson,' addressed to ' Lady Hamilton at Viscount Nelson's, Mer- 
 ton, Surrey,' December 4, 1804 — ' expressing in affectionate terms 
 regard and esteem for Lady Hamilton,' with whom were her son 
 and eldest daughter — Horatio and Charlotte. She begs her to 
 take care of her son, then just over sixteen, and to send him to 
 
 1 In one of her two last letters from Canterbury to Nelson, preserved in the 
 Morrison MS., she says, • I am so fond of the Church service.' 
 
 2 i.e. on October 22, in honour of Copenhagen. 
 
 ' This, and the following excerpts from Sotheby's catalogue of letters sold on 
 May 17, 190S, have been added as showing the continued friendship of Mrs. 
 William Nelson for Lady Hamilton. Long afterwards she and her children 
 continued their visits and affectionate intimacy. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 507 
 
 bed every night at eleven, and mentions his being sent to Cam- 
 bridge. She hopes that Lord Nelson will be able to pass Christ- 
 mas ' in old England.' She adds her kind love to Mrs. Cadogan, 
 ' whom I shall once more be glad to see.' She subscribes herself 
 ' my dear friend, your ever affectionate.'] 
 
 (") 
 [Sarah Nelson, now Countess Nelson, to Lady Hamilton, 
 December 5, 1806,^ quoting Dr. Scott's (Nelson's chaplain) denial 
 of any knowledge whatever of certain anonymous letters in the 
 papers, and mentioning her late brother-in-law's desire to see her 
 husband's clerical advancement : — ' From my heart, my dear 
 Lady Hamilton, I wish you and all of us to live as dear friends, 
 and to make our short lives as comfortable to each other as we 
 can, and any little foibles each may have, to overlook them, for 
 we are none of us perfection. — Your ever affectionate, &c.'] 
 
 (12) 
 
 [Postcript 2 in Lady Hamilton's hand in a letter of September 
 3o, 1802, from Lord Nelson to A. Davison regarding the journey 
 to Wales : — ] 
 
 Merton, Sep. 20, 1802. 
 
 You cannot think, my Dear Sir, how sorry we were on poor 
 Dod's death, but anything we can do to assist the poor widow we 
 will. I am very sorry you are not near us to keep the Hero of 
 Heroes birthday, the 29th, but you will drink his health. Sir, he 
 begs his compliments. 
 
 We have had a most charming Tour, which will Burst some of 
 THEM. So let all the Enimies of the greatest man alive [perish ?] 
 and bless his friends. God bless you, and believe me ever your 
 obliged E- Hamilton. 
 
 C. — Later and other new letters from and to 
 Lady Hamilton. 
 
 (i) (a) Extract from a letter from Lady Hamilton to f. D. Thomson, 
 dated September 14, 1805 (the day after Nelson started on his 
 last voyage).^ 
 
 We are all so wretched, our glorious Nelson having left us last 
 night at ten o'clock ; his sisters, my self beg of you to let us know 
 by a line when he has hoisted his flag and when he sails ; you may 
 imagine the feelings of your obliged friend ; my face is an honest 
 picture of the sufferings of my heart. 
 
 ^ When Earl Nelson had got the 'last codicil,' and Lady H. was already 
 suspicious of the use to which he might put it. 
 s^Eg. MS. 2240, f. 151. 
 ' Sotheby's catalogue, July 8, 1905. 
 
So8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 (i) {b) From Lady Hamilton to Earl Nelson— about the^ last codicil' ^ 
 
 Merton, Now. 14, 1806. 
 My Lord, — Having seen with inexpressible pleasure that every 
 expressed wish of the late Lord Nelson regarding the interests of 
 his Family, when only communicated to the gracious Sovereign in 
 whose service he so gloriously fell, has been instantly and Liberally 
 granted by the generous bounty of our King and Country, I am 
 naturally induced to consider as equally certain that the same 
 mode of conveying his last, humble request in favour of the Irifant, 
 Horatia Nelson, his adopted daughter, as well as of myself, will be 
 observed with a proportionate degree of attention. I have there- 
 fore to require not only on my own behalf, but as Guardian of the 
 said Infant, by virtue of his late Lordship's will, and the Codicil 
 particularly expressive of that request, that you will have the 
 goodness immediately to assist me in regularly carrying into effect 
 the evident intention of the Testator whose executor you have the 
 honour to be. — I am, &c. 
 
 (2) Copy in Earl Nelson's hand of his answer to preceding, 
 dated Canterbury, November 16, 1806.^ 
 
 Dear Lady Hamilton, — No one is more ready and willing to 
 comply with every wish of my late Dear and lamented Brother than 
 myself. With regard to what you allude to in your letter of 14th 
 instant— if you will point out to me what it is you want me to do, 
 either for yourself or the child, I shall be glad to give you every 
 assistance in my power. — We expect to be in town about Xmas, 
 and shall hope to see you at our house. Lady Nelson has been in 
 daily expectation of hearing from you. She and Charlotte beg to 
 join in best regards and good wishes with your faithful humble 
 servant. Nelson. 
 
 (3) (a) From Lady Hamilton to William Hay ley, June 5, 1806.* 
 
 My dear Hayley, — As I am very low-spirited and very far from 
 well, I have desired Clarke to sit down at my table, and in my 
 presence, and write to you, for whom I feel everything I ever 
 did. 
 
 1 was very happy at Naples, but all seems gone like a dream. 
 I am plagued by Lawyers; ill-used by the Government, and dis- 
 tracted by that variety and perplexity of subjects which, as you 
 may suppose, press upon me. — I pass as much of my time at 
 dear Merton as possible — and I always feel particularly low when I 
 leave it [in her own writing]. Mr. Clark has read me [ ] well, for 
 
 ' Add. MS. 34,989, f. SS- This was after his conduct with regard to the 
 codicil had caused a coolness. 
 » Eg. MS. 2240, f. 57. 
 
 2 Transcribed from the original in Mr. Sabin's possession. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 509 
 
 I was leaning my cheek upon my hand, and very unhappy, but I 
 did try and get a victory over myself and seem to be happy alltho' 
 miserable. I will write soon and send the list of my pictures, but 
 at present I can only say that I am your most unhappy, very 
 gratefuU, Emma Hamilton. 
 
 Now, indeed, again must I read your Triumphs of temper. 
 Addio mio Caro amico il Sigr. Clark mi dice di bisogna de vi 
 servire in italiano, ma sto molto infelice. 
 
 William Hayley, Esqre., Felpham, 
 Nr. Chichester, Sussex. 
 
 (3) {b) From Lady Hamilton to the Rev. A.J. Scott, Chaplain to 
 Lord Nelson?- 
 
 Cranwich, 7 September 1806. 
 
 My dear Friend,— I did not get your letter till the other day, 
 for I have been with Mrs. Bolton to visit an old, respectable aunt 
 of my dear Nelson's. I shall be in town, that is, at Merton, the 
 end of the week, and I hope you will come there on Saturday and 
 pass Sunday with me. 
 
 I want much to see you, to consult with you about my affairs. 
 How hard it is, how cruel, their treatment to me and Lord Nelson ! 
 That angel's last wishes all neglected, not to speak of the fraud 
 that was acted to keep back the codicil. But enough ! when we 
 meet we will speak about it. God bless you for all your attentions 
 and love you showed to our virtuous Nelson and his dear remains ; 
 but it seems those that truly loved him are to be victim^ to hatred, 
 jealousy, and spite. 
 
 However, we have innocence on our side, and we have, and had, 
 what they that persecute us never had — that was his unbounded 
 love and esteem, his confidence and affection. I know well how 
 he valued you and what he would have done for you had he lived. 
 You know the great and virtuous affection he had for me, the love 
 he bore my husband, and if I had any influence over him I used it 
 for the good of my country. 
 
 Did I ever keep him at home ? Did I not share in his glory ? 
 Even this last fatal victory, it was I hid him go forth. Did he not 
 pat me on the back, call me brave Emma, and said, ' If there were 
 more Emmas there would be more Nelsons ' ? Does he not in his 
 last moments do me justice, and request at the moment of his 
 glorious death that the King and the nation will do me justice ? 
 And I have got all his letters and near eight hundred of the Queen 
 of Naples letters, to show what I did for my King and country, and 
 prettily I am rewarded ! 
 
 Psha ! I am above them, I despise them ; for, thank God, I feel 
 
 ' Kindly and privately communicated. This letter refers to the slanders in 
 the newspapers, and should be read in connection with B. (11). 
 
5IO EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 that, having lived with honour and glory, glory they cannot take 
 from me. I despise them — my soul is above them, and I can yet 
 make some of them tremble by showing them how he despised 
 them, for in his letters to me he thought aloud. 
 
 Look at Alexander Davison courting the man he despised, 
 and neglecting now those whose feet he used to lick. Dirty, vile 
 groveler! [sic]. But enough till we meet. Mrs. Bolton and all 
 the family beg their compliments. Write to me at Merton, and 
 ever believe me, my dear sir, your affectionate 
 
 Emma Hamilton. 
 
 (4) 
 [A letter headed 'Richmond, 1805,' to Sir R. Barclay regarding 
 the neglect of the Government in granting her any relief, and 
 requesting her correspondent to be one of a committee for arrang- 
 ing the sale of the Merton estate.^] 
 
 (5) (a) Extract from a letter of June 3, 1808, to J. Heaviside, 
 Surgeon, 
 
 AUtho' that life to myself may no longer be happy, yet my 
 dear mother and Horatia will bless you ; for if I can make the old 
 age of my good mother comfortable, and educate Horatia as the 
 great and glorious Nelson in his own dying moments beg'd me to 
 do, I shall feel yet proud and delighted that I am doing my duty 
 and fulfilling the desires and wishes of one I so greatly honoured.' 
 
 [This letter begins, ' My dear sir and good friend.' She says 
 she feels so ' Low ' that nothing will do her good. It is her 
 ' heart ' that is ' oprest.' She says to him (much in the language 
 long before used by her of Romney), 'You are like unto me a 
 father, a good brother. You have saved my life, for which my 
 heart is most grateful.'^] 
 
 (S) (b) Extract from a letter of November 1808 to the 
 Hon. C. F. Greville.^ 
 
 I was on the point of coming to you when I got your note, but 
 I feel sorry to say I cannot call on you at your House, for I am to 
 meet some of my Trustees and my Solicitor at 2 o'clock on particular 
 business. As tp my dear friend Mrs. GrefFer, it was not only favor 
 she wished for herself, for she would not ask one of the King, and 
 
 1 Cf. one of Sotheby's catalogues for the summer of 1904. It must there be 
 misdated ' 1805,' since she was not in any part of that year at Richmond. It 
 is important as showing that her embarrassments were largely due to the Merton 
 improvements, and arose much earlier than has been supposed. And cf, 
 Davison's letter to her of June 1804, Add. MS. 34,989, ff. 53, 54. The catalogue 
 tniscalls Barclay ' Lord.' 
 
 " By kind permission of Mr. Sabin, who has the original, and allowed my 
 transcription. 
 
 » Sotheby's catalogue, July 8, 1905. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 511 
 
 I have taken care to give her such a letter for the Queen and beg'd 
 of Her Majesty by the love she bears or once bore to Emma, by all 
 I have done for her, by the sacred memory of Nelson, by the 
 Charge she has placed in me, that she will be good to Mrs. Greffer, 
 whom she always marked with her Royal notice. I have given her 
 an account of the Cruel neglect of the present possessor of dear 
 Lord Nelson's honored Titles, Estates and Honours, neglect to me 
 who was the maker of His family and neglect to Mrs. Greffer. But 
 why speak of such people. Let it sufl5ce,she sailsThursdayand I have 
 done by her as I have done by all that my Glorious Nelson thought I 
 would do if He fell, I have fulfilled and am fulfilling my Dutys daily 
 to His memory. ... I will call soon to see you and inform you of 
 my present prospect of Happiness at a moment of Desperation who 
 I thought neglected me. Goldsmid and my City friends came 
 forward and they have rescued me from Destruction, Destruction 
 brought on by Earl Nelson's having thrown on me the Bills for 
 finishing Merton by his having secreted the Codicil of Dying 
 Nelson who attested, in his Dying moments, that I had well served 
 my country. All these things and papers and my services of my ill 
 treatment, I have laid before my Trustees ; they are paying my 
 debts. I live in retirement and the City are going to bring forward 
 my claims, in short I have put myself under their protection and 
 nothing, no power on Earth shall make me deviate from my present 
 system. . . . You will be pleased to hear my mother is well and 
 delighted with my House and small establishment, Horatia is well, 
 and you will I think be pleased with my Education. 
 
 (6) (a) Extract from a letter from Lady Hamilton to Mrs. Girdlestone, 
 dated 'Cranwich, August 11, 1811,' about the Duke of Sussex 
 and her mother?- 
 
 The snuff box which I now send to my dear poor friend was a 
 present from His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex to my ever 
 dearly beloved Mother Mrs. Cadogan, for he loved and respected 
 her, having known her many years in Italy, when she was more 
 than a mother to H.R.H., and he knew her Worth, Honor and 
 Trust and even to her death shewed her every attention and kind 
 hearted affection, for His Royal Highness has the best and kindest 
 of Hearts. He has been my husband's Sir William Hamilton's 
 and my Honor'd Friend for more than twenty years. May God give 
 him Health ; accept then my dear Friend this Box, you that are so 
 fond and good a mother and have such good children will be 
 pleased to take it as a token of my regard, for I have lost the best 
 of Mothers, my wounded heart, my comfort, all buried with Her, 
 I can not now feel any pleasure but that of thinking and speaking 
 of her. 
 
 Sotheby's catalogue, July 8, 1905. 
 
512 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 (6) (b) Extract from a letter from Lady Hamilton of 1807 to Captain 
 
 Rose, ' Chatham, Kent^ in which Horatia ' would guide my 
 hand J ^ 
 
 136 Bond Street. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Thank you for your very kind letter which I 
 have just time to answer and save post. I will send you a small 
 picture immediately. Horatia begs her love to you and will have 
 anything with pleasure that comes from you. We wish only for 
 your friendship and that you will continue to love us, and if you 
 would make Merton your home whenever you land on shore, you 
 will make very happy your very affectionate Emma Hamilton and 
 Horatia Nelson. [Beneath Lady Hamilton adds, ' She would guide 
 my hand.'] 
 
 (7) Summary of letter, December 28, 181 2, from Lady Hamilton 
 
 to Mrs. Russell, Woodbine Cottage, Wootton Bridge, Isle of 
 Wight, while Lady Hamilton was employed on her ^Prince 
 Regents ' Memorial. 
 
 She sends her a letter from her 'good, dear husband,' who is 
 ' working ' ' to-day ' ' like a horse, having received a letter from 
 Colonel McMahon to send him a coppy of the Memorial for the 
 Prince.' She has indescribable 'obligations' to his 'exertions.' 
 She wishes Mrs. Russell could be in town. ' What a consolation 
 it wou'd be to me.' ' You promised to write to me. From your 
 love, do ; I beg you will. It must be very dull,' but ' your charm- 
 ing family must be such a comfort to you.' 
 
 (8) 
 
 Her pathetic letter to Lord St. Vincent (?) about her memorial, 
 headed '150 Bond Street, February 7, 1813,' about the Prince of 
 Wales' memorial, transcribed in Note E. in the first part of this 
 Appendix, at p. 482.2 
 
 (9) Extract from a letter headed ' Friday night, ^ to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Russell, and, presumably, ^1813.^ 
 
 My kind good benevolent Mr. and Mrs. Russell, do send me one 
 word of comfort for the unfortunate Jematt [Jewitt]. ... I should 
 be better if I could know that this unfortunate and, I think, not 
 guilty young man was saved. He has been a dupe in the hands 
 of villains. ... I have never seen him, for I could not have borne 
 to have seen him and his amiable wife and children suffer as 
 they must, &c. &c. 
 
 ' By kind permission of Mr. Robson, who has the original. 
 ^ Both this and the preceding are in Mr. Sabin's possession. 
 ' Sotheby's catalogue of May 17, 1905. 
 
APPENDIX^ NEW LETTERS 513 
 
 (10) (a) Extract from a letter'^ from Lady Hamilton to Sir William 
 Scott {afterwards Lord Stow ell) from ' The common of St. Fetet's,' 
 two miles from Calais, Septembei- 12, 18 14. Written about 
 four months before her death. 
 
 Many thanks, my dear Sir William, for your kind letter. If my 
 dear Horatia was provided for I should dye happy, and if I could 
 only now be enabled to make her more comfortable and finish her 
 Education, ah, God, how I would bless them that enabled mfe to 
 do it ! She already reads, writes and speaks Italian, French and 
 English, and I am teaching her German, Spanish; Music she 
 knows. . . . But my Broken Heart does not leave me. I have seen 
 enough of grandeur not to Regret it, but comfort and what would 
 make Horatia and myself live like gentle women would be all I 
 wish and to live to see her well settled in the world. But my dear 
 Sir William, without a pound in my pocket what can I do ? the 
 21st of Oct. fatal day, I shall have some, I wrote to Davison to ask 
 the Earl to let me have my Bronte pension quarterly instead of 
 half yearly and the Earl refused, saying he was too poor, although 
 I got the good and great Lord Nelson that estate by means of the 
 Queen [of Naples]. I set out from town ten weeks or more ago 
 with not quite fifty pounds, paying our passage also out of it ; think 
 then of the situation of Nelson's Child, and Lady Hamilton who 
 so much contributed to the Battle of the Nile, paid often and often 
 out of my own pocket at Naples for to send to Sir John Jervis pro- 
 visions and also of Palmero for corn to save Malta, indeed I have 
 been ill used. Lord Sidmouth is a good man and Lord Liverpool 
 is also an upright Minister, pray and if ever Sir William Hamilton's 
 and Lord Nelson's services were deserving ask them to aid me. 
 Think what I must feel who was used to give God only knows, and 
 now to ask ! Earl and Countess Nelson lived with me seven years, I 
 educated Lady Charlotte and paid at Eton for Trafalgar. I made 
 Lord Nelson write the letter to Lord Sidmouth for the Prebendary 
 of Canterbury, which his Lordship kindly gave him. They have 
 never given the dear Horatia a frock or a sixpence. 
 
 (10) (d) An autograph copy, much soiled, in Lady Hamiltotis hand- 
 writing, of her letter to the newspapers about the rumours 
 which had been published, dated September 14, 1814.^ 
 
 Village of St. Pierke, near Calais. 
 Mr. Editor, I was surprised to observe that the Morning Herald, 
 
 with other newspapers, had published that I fled from my bail. 
 
 This is false; and I had had Ellen borough's discharge. Mr. 
 
 Alderman Smith, who became my bail, never lost a shilling by me. 
 
 I have left in England [all] which I possessed to pay my creditors, 
 
 retaining only that sufficient for Horatia and myself to subsist 
 
 1 Sotheby's catalogue, July 8, 1905. "^ Add. MS. 34,992, f. 199. 
 
 2 K 
 
514 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 upon at a farm-house. My innocence, I trust, will support me 
 against all the calumnies that have been raised against me. I haVfe 
 taken an oath and confirmed it at the altar that I know nothing 
 of those infamous publications that are imputed to me. Many 
 letters were stolen from me by that scoundrel, whose family I 
 had in charity so long supported. I never once saw or knew of 
 them. That base man is capable of forging any handwriting ; and 
 I am told that he has obtained money from the [Prince of Wales] 
 by his impositions. Sir W. Hamilton, Lord N., and myself were 
 too much attached to his [Royal Highness] ever to speak or think 
 ill of him. If I had the means I wou'd prosecute the wretches 
 who have thus traduced me. I entreat you to contradict the 
 falsehood concerning my bail, and also the other malicious reports 
 I have alluded to in this letter, which will much oblige the much 
 injured Emma Hamilton. 
 
 ADDENDA 
 
 (ii) Extract from a letter from Lady Hamilton to Flaxman, 
 the Sculptor, early in iSoi.i 
 
 Will you tell our dear Mr. Hayley we shall be most happy to 
 see him this morning. Sir Wm. is impatient ; and do you come 
 with him. Give my love to Mrs. Flaxman ; I shall call upon her 
 soon, &c. 
 
 (12) Extract from a letter of William Hayley to Flaxman, of 
 November 17, 1805, recalling the circumstances of their visit 
 about January 1801 at the Hamiltons', and their encounter 
 with Nelson, to his mind? 
 
 That very interesting scene when we visited Sir William Hamilton 
 together, at his request, on his return from Naples. As we entered 
 the apartment Lord Nelson was preparing to leave it. ' Pray, stop 
 a little, my lord,' exclaimed Sir William, ' I desire you to shake 
 hands with Mr. Flaxman, for he is a man as extraordinary in his 
 way as you are in yours. Believe me, he is the sculptor who 
 ought to make your monument.' 'Is he ? ' replied Nelson, seizing 
 your hand with great alacrity and spirit, 'then I heartily wish 
 he may.' 
 
 (13) Extract from a letter of about November 1800 from Lady 
 Hamilton to Lady Nelson? 
 
 I would have done myself the honour of calling on you and 
 Lord Nelson this day, but I am not well nor in spirits. Sir William 
 and self feel the loss of our good friend, the good Lord Nelson. 
 
 1 From Sotheby's catalogue of May 17, 1905. 2 zbid. 
 
 » Ibid. May II, 1905. 
 
APPENDIX : NEW LETTERS 515 
 
 Permit me in the morning to have the pleasure of seeing you and 
 hoping, my dear Lady Nelson, the continuance of your friendship, 
 which will be in Sir William and myself for ever lasting to you aiid 
 your family. Sir William begs to say, as an old and true friend 
 to Lord Nelson, if he can be of any use to you in his Lordship's 
 absence, he shall be very happy and will call to pay his respects 
 to you and Mr. Nelson, to whom I beg my compliments and to Cap. 
 Nesbit. 
 
 (14) 
 
 1. An account of Haberdashery, etc., supplied to her Ladyship 
 on the death of Sir William Hamilton, dated 8/A April, two days 
 after his decease, consisting of 47 items amounting to ;^i8s, paid 
 by Exors., 17 Novr. 1803. (This was for the whole household.) 
 
 2. John Salter's bill for Jewellery supphed to her Ladyship 
 between January 1802 to March 1803, 91 items amounting t0;^i69, 
 IIS. 7d., paid by Exors. 
 
 (15) Extract from a letter of Lady Hamilton to Tyson of May 8, 
 1805, asking for a loan of £^\^o on Nelson's account, to re- 
 pay herself for advances by her towards the Merton improve- 
 ments?^ 
 
 Clargbs St., May 8, iSoJ. 
 Mv DEAREST Tyson, — The long absence of our dearest Nelson 
 makes me apply to you. First I must tell you that what money I 
 had in my banker's hands, I have laid out at Merton, and Lord 
 Nelson thanked me in his last letter and said he would settle with 
 me with thanks when he came home. Could you then, my dearest 
 Tyson, either on my account or Lord Nelson's lend me a hundred 
 and fifty pounds ? 
 
 D. — New Letters from Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton. 
 
 (i) (a) Extract from a letter^ from Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, 
 ' St. George, March 7 ' [1801]. 
 
 '. . . Never, my dearest friend, say "Do my letters bore me." No, 
 they are the comfort of my life, the only real comfort I feel, sepa- 
 rated as I am from all I hold dear. I received your affectionate 
 letter by Davison, and the profile — he said you would give him 
 another ; do, if you please, for he knows well our attachment . . .' 
 [Speaks of a lady visitor to his ship, and says that he would not 
 dine with her because] ' of his determination about women,' [but he 
 adds :] ' I saw her for a moment. She is skinny and may be called 
 
 ' From Sotheby's catalogue of August 1904. 
 
 ^ Sotheby's catalogue, July 8, 1905. This letter was long in the ownership 
 of Mr. Abraham Hayward, the critic and essayist. 
 
Si6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ugly. Certainly very plain, but all womenkind are so to me, but 
 one only do I know that is all my fond heart can wish, and when 
 in any way I prove false to Her, may God's vengeance light upon 
 me. We want neither Kings nor Regents to make us happy; we 
 have it, thank God, in ourselves "... [Speaks of Parker, and says :] 
 ' He knows my love for you, for who does not? and to serve you I 
 am sure he would run bare-footed to London . . . My dear, dear 
 friend, you are present wherever I go, all my prayers and vows are 
 for our happy meeting and when we are to part no more. Remember 
 me most affectionately to dear Mrs. Thomson. Tell her, her dear 
 friend is as well as can be expected, and has a comfort in firmly 
 believing her constant, although it goes to his heart he is all 
 astonishment at the conduct of her Uncle; as to his Aunt, he don't 
 care a fig for her. Kiss my god child for me. . . . Shall I offer Sir 
 William a sum of money for Madame Le Brun's picture of you ? 
 etc. etc. 
 
 'St. George' off Rostock, May 24, 1801. 
 My dearest beloved Friend, — Yesterday I joined Adml. 
 Totty, when I found little Parker with all my treasures, your dear 
 kind friendly letters, your picture as Santa Emma, for a Santa 
 you are if ever there was one in this world ; for what makes a saint, 
 the being so much better than the rest of the human race ; therefore 
 as truly as I believe in God do I believe you are a Saint, and in 
 this age of wickedness you sett an example of real Virtue and 
 goodness which, if we are not too far sunk in Luxury and Infamy, 
 ought to rouse up almost forgot Virtue, and may God's curse 
 alight upon those who want to draw you, my dearest friend, from 
 a quiet home into the company of men and women of bad 
 character, and I am one of those who believe that in England the 
 higher the class the worse the company. I speak generally. I will 
 not think so bad of any class but that there may be some good 
 individuals in it. How can I sufficiently thank you for all your 
 goodness and kindness to me, a forlorn outcast except in your 
 generous soul ? My health I have represented to the admiralty in 
 such terms that I have no doubt but an Admiral has sailed to take 
 my place. The Harpy has carried a stronger letter than any of the 
 former. This vessel states that I do not know that I shall go to 
 sea again, as my health requires the shore and gentle exercise, and 
 so it does ; and really, if the Admiralty had allowed me to go home, 
 and in the event of hostilities being renewed in the Baltic, I might 
 perhaps in that case care to command the fleet, but the Baltic folks 
 will never fight me if it is to be avoided. In my humble opinion 
 
 1 Add. MS. 34,2746. This letter bears the marks of having been fingered 
 perpetually. The circumstances which called it forth, of the Prince of Wales 
 episode and the purchase by Nelson at Christie's of Romney's ' St. Cecilia,' 
 have been fully detailed in my text. It was presented to the British Museum 
 in 1892. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS Ji; 
 
 we shall have peace with the northern powers if we dxtjust in our 
 desires. Will you have the goodness to carry the enclosed after 
 you have sealed it to Mrs. Maurice Nelson, and your own dear 
 generous [heart] will say every kind thing for me. She shall be 
 fixed where she pleases, and with every comfort in this world, and 
 ever be considered as my honoured sister-in-law. I feel my dear 
 Brother's confidence, and she shall feel he has not mistaken me. 
 Tell Mrs. William Nelson how much I esteem her for all her kind- 
 ness, and that I shall never forget her complying with my request in 
 staying with you, although I hope it has been truly pleasant to 
 herself; to Mrs. Denis say every kind thing you please for her 
 letter. Tell her I want not to conquer any heart if that which I have 
 conquered is happy in its lot. I am confident, for the conqueror 
 is become the Conquered. I want but one true heart. There can be 
 but one love, although many real well-wishers. Ever and Ever your 
 dear and truly affectionate Friend, Nelson and Bronte. 
 
 Best regards to Dr. and Mrs. William. 
 
 [Sealed with a classical intaglio of Lady H.'s head in black.] 
 
 (2) (a) Extract from a letter from Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, 
 'Medusa at Sea,' August 24, 1801, sealed with her head. A 
 portion of the last sheet has been torn away?- 
 
 So little is newspaper information to be depended upon, that on 
 Thursday although with a -F, I was not a quarter of anliour on shore. 
 I went to Parker, from him to the Admiral, from the Admiral to 
 Parker, did not stay five minutes, was very low, did not call upon 
 any of the wounded, nor at the Three Kings, got into the boat, 
 and have not since been out of the Medusa. If I had staid ashore, 
 I should not have had Trevor on board. The information I have 
 received about Flushing is not correct, and I cannot get at the 
 Dutch, therefore I shall be in the Downs I trust on Wednesday 
 evening, ready and happy to receive you. Whatever Sir Thomas 
 Troubridge may say, I feel I have no real friends out of your house. 
 How I am praying for the wind to carry me and to bring me to 
 your sight. I am tired at not being able to get at the damned 
 rascals ; but they are preparing against me in every quarter, there- 
 fore they cannot be preparing for an invasion. I agree with you ; 
 fight them if they come out, so I will; and reserve myself for it. I 
 believe the enemy attaches much more importance to my life than 
 our folks ; the former look up to me with awe and dread, the latter 
 fix not such real importance to my existence. I send this under 
 cover to Parker in case you are not come, that he may send it to 
 London. I am making some arrangements and shall be across 
 directly. With my kindest regards to Sir William, believe me, . . . 
 
 ' Sotheby's catalogue for the summer of 1904. 
 
5i8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 (2) (3) Extract from a letter'^ from Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, 
 ^Amazon, September 23, 1801,' regarding Merton. 
 
 My dear Emma, I received your kind letters last evening, and in 
 many parts they pleased and made me sad, so life is chequered, 
 and if the good predominates then we are called happy. I trust 
 the farm will make you more so than a dull London life, make 
 what use you please of it, it is as much yours as if you bought it, 
 therefore if your relative cannot stay in your house in town surely 
 Sir William can have no objection to your taking [your relation] to 
 the farm; the pride of the Hamiltons surely cannot be hurt by 
 settling down with any of your relations. You have surely as much 
 a right for your relations to come into the house as his could have, 
 &c. The vagabond that stole your medal will probably be hanged, 
 unless Mr. Varden will swear it is not worth 40 shillings, which / 
 dare say he may do with a safe conscience. I should not wish it to 
 be brought into a Court of Law, as the extraordinary nature of the 
 medallion will be noticed. I am sure you will not let any of the 
 Royal blood into your house. They have the Impudence of the 
 devil, etc. — Ever yours faithfully. 
 
 (3)^ Lord Nelson to A. Davison, relating to Sir William 
 Hamilton's death. 
 
 [Piccadilly], Wednesday, 11 o'clock [April 6, 1803]. 
 My DEAR Davison, — Our dear Sir William died at 10 minutes 
 past Ten this morning in Lady Hamilton's arms without a sigh or 
 a struggle. Poor Lady H. is, as you may expect, desolate. I hope 
 she will be left properly, but I doubt. — Every yours most affection- 
 ately. 
 
 (4) Extract from a letter from the same to the same, indorsed 
 May [4?], 1803, which after saying that the will is to be read 
 at 11 (f clock this morning, continues ; — 
 
 ... I think it will be proper to read the deed of gift,^ especi- 
 ally as the family will be present, or it may be supposed that Mr. 
 C. Greville gives Lady Hamilton the furniture. 
 
 (5) Extract from a letter from Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton 
 headed ' Victory, August 24, 1803 '* 
 
 Do you know the King never knew of my wish to resign 
 Bronte ; it is said, Acton dare not tell him, and now, I fear, the 
 
 1 Sotheby's catalogue, July 8, 1905. 
 
 2 Eg. MS. 2240, ff. IS7, 164. 
 
 3 Lady Hamilton in 1801 had sold jewels to buy the furniture, which was 
 therefore assigned to her by her husband. 
 
 * Sotheby's catalogue of May 17, 1905. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 519 
 
 French will have Sicily, so that I shall be well off. If that does 
 not happen, I shall hope to get regularly ;^20oo a year — that will 
 be a pretty addition to our housekeeping. Mr. A'Court told me 
 that Castelcicala is as great a favorite as ever with the Queen, and 
 that if Acton went away she would try and have him Prime Minister 
 — then I believe the kingdom would be well governed. . . . 
 Admiral Campbell is on board ... he has made a large fortune 
 in the Channel Fleet — so much the better ; the more we take from 
 the French, the less they have, and the sooner, I hope, we shall 
 have peace . . . whenever young Paddy [Fady, of the 1798 
 correspondence ?] comes, he shall be promoted, &c. 
 
 (6) Copy of a letter from Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton} 
 
 'Amazon,' October m, 1801. 
 
 My dearest Friend, — To-morrow week all is over — no thanks 
 to Sir Thomas. I believe the fault is all his, and he ought to have 
 recollected that I got him the Medal of the Nile. Who upheld 
 him when he would have sunk under grief and mortification? 
 Who placed him in such a situation in the Kingdom of Naples 
 that he got by my public Letters, Titles, the Colonelcy of Marines, 
 Diamond Boxes, from the King of Naples, 1000 ounces in money, 
 for no expenses that I know of? Who got him ;£^Soo a year from 
 the King of Naples ? and however much he may abuse him, his 
 pension will be regularly paid. Who brought his character into 
 notice ? Look at my public Letters. Nelson, that Nelson that he 
 now Lords it over. So much for gratitude. I forgive him, but, by 
 God, I shall not forget it. He enjoys shewing his power over me. 
 Never mind ; altogether it will shorten my days. The day is very 
 bad — blows, rains, and great sea. My complaint has returned 
 from absolutely fretting; and was it not for the kindness of all 
 about me, they, damn them, would have done me up long ago. I 
 am anxiously waiting for your letters ; they are my only comfort, 
 for they are the only friendly ones I receive. Poor Captn. Somer- 
 ville is on board ; himself, wife, and family, makes 20, without a 
 servant, and has only f^ioo a year to maintain them. He has 
 been begging me to intercede with the Admiralty again ; but I have 
 been so rebuffed, that my spirits are gone, and the ^ea/ Troubridge 
 has what we call cowed the spirits of Nelson ; but I shall never 
 forget it. He told me if I asked anything more that I should get 
 nothing, I suppose alluding to poor Langford. No wonder I am 
 not well. 
 
 Noon. Your kind letters are just come, and have given me 
 great comfort. Pray tell Sir Willia:m that I will write to him this 
 day, but certainly to-morrow. I have much to do from Admiralty 
 orders, letters, etc. I rejoice at your occupation. Live pretty, 
 
 1 This letter has been printed by Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 218. But in this 
 original there are a few variations, and as it is of interest, I reprint it by kind 
 permission of my friend Mrs. Hampden of Ewelme. 
 
S20 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 and keep a pig. Have you done anything about the Turnip field ? 
 Say every thing that is kind for me to Sir William, Mrs. Cadogan, 
 etc. I have delivered your message to Sutton and Bedford. You 
 may rely on a visit. —Ever, my dear friend, your affectionate 
 
 Nelson & Bronte. 
 
 Half sea-sick. I thank you for the Rev. Dr.'s letter to Mrs. N., 
 but going to Swaffham is mentioned 7 times & in the Postscript. 
 It put me in mind of the directions for the Cardinal.^ I have 
 laughed, but she is a good wife for him, or he would have been 
 ruined long ago. His being a Doctor is nonsense. But I must 
 write to-morrow, and congratulate him, or else the fat will be in 
 the fire. — For ever yours, N. & B. 
 
 (7) Extracts from two ktters from the same to the same of May 4, 
 1805, ' Victory^ and August 18, 1805, ' Victory^ off Spithead.'^ 
 
 (a) 
 
 Your poor dear Nelson is, my dearest beloved Emma, very very 
 unwell, after a two years hard fag it has been mortifying the not 
 being able to get at the Enemy, as yet I can get no conformation 
 about them, at Lisbon this day week they knew nothing about 
 them, but it is now generally believed that they are gone to the 
 West Indies. My movements must be guided by the best Judg- 
 ment I am able to form. John Bull may be angry, but he never 
 had any officer who has served him more faithfully, but Providence, 
 I rely, will yet crown my never failing exertions with success, and 
 that it has only been a hard trial of my fortitude in bearing up 
 against untoward events. You, my own Emma, are my first and 
 last thoughts, and to the last moment of my breath they will be 
 occupied in leaving you independent of the world, and all I long in 
 the world that you will be a kind and affectionate Father to my dear 
 [a word obliterated — 'own ' ?] daughter Horatia, but my Emma 
 your Nelson is not the nearer being lost to you for taking care of you 
 in case of events which are only known when they are to happen and 
 [to] an all wise Providence, and I hope for many years of comfort 
 with you, only think of all you wish me to say and you may be 
 assured it exceeds if possible your wishes. May God protect you 
 and MY DEAR Horatia, prays ever your most faithful and affec- 
 tionate, etc. etc. 
 
 (^) 
 
 I have not heard from my own Emma since last April by Abb^ 
 
 Campbell, but I trust my Emma is all what her Nelson wishes her 
 
 to be. I have brought home no honors for my Country, only a 
 
 most faithful servant, nor any Riches, that the Administration care 
 
 > i.e. Ruffo. 
 
 ^ Sotheby's catalogues : (i) May 11, 1905 ; (2) summer 1904. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 521 
 
 to give to others, but I have brought home a most faithful & 
 honourable & beloving heart to my Emma & my dear Horatia. — 
 May Heaven bless you, etc. etc. 
 
 (8) From the same to the same. 
 
 'Victory ' off Carlisle Bay,^ Barbadobs, 
 June 4, 1805. 
 
 My own dearest beloved Emma, — Your own Nelson's pride 
 and delight. I find myself within six days of the Enemy, and I 
 have every reason to hope that the 6th of June will immortalize 
 your own Nelson, your fond Nelson. May God send me Victory, 
 and us a happy and speedy meeting. ' Adl. Cochrane is sending 
 home a Vessel this day, therefore only pray for my success, and 
 my Laurels I shall with pleasure lay at your feet, and a Sweet Kiss 
 will be an ample reward for all your faithful Nelson's hard fag, for 
 Ever and Ever I am your faithful, ever faithful and affectionate 
 
 Nelson & Bronte. 
 
 The Enemy's fleet and army are supposed to have attacked 
 Tobago and Trinidada, and are now about landing. 
 
 [Addressed ' Lady Hamilton, Merton, Surrey. 
 Nelson & Bronte.'] 
 
 (9) Omissions ^ made by Pettigrew in his transcription of Lord 
 Nelson's letter to Lady Hamilton, ' Victory,' August 27, 1804, 
 cf. vol. a. pp. ^20 et seq. 
 
 (No. i) 
 
 . . . 'May 19th. I do not' . . . 
 here insert — ' My dear Emma.' 
 
 (No. 2) 
 
 ' I hope we shall live many years.' . . . 
 
 here insert — ' And spend it together ; the very thought of such 
 bliss delights me.' 
 
 (No. 3) . , 
 
 ^ I do not expect much from it, never mtnd . . . 
 here insert — ' We shall never want with prudence.' 
 
 (No. 4) 
 
 ' This goes by Triumph? . . . 
 here insert — 
 
 ' Gibbs sends you a piece of Palermo silk, which I have requested 
 Sir Robt. Barlow to send up from Portsmouth. He says there is 
 
 " From the original, kindly lent by Mrs. Hampden. It is uncited by Pettigrew 
 or elsewhere. 
 ^ Kindly communicated by Mrs. Hampden. 
 
522 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 nothing else worth your acceptance ; he appears full of gratitude 
 for your unremitted goodness to his daughter.' 
 
 (No. 5) 
 
 ' I will do it when I come home ' . . . 
 here insert — ■ 
 
 ' Mrs. Cadogan's account of your dress made me laugh. God 
 in heaven bless you, my own dear Emma, and be assured that my 
 only attachment is to you and at present my dear Horatia.' 
 
 (No. 6) 
 
 ' You will see ' . . . 
 here insert — 
 
 'Your own dear Nelson and Bronte.' 
 
 E. — Other New Letters from Lord Nelson. 
 
 (i) Extract from a letter'^ from Lord Nelson to the French 
 Commander at Malta, October I'jqZ. 
 
 In addressing to you this letter, containing my determination 
 respecting the French now in Malta, I feel confident that you will 
 not attribute it either to insolence or impertinent curiosity, but to 
 a wish of having my sentiments clearly understood. The present 
 situation of Malta, I am told, is this, the inhabitants are in posses- 
 sion of all the Islands except the town which is in your hands, and 
 that the port is blocked by a Squadron belonging to his Britannick 
 Majesty. My objects are to assist the people of Malta in forcing 
 you to abandon the Island, that it may be delivered into the hands 
 of its lawful Sovereign, and to get possession of the Gme. Tell, 
 Diana, and Justice. To accomplish these objects as speedily as 
 possible I offer that, on the delivery of the French ships to me, 
 that all the Troops and Seamen now in Malta shall be landed in 
 France without the condition of their being prisoners of war. . . . 
 If my offers are rejected, or the French ships make their escape, 
 notwithstanding my vigilance, I declare I will not enter or join in 
 any capitulation which the General may, hereafter, be forced to 
 enter into with the inhabitants of Malta, nor will I ever permit any 
 which may be like the present, much less will I intercede for the 
 lives or forgiveness of those who have betrayed their country. I 
 beg leave to assure you that this is the determination of a British 
 Admiral, etc. 
 
 (2) Extract from a letter''' regarding Malta from Lord Nelson to 
 Sir fames St. Clair Erskine, Naples, 27,rdfuly 1799. 
 
 As Admiral Duckworth sails this day for Minorca, he will inform 
 you of all which is passing in this country, respecting the removal 
 
 ' Sotheby's catalogue, July 8, 1905. 2 ^{^_ 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 523 
 
 of Colonel Graham and the garrison at Messina. It may be 
 attended with the most fatal effect. . . . Malta and the Northern 
 coasts must have some attention paid to them, and I know it is His 
 Majesty's pleasure that I should pay such attention to the safety 
 of H.S. My. and his Kingdom that nothing shall induce me to 
 risk those objects of my special care. 
 
 (3) Extract from a letter"^ regarding Minorca and his policy from 
 the same to the same, Naples, August 2, 1799. 
 
 I have just received your letter by the Brig. It is very natural 
 you should look to the Island of Minorca, so do I, and will take 
 care that no superior fleet shall annoy it, but many other countrys 
 are also entrusted to my care, and I am endeavouring so to 
 divide my force that all may have security. 
 
 (4) (a) Extract from a letter ^ from Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton 
 ^ San Josef \Brixham\, February 11, 1801.' 
 
 My dear Lady, — I was prepared on reading your first letter to 
 have wrote a most affectionate letter, but your last has been so 
 truly unkind that I can only recal to mind it is very easy to find 
 a stick if you are inclined to beat your dog, therefore it is no wonder 
 you should endeavour from every word of mine to find cause 
 for an excuse [cut away here] him who will never forget you, but 
 to the last moment of his existence pray to God to give you 
 happiness, and to remove from this ungrateful world, your old 
 friend, Nelson & Bronte. 
 
 {V) Extract from a letter'^ from the same to the same, 
 February 14, 1801. 
 
 I doubt whether a boat can get on shore. But we are going 
 to try. Trowbridge is just come to say it is impossible, there- 
 fore you must be content with my assurance that I write every 
 day. Pray send the enclosed to Mrs. Thompson and assure her 
 of my unalterable attachment to her and her friend. I trust 
 my dear Lady to your doing me full justice and to make her 
 dear mind at ease for ever, for ever and ever. Yours faithful . . . 
 Sunday noon. It continues to blow so hard, and the sea is so very 
 high, that I scarcely expect the possibility of getting a boat with 
 this weather ; she would be lost in an instant, but in fair or foul 
 weather, at sea or on shore, I am ever for ever yours, etc. 
 
 ^ Sotheby's catalogue, July 8, 1905. Both these relate to the Prince of Wales 
 episode. 
 2 Ibid. " Ibid. 
 
524 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 F. — Supplementary Letters. 
 
 (i) From the Hon. C. F. Greville to Lord Hobart or Lord Pelham 
 {Foreign Secretaries), April 12, iZo'^.^ 
 
 My Lord, — I believe it to be consistent with propriety to take 
 the earliest opportunity of returning to His Majesty the Red 
 Ribbon which Sir Wm. Hamilton wore, and I propose to do so 
 to-morrow. 
 
 I hope your Lordship will not consider it otherwise than respect- 
 ful in me on this occasion to refer you to my communication of 
 Sir Wm. Hamilton's feeling to Lord Grenville at the period Mr. 
 Paget was appointed to supersede him without previous notice. A 
 few days before his death, he said to me that the King's regard for 
 him, and his attachment to his Sovereign, had been founded on 
 the solid ground of unvaried affection, respect, and Truth, and he 
 had never connected the slights of ministers with the direction of 
 his Sovereign. He added that in a few days his death would bring 
 to the consideration of ministers whether the payment of one-half 
 of the debt incurred by Public Convulsions, and the usual pension 
 for the short period he could be expected to enjoy it, from the 
 time it was granted, would be considered as a close of reward for 
 36 years' foreign Service, and the deterioration of his private fortune; 
 that he had not reserved, but left to the feelings of ministers the 
 suggestion I had made to Lord Grenville of his wishes, on the pre- 
 cedents which then occurred, that a token of respect to Lady 
 Hamilton might be given by a reversion of a small part of the 
 pension. It does not become me to withold {sic\ his dying conversa- 
 tion, and it cannot be for me to urge the propriety of your Lord- 
 ship recommending such mark of his Majesty's kindness to the 
 memory of my dear departed Friend, when I know that the 
 records of your office confirm the Testimony of their Sicilian 
 Majesties, by letter as well as by their ministers, of circumstances 
 peculiarly distinguished and honourable to her, and at the same 
 time of high importance to the public Service. — I am, etc. 
 
 (2) The Rev. A.J. Scotfs Account of the Battle of Trafalgar 
 in a letter^ to his uncle. 
 
 October 27, 1805. Victory. 
 My dear Uncle, — On the 21st instant the combined fleet of 
 thirty-three sail of the line were completely defeated by our twenty- 
 seven sail of the line. The enemy were extended to lee-ward, and 
 in as good a line as they could well form with so little wind as 
 there was. Our fleet in two divisions went down all sail set, 
 steering-sails,^.&c.; the wind right aft and the swell forcing the ships 
 
 1 From the original in the writer's possession. 
 " Privately and kindly communicated. 
 ^ ? 'studding-sails,' or stunsails. 
 
APPENDIX: NEW LETTERS 525 
 
 down. Lord Nelson in the Victory led one division, Admiral 
 CoUingwood the other. The first cut through between the enemy's 
 ninth and tenth ships, the latter between the nineteenth and 
 twentieth. Never was so complete a defeat. There has been a 
 heavy gale of wind ever since the night of the action, the wind dead 
 on a lee-shore, and we have been lying a wreck part of the time ; 
 consequently we know nothing of particular damages, or all the 
 enemy's ships might have been taken. I believe there were at 
 least nineteen taken — two three-deckers, one called a four-decker 
 (the largest ship ever built), the Spanish Admiral Gravina, the 
 French Admiral Villeneuve, etc. Having told you the news, which 
 will make you rejoice for your country, what will you think of me 
 who detest this victory ? It has deprived me of my beloved and 
 adored friend. I knew not until his loss how much I loved him. 
 He died as the battle finished, and his last effort to speak was made 
 at the moment of Joy for victory. I cannot talk more to you about 
 it. I hope soon to see you. I shall attend my dear Lord's remains, 
 and act when I reach England as his executors may direct. Let 
 me find a letter from you at Portsmouth. This ship must go home 
 — the mizenmast gone, the main and foremast cut to pieces, and 
 only standing by miracle, &c. It still blows hard, but we are in 
 tow by the Neptune, and hope to get the Gut of Gibraltar, open 
 to-morrow morning. Possibly we shall rig a good jurymast at 
 Gibraltar, and then go home. I do not say tnuch of my loss ;• it is 
 beyond all utterance. I, of course, now retire. 
 
 (3) Account by the same of Lord Nelson's death in a letter"^ to 
 George Rose. 
 
 H.M.S. 'Victory,' December 22, 1805. 
 My dear SiR,^In answer to your note of the loth inst, 
 which, forwarded by way of Chatham, I received this morning, it 
 is my intention to relate everything Lord Nelson said in which 
 your name was in any way connected. He lived about three 
 hours after receiving his wound, was perfectly sensible the whole 
 time, but compelled to speak in broken sentences, which pain and 
 suffering prevented him always from connecting. When I first 
 saw him he was apprehensive he should not live many minutes, 
 and told me so; adding in a hurried, agitated manner, though 
 with pauses, 'Remember me to Lady Hamilton — remember me 
 to Horatia — remember me to all my friends — Doctor, remember 
 me to Mr. Rose; tell him I have made a will, and left Lady 
 Hamilton and Horatia to my country.' He repeated his remem- 
 brance to Lady Hamilton and Horatia, and told me to mind what 
 he said several times. Gradually he became less agitated, and at 
 last calm enough to ask questions about what was going on. 
 
 ' Privately and kindly communicated. 
 
526 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 This led his mind to Captain Hardy, for whom he sent and 
 inquired with great anxiety, exclaiming aloud he would not believe 
 the captain was alive unless he saw him. He grew agitated at 
 the captain's not coming, lamented his being unable to go on deck 
 and do what was to be done, and doubted every assurance given 
 him of the captain being safe on the quarter-deck. At last the 
 captain came, and he instantly grew more composed, listened to 
 his report about the state of the fleet, directed him to anchor, and 
 told him he should die, but observed he should live half-an-hour 
 longer. ' I shall die. Hardy,' said the Admiral. ' Is your pain great, 
 sir ? ' ' Yes, but I shall live half-an-hour yet. Kiss me. Hardy.' The 
 captain knelt down by his side and kissed him. Upon the captain 
 leaving him to return to the deck, Lord Nelson exclaimed very 
 earnestly more than once, ' Hardy, if I live I'll bring the fleet to an 
 anchor — if I live I'll anchor, if I live I'll anchor' — and this was 
 earnestly repeated even when the captain was out of hearing. I do 
 not mean to tell you everything he said. After this interview the 
 Admiral was perfectly tranquil, looking at me in his accustomed 
 manner when alluding to any prior discourse : ' I have not been a 
 great sinner. Doctor,' said he. ' Doctor, I was right. I told you 
 
 so. George Rose has not yet got my letter — tell him ' He was 
 
 interrupted here by pain. After an interval he said, ' Mr. Rose 
 will remember — don't forget. Doctor — mind what I say.' There 
 were frequent pauses in his conversation. Our dearly beloved 
 Admiral otherwise mentioned your name indeed very kindly, and I 
 will tell you his words when I see you ; but it was only in the two 
 above instances he desired you should be told. — I have the honour 
 to be, etc. A. J. Scott. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Battles and Treaties will be found under these separate headings. 
 
 Abercorn, Marquis of, 70 ; (1791), 133- 
 13s ; one of the witnesses at Lady Ham- 
 ilton's wedding, 136 ; (1803), Sir Wil- 
 liam's will, 399 ; (1808), Emma's claims, 
 445 ; parties at, 450. 
 
 Marchioness of (1801), 357 ; (1807), 
 
 invites Emma, 439. 
 
 Abrams, Lieutenant, App, 500. 
 
 Abrial, Commissary (1799, Jan. 22), his 
 part in the Januarius procession, 267. 
 
 A'court, Mr., App. 519. 
 
 Acquaviva, Beatrice [Neapolitan nun] 
 (1787), and Lady Hamilton, 15 ». 6, 
 
 IIO-II. 
 
 Acton, Sir John Francis Edward (1737- 
 1811), antecedents and character of, 
 123-125; his early links with Hamilton, 
 124-127 ; his English, igS n. 2 ; [Premier 
 at the Neapolitan Court] (1736-1811), 8 ; 
 (1772), 65 ». 2 ; (1779). 65 ; (1786), and 
 Lady H., 90, 103; (1788), 120 n. 3; 
 {1789), 127; pro-Spanish, 140; (1791), 
 his change of tack and association with 
 Hamiltons: his desire for an Anglo- 
 Sicilian rapprochement, 140-143 ; his 
 appeal to Great Britain v. France, 142 ; 
 his fury at Jacobinism which threatens 
 establishments : a born bureaucrat, 
 143, 265 ; (1793), on critical peace junc- 
 tures, 144 n. 2 ; (1792), Star Chamber, 
 I4S; (1793)1 'Junta,' 153; Nelson's 
 first arrival, its effects on, 163, 171 ; 
 (1794), 173 ». 2 ; °" ^^^ French designs, 
 ih. n. 6; his novelties in inquisition, 
 174 ; his wish to engross business, 188 ; 
 (1795-6), complains of lukewarmness of 
 Austria, Tuscany, and England, 182 
 and se^. ; on Franco-Hispanian con- 
 spiracy, 185 ; in close correspondence 
 with Hamilton about, 186 ; competes 
 with Hamilton in transmitting secret 
 despatches to England, 188 complains 
 of Grenville's faintheartedness, 189 ».2, 
 ig8 ; on the Queen's resentment v. 
 Spain, 189 n. i ; for a brief space 
 veers towards King's pro-Spanish atti- 
 tude, 189, 191 ; fears Naples' isolation, 
 and returns with zest to the Queen's 
 pro-English attitude, ii. ; joins with 
 Hamilton in urging Britain's co-opera- 
 tion, ii. ; (1797), presses England for 
 Mediterranean squadron, 197 ; confers 
 with Hamiltons and Elliot, 197; his 
 
 bureaucratic bent is relieved by Queen's 
 changed policy, ii. ; his representation, 
 198 ; (1798), correspondence with Ham- 
 ilton, 198; begs Hamilton to procure 
 aid, 198 ; and Queen, 199 ; bis action 
 in the critical councils of June 17 and 
 22, 1798, 206 and seg., 207 n. 5 ; and 
 Malta, ». I ii. ; signs ' order ' in King's 
 name, 206-207 '1 a ' credential,' 206 ; a 
 ' roysd despatch,' 217-218 ; proof in cor- 
 respondence that something had hap- 
 pened unknown to him but known to 
 Hamilton, 207 n. 5 ; his antipathy to 
 Gallo {g.v.), 214 ; and instructions to 
 port governors in Sicily, 216 n. 4, 217 ; 
 to be kept in dark with the King, as to 
 the Queen's private and secret missive 
 to Nelson, 220, 222 ». 4 ; (Oct.), gained 
 by Emma, 231 ; on Neapolitan troops, 
 239 ». S ; (Nov.), with King in Rome, 
 241 ; (Dec), misjudges Neapolitan 
 crisis, 244; plans for royal escape 
 altered, 247 ; (Dec. 21), six communi- 
 cations between him and Hamilton, 
 248 ; and Nelson, ii. ; still doubts 
 danger, ii. 248 ; and dallies, 249 ; 
 orders of embarkation, and ridiculous 
 precedence, 249, 250 ; on the voyage, 
 257, 262; and Malta (^.v,), 272 n. 2 ; 
 (1799), and Lady H., 276; (June 17), 
 289 ; (June 21), 293 ; (June 25), letters to 
 Nelson regarding; RufFo and Neapoli- 
 tan affairs, 298 ; (June 26), to Hamilton, 
 303; (July 9), arrives with King in 
 Naples; (Sept.), quarrels with Ham- 
 ilton, 314 and «. 4 ; (1803), and Bronte, 
 402 ». 3 ; (1804), dismissed, 410 and 
 n. 2 ; (1804), remarried, thinks of 
 coming to England, 418. 
 
 Lady, 250. 
 
 Addington [statesman] (1801), 364, 388 ; 
 (1803), 401, 408 ; (1813), 172 ; (1814), 
 467. 
 
 Albert, Prince [of Naples] (1798), 250 ; 
 death of, 257. 
 
 Amalie, Princess, 115 n. i. 
 
 Amato, Tomraaso (1794), executed, 174. 
 
 America (1789), 128. 
 
 Amherst, Lord [ambassador], 322 ». 2. 
 
 Ancaster, Duchess of (1793), iS4. 
 
 Andreas [painter] (1786), 105 ». i. 
 
 Andrews, Miss, 157. 
 
 Aprile [musician], 15. 
 
 627 
 
528 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Ardinghelli \littirateur\, tzx. 
 
 Argyll, Duchess of [Miss Gunning], 15, 
 133; (1789). her affection for Emma, 
 and its results, 127 ; (1790), death, 
 130. 
 
 Arnstein [banker], 332, 
 
 Artois, Count (1791), 131. 
 
 Ashburner, Miss [see ' Perconti, Eliza ']. 
 
 Astley, 'Jack,' 47. 
 
 Athol, Duke of, 370. 
 
 Aurora, Commandant (1799, June 25), 
 302 n. 4. 
 
 Ausberg, Prince (1792), 149. 
 
 Austria, the Hapsburgs' historical ambi- 
 tions for, in Italy, 113, 114; (1789), 
 126 ; (1791), 138, 141 ; venality, ib. and 
 n. 2; (1792), Prussian alliance, 144; 
 (1795-8), lukewarm in resisting France, 
 182 and seq. ; worsted in campaign, 
 1S9 ; bound by treaties to desist, 183 
 [see 'Treaties,' Campoformio, Tolen- 
 tino] ; her cessions to France, 196 «. i ; 
 Venice and, ib. ; (1798), Acton on, 
 198 ; negotiating with Naples as to a 
 possible but limited and defensive alli- 
 ance, 203, 204, 205, 206, 213, 216 and 
 «. 4, 230, 231 ; (Dec), refuses aid to 
 Naples, 243, 245 ; soon herself in 
 extremis, 245 ; (1799, March), alliance 
 with Russia, Turltey, and Naples, 279 ; 
 (April), prepares to drive French from 
 North Italy, 290 ; (October), demands 
 Russian troops at Malta, 315 ; (1803), 
 third coalition, 402; (1810), 454. 
 
 Baker ['Baccher'] (1799). 272- 
 
 Ball, Sir Alexander, and Lady Hamilton, 
 19 «, I ; (1798), nursed by her, 230 ; 
 ordered to Malta, 234 ; (1799), 273, 276, 
 279 ; (June 25), 302 ; (September), 314 ; 
 (December), 315 «. SJ calls Emma 
 'sister,' as his companion in Grand 
 Cross order of Malta, 316 ; to Nelson, 
 317 ; (1800, March!, invites the Ham- 
 iltons, 321 ; (1802), letter to Emma, 
 398. 
 
 Banks, Sir Joseph [scientist], on Lady 
 Hamilton (1787), loi, 119 n. i ; (1791), 
 130 ; (179s). S. 16 ; (1798), on Jacob- 
 inism, 241 ; (1800), 335 and n. 3. 
 
 [sculptor], 5, 7. 
 
 Banti [prima donna] (1787), 104 and «. 2, 
 III «. 3 ; (1801), 343. 356. 
 
 Barclay, Sir R. (1805), 434 and n. 2; 
 (1808), 449. 
 
 Barbara, Lord (1805), and Lady Nelson, 
 432. 
 
 Baring (1810), 454. 
 
 Barlow, Miss [see Hamilton, the first 
 Lady]. 
 
 Sir R., App. 521. 
 
 Barret, G. [artist], 57. 
 
 Barry [artist], 21. 
 
 Reverend Dr. E., 136. 
 
 Bartoldi, 250. 
 
 Basseville (1793), 152- 
 
 Bathyani, Count, 332. 
 
 Battles— Calvi, 166, 175 ; Copenhagen, 
 242 ; Finisterre, 422 ; Froisinone, 239 ; 
 Jemappes, 144; Longwy, i^.; Magonza, 
 153; Nile, 223 and seq., 242, 258; 
 Padua, 279 ; Ponte Delia Maddalena, 
 291, 293 ; St. Vincent, 196 ; Toulon, 
 153, 157, 170 ; Trafalgar, 242, 417-429 ; 
 Valmy, 144; Velletri, 240. 
 
 Bausan, Captain (1798), 258. 
 
 Beatty, Dr., 475. 
 
 Beauclerk, Lady Diana, 67, 122 ; letter 
 to Lady Hamilton, 166 «, i. 
 
 Charles (1793), 165. 
 
 Beauharnais, Eugene (1797), attacks 
 Papal guard, 197. 
 
 Beckford, William (1760-1844), and Lady 
 Hamilton, 16 ; on Lady H. (1791), 133, 
 
 13s ; (1792). 144. 148 ; (1794). s ; 
 
 (1800), 14, 230, 335, 338 ; insincerity, 
 ib. and n. 2 ; (1801), 230 ; inaccuracy 
 of, 171 ; (1802), peerage scheme, 389- 
 
 390- 
 
 Euphemia, 389. 
 
 Bedford, Captain, App. 520. 
 
 Belmonte, Prince ['Galatone'] (1779), 
 123; (1795-6), his part as Neapolitan 
 ambassador at Madrid in forwarding 
 information regarding Spain, 185 and 
 seq. ; secretly negotiates Franco-Nea- 
 politan compact in Paris, 188 and seq. , 
 190 «. 6 ; (1798), 199 ; (1798, Dec), his 
 part in preparing royal flight, 247, 248, 
 250 ; on voyage, 257 ; (1800), his fare- 
 well to Lady H. , 329 ; App. 497. 
 
 Princess (1804), 410. 
 
 Bentinck, Lord William [ambassador], 
 99 n. 4, 116, 322 n. 2. 
 
 Berri, Duke of (1803), 105 n. 5, 393 n. 2, 
 
 Berry, Captain, 345 ; (1801), 367. 
 
 Berthier, General (1797), despatched by 
 Napoleon z/. Rome, 197 ; (1798, Novem- 
 ber), 239. 
 
 Bessborough, Lady (1793), 122, 155. 
 
 Bianchi, Francesco [composer] (1809), 
 
 4SI. 4S4- 
 
 Mrs., 451. 
 
 Billington, Mrs. [prima donna], 24 ; 
 
 (1801), 342; at Merton, 386, 416; 
 
 (1809), 451 ; (1810), 454. 
 Blackburn, Mr. and Mrs. (1801), 368 and 
 
 n. 2. 
 Blackwood, Captain the Hon. H. (1805), 
 
 427. 431- 
 
 Bolton, Ann, 413 ; letters to Lady Hamil- 
 ton, 415, 440 ; (1806-8), constantly at 
 Merton, 439-441 ; (1808), 444. 
 
 Eliza, 413, 416 ; (1806-8), at Merton, 
 
 439- 
 Emma Horatia, christened, 412 ». 2 ; 
 
 (1806-7), 439- 
 family, the, 405 ; (1806 and after), 
 
 Emma's warm friends, 439, 449 ; (1811- 
 
 1812), invite Lady Hamilton, 456, 
 
 458- 
 
 Horace, 453. 
 
 Lady (1809), her letter to Lady 
 
 Hamilton, 452. 
 
INDEX 
 
 529 
 
 Bolton, Thomas [the younger], 416; 
 (1805), at Merton, 421, 424. 
 
 Mrs. T. [Nelson's sister], 158 n. i; 
 
 (1800), 334 ; (1802), at Merton, 386 ; 
 (1803), 402, 408; (1805), letter of con- 
 dolence to Lady Hamilton, 431 ; on 
 Lady Nelson to Emma, 432 ». 3, 433 
 n. 2 ; (1806 and after), believes Emma 
 will obtain justice, 440 ; (1809), 460 ; 
 (1810), to Emma on Mrs. Cadogan's 
 death, 453 ; her own death (1813), 46r, 
 464. 
 
 Captain Sir William (1803), mar- 
 riage, 403 ; (i8io), begs Lady Hamil- 
 ton s influence, 455. 
 
 Boothby, Sir Brooke, 16 n. i ; and 
 Emma's voice, 104 n. 3. 
 
 Bourbon, Duke of (1803), 103 n. 5. 
 
 Bowen, T. [contractor, of Merton and 
 Portman Square], 41, 383. 
 
 Captain T. (June 1798), staying at 
 
 Hamiltons' as intermediary, 210 w. 2 ; 
 takes Emma's letter to Nelson, 210; 
 promoted through Hamiltons, ib. 214; 
 promoted, 227. 
 
 Captain [his brother] (1797), 2io». 2. 
 
 Boyd, Lady, 65. 
 
 Boydell, Alderman, 44. 
 
 Braham [singer] (1802 and 1805), 391. 
 
 Bristol, Frederick Augustus, Earl of, 
 and Bishop of Derry (1730-1803) ; 
 his characteristics, 130, 177-180 ; 
 (1778), 123 n. 2; (1789), 127 n. 4; 
 (1791). 130; (1793). 178; (1794). on 
 Medici's treason, 174 n. 2 ; (1795), 
 141 n. 2 ; and Lady Hamilton (1794), 
 16, 22, 178 ; and Countess Lichtenau 
 (y.».),i8o;(i79B), 17; (1799), 2795(1800), 
 328 ; (iS°3)i death, 411 ; App. 481. 
 
 Brooke, Lord, 92. 
 
 Bruce, Lord (1769), 66 n. i. 
 
 Brueys, Admiral (1798), killed in Nile 
 battle, 223. 
 
 Brunswick, Duke of, 144. 
 
 Budd, Dr.,4S. 
 
 Buonaparte, Joseph (1797), 196. 
 
 Louis (1798), 239. 
 
 Napoleon, 113, 122, 137, 153 «. 
 
 S; (1793). 167; (1794), 175 ; Direc- 
 toire, paves way for Spanish raffroche- 
 ment, 185 ; (1795-7)1 182 ; coalition 
 against, weaiened, 183 ; his long 
 chapter of Italian and Austrian suc- 
 cesses, 184 ; republicanises Liguria and 
 Romagna, 189, igin. i, 196, 201; (1797), 
 exploits Roman Jacobins, 197 ; boasts 
 
 1 of republicanising two Sicilies, 197 ; 
 and Acton, 173 n. 3, 198; (180;), his 
 letter to Maria Carolina, 173 ». 3 ; 
 (1798), Egyptian expedition, 201 and 
 sea. ; the Savants, 202 n. i ; reassures 
 Sicily and bribes Malta, 204; objects 
 in, 207 n. s; significance of, 213; 
 quits, 214 ; correspondence intercepted 
 a week after Nile battle, 223 ; its 
 nature, 202 n. i ; his republican ardour, 
 241 ; designs on Naples, 244, 263 ; 
 
 2 
 
 (1799), returns to France, 315 ; at 
 Marseilles, ih. n. 4 ; (i8or), 344 ; (1801), 
 366-7 ; (July), 37S ; (1803), breaks the 
 truce, 402 ; (1804), dictates to Maria 
 Carolina, 410 and n. 2 ; Boulogne 
 flotilla, 410, 411; (1810), 4S4; (1814) 
 463. 
 
 Burchardt, General (December, 1798), 
 244. 
 
 Burdett, Sir Francis (1810), 454. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 142. 
 
 Burlot, Marquis, 153. 
 
 Byng, Admiral, 306. 
 
 Byres, 37. 
 
 Byron, Lord, cited, 3, 161. 
 
 Cadogan, Mrs. [nie Mary Kidd of 
 Hawarden, Lady Hamilton's mother], 
 IS, 23, 40, 41, 42, 44, 56, 84 ; (1785), 8s, 
 86, go, 94; (1787), 100; (1788), I29;(i798), 
 229; (Dec. 22), 2S2, 2S3, 234; (Dec. 24), 
 'an angel,' 257; (1799), and Nelson, 
 281 ; and Emma, 235 ; has a secretary, 
 286 ». I ; (July), Nelson's letter to, 
 308; (1800, June-Nov.), homeward 
 journey, 329, 333; (1800), 342 ; and 
 Emma 'Carew' (q.v.), 337 ». 3, 351, 
 367 and n, 2 ; Merton, 379, 380 ; 
 (1803), Sir William's bequest, 400 ; 
 ' beloved,' 405, 407, 412 ». i ; (1805), 
 421, 425, 426 ». I, 4J29 ; (1806), 436 ; 
 and the Boltons (g.v.), 439, 440 ; (1808), 
 444; (1809), 452; (1810), death, 453; 
 App. S20, S22. 
 
 Henry (1813), 42, 472. 
 
 Calder, Sir R. (1805, July 22), 422, 423. 
 
 Calonne, Prince (1791), 131. 
 
 Campbell, Abb^ (1798, Dec), 278 ; (i8oi- 
 2), 386 ; (1803), 408 ; (1803), letter to 
 Lady Hamilton, 430 , (1813), 457. 
 
 Commodore (1798, Dec), royal 
 
 flight, 247 n. 3, 265 ; App. 519. 
 
 Canning, W. [statesman], 142, 160, 195 
 n. s ; and Emma's claims, 205, 367 ; 
 (180s), 424 ; (1806), acknowledges her 
 claims, 437 ; (1810), admits their justice, 
 447 and notes i and 2 ; (1813), 458. 
 
 Canova, 118. 
 
 Canzano, Duke of, 167. 
 
 Capel, Captain (1798), sent by Nelson to 
 Emma with first news of Nile victory, 
 223 n. I. 
 
 Caracciolo, Nicolo [Commandant of San 
 Elmo] (1799), 268 n. I. 
 
 Prince [the elder ; Finance Minis- 
 ter] (1793), 167. . , ^^ 
 
 Prince and Admiral [the younger ; 
 
 Chief of Marine], 122 ; learned seaman- 
 ship in England, 303; (1798), 228; (Dec.) 
 247 ; royal flight, 247, 248 ; his orders of 
 embarkation, 249 ; on the voyage and 
 arrival, Palermo, 258 ; false loyalty, ii. ; 
 (1799, March), Nelson's opinion of, 
 279 ; (May and June), evidences of 
 his treachery, 290 and ». 2 ; fires on 
 his flagship, 291 ; a hostage, butf flies, 
 294; the Queen on, 304 n. 3; (June 
 
S30 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 27-29), his arrest/ trial, and execution, 
 305-7 ; episode of his reappearance, 311. 
 
 Carafa, Prince Ettore, 123. 
 Caramanico> Prince (1776), 122 ; (1779), 
 124. 
 
 Joseph, Prince, 122 ; (1794), death, 
 
 174. 
 
 Caravelli [Httirateur], 124. 
 
 Caretto \lUUrateur\, 121. 
 
 'Carew,' Emma [or Hart, Lady Hamil- 
 ton's first daughter], ^^ti.i) (1782), 70 
 n. 1 ; (1784), 70, 71, 72 and n. 3 ; school 
 bills, 75 ; description of, 156 «. 2, 73, 76, 
 136, 178 n. I, 343, 367, 370; parting 
 letter of, 455 ; App. 479 ; her parting 
 letter, 480. 
 
 Carnegie, Lady (1791), 147. 
 
 Caroline, Princess of Wales {1807), 
 Emma invited to meet her, 439. 
 
 Carr, Miss, 133 ; portrait by, of Lady 
 Hamilton, 137, 
 
 Carrol, Captain T. (1798), 204, 240 ; 
 (1801), 345 ; App. 500. 
 
 Carter, Rev. R., 40 n. i. 
 
 Castelcicala, Prince (1789)1 123; (1793), 
 14s; (1794), 174; (1797), conciliatory, 
 197 ; (1798), andtheQueen, 199; (Dec), 
 250, 257; (1799, July 9)1 arrives with 
 King in Naples, 308; (1800), mission 
 to London, 327 ; App. 519., 
 
 Cathcart,Charles[Greville's friend], 38,61. 
 
 Lord, 468. 
 
 Cathcarts, the, 399. 
 
 Championnet, General (1799), 263, 265 ; 
 forced back to Capua, 267 ; (Jan. 22), 
 his promises, and part in St. Januarius' 
 procession, 267, 269 ; enters Naples, 
 269 ; conduct, 270. 
 
 Channer, 425 n. 2. 
 
 Charles III. of Spain, 113, 
 
 IV. of Spain [brother of Ferdinand 
 
 IV. of the two Sicilies] (1795-6); his 
 part in Franco-Spanish conspiracy for 
 rapprochement, so as to bully Naples 
 out of neutrality and worst England, 
 188-192. 
 
 VI. of Germany, 113. 
 
 Charlotte, Queen (of England), 133, 136, 
 
 329- 
 Chatham, first Earl of, alluded to, 158 ; 
 
 cited by Nelson, 233. 
 John, second Earl of (1756-1835), 
 
 and Nelson, 157. 
 Cheney, General, 137. 
 Chesterfield, Earl of, 39, 51 «. i. 
 Ch^ze, La [ambassador], 152 n. i. 
 Chirac, Denis [jeweller], 57. 
 Cholmondeley, Mr. (1793), 155. 
 Christine, Archduchess (1793), IS3- 
 Cimarosa [composer], 117, 228. 
 Cipriani [artist], 21. 
 Ciroello, Prince [ambassador], 142, 145 
 
 n. I, 193, 226 n. 2, 327. 
 Girillo, Dr. [scientist], 120. 
 
 Domenioo (1799), 2°S- 
 
 Clarence, Duke of (1792), iS7; (1805), 
 
 condoles with Lady Hamilton, 431. 
 
 Clarke, Mr. [secretary], 44, 454; App. 
 
 508. 
 Clementina, Archduchess and Princess, 
 
 115 n. I, 138 «. I, 228, 235 ; (1798, 
 
 Dec. 21), 249. 
 Cochrane, Admiral, App. 521. 
 Coco, Vincenzo [Jacobin and author], 
 
 119 n. 2 ; (1799)1 272. 
 CoUetta [historian], 120, 145. , 
 Collingwood, Vice-Admiral Lord (1805), 
 
 422, 455 ; App, 525. 
 Colonna, Prince, 114, 167. 
 Commins, Mr., 498. 
 Compton, Mr., 315 n. 4. 
 Condorcet, 142. 
 Conforti [historian], 121. 
 Connor family, the, 43 n. 2, 385, 438 
 
 «. 1, 443 ; (1810-12), 455. 
 Mrs. [Lady Hamilton's maternal 
 
 aunt], 43, 368, 438. 
 
 Ann, 43, 438. 
 
 Cecilia, 418, 438 «. i ; (1809), 
 
 451 ; (1812), duns Lady Hamilton, 
 
 45°- 
 Charles, 43 ; (iSoi), 356 ; (1804), 418 ; 
 
 (1808), 438 «. I. 
 
 Eliza, 43, 438 «. I. 
 
 Mary [for a space governess also, 
 
 like her sister Sarah], 43 ; (1805), on 
 
 Horatia and Nelson, 425. 
 Sarah, 43 ; (1803), governess, 405, 
 
 407; (1804), 415 «. I, 418; (1805), 
 
 her letter about Nelson's return, 423 ; 
 
 (1809), 451 and n. 5. 
 Cosway [artist], 20. 
 Cowper [poet], 63. 
 Coxe, Mr., 455 n. 6, 461. 
 Craven, Lady [Margravine of Anspach], 
 
 67 n. 3, 82. 
 Cribb [steward and grocer], 406, 421. 
 Cumberland, Duke of (1786), loi n. 3. 
 Curtis, Don Michel [Governor of Pro- 
 
 cida] (1799), 278 «. 3 ; (May), 282. 
 Curwen, Christian, Mr., r8 n. 4. 
 Cuto, General (1795), ^7S- 
 Cuzzardi [painter], 21. 
 
 D' Albert, Rosalie, 153. 
 
 Damer, Anne Seymour, Honourable 
 Mrs. , 67 and n. 5, 89, 122. 
 
 Danton (1791), 143. 
 
 Dartmouth, Earl of, 65. 
 
 Dashwood, analogy of, 122. 
 
 Daumier, Mrs. , 454. 
 
 Davison, Alexander (1800), 326, 335, 
 341 »■ I ; (1801), 352 «. 5, 379, 38s ; 
 (1802),^ 399; (1803), remonstrates on 
 Emma's improvements, 405, 4071 408, 
 410; (1805), 419, 425, 448; (1806), 
 courts Earl Nelson, 439; (1808), on 
 Emma's committee, 449; App. 510 
 
 Dejean [courier], 86. 
 
 Delfico [scientist], 121. 
 
 ' Demoiselles de France,'the (1789) 126 ■ 
 
 (1798, Dec.), 248. 
 D'Enghien, Due (1803), 402. 
 
INDEX 
 
 S3I 
 
 Djsnis, Mrs. [kA Lind] (iSoi), 342, 368, 
 
 386; (1809), 4Si; (1813), 46o;App. 
 
 480, 502 n. 4, 517. 
 Dent, Mrs. , 360. 
 Devonshire, Georgina, Duchess of, 15; 
 
 (1793), 122, 133, 154; (iBio), still 
 
 Lady Hamilton's friend, 455. 
 D'Harcanville, 36 n. i. 
 Diavolo, Fra [freebooter and soldier], 
 
 n6 ». 2 ; (1799, May), 271. 
 Dickenson, Mrs. [Sir W. Hamilton's 
 
 niece Mary], 82, 99; (1791), I3S«. 3. 
 Dietrichstein [' Draydrixton'], Prince, 
 
 (1786), 103, 31S n. 3. 
 Douglas, Lord WUliain (1791), 135, 
 
 150 «. 2 ; (iSoi), 373 ; verses, 376-7. 
 
 Marquis of (1802), 389. 
 
 Downward, Mrs. , 43. 
 
 Droz, Gustave, alluded to, 5 n. 2. 
 
 Drummond, Lady Charlotte, 157 n. i. 
 
 Dubourg, M. [violinist], 57. 
 
 Ducheyla (1798), kiUed in Nile battle, 
 
 223. 
 Duckworth (1798), and Minorca, 239, 279 ; 
 
 and Nelson, 280 ; (1799, Tune 25), 
 
 289 n. s, 300 n. 2; (Sept.), Nelson 
 
 orders to protect British trade, 314; 
 
 (i8o6 and after), retains friendship for 
 
 Emma, 440 n. 3 ; App. 522. 
 Duraouriez, General, 144, 335, 409. 
 Dunmore, Lady (1792), 150. 
 Duphot (1797), killed in Jacobin uprising 
 
 at Rome, 196. 
 Dutens, L. [Secretary to Turin Embassy] 
 
 (1791), 136 ; (i8oi), 342. 
 
 Earthquakes at Naples, 36 ». i ; 
 (1793), 167. 
 
 at Siena (1797), 197. 
 
 East India Company (1799), 317. 
 Eden [diplomatist] (1798), 203, 233 n. i. 
 
 Lady, 179. 
 
 Egmont, Lady (1806), Emma's friend, 
 
 439- 
 
 Elcho, Lord (1790), 127. 
 
 Elizabeth, Princess [of Russia], 24. 
 
 EUenborough, Lord, 465 and ». 4, 469 
 «. 2 ; App. 513. 
 
 Elliot, Hugh, The Honourable, 99 «. 4 ; 
 (1804), 411. 
 
 Lady, 105 «. 5 ; and Emma, 181, 
 
 331. 
 
 Sir Gilbert [ambassador], (1797)1 
 
 summoned by Acton to confer with 
 Hamiltons, 197; (1799, November), 
 correspondence with Lady Hamilton, 
 320 «. 2 ; (1800), his insinuations, 325 
 and n. 2, 5 n. 4, 330 n. 3 ; (1802), as 
 critic at Merton, 391-3; inaccuracy, 
 392 «. I J (1803), on Emma's provision, 
 
 399 »• S- 
 Elliott, Grace Dalrjmiple, 24. 
 Epicharis [freedwoman], analogy of, 224, 
 Erskine, Sir James St. Clair, 143 n. 1, 
 
 287 ». 2 ; App. 522. 
 Este, Rev. C. (1802), 395 «. 4 ; App. 504. 
 Dr. L., 148. 
 
 Esterhazy, Prince, 332. 
 
 Eyre, Governor, analogy of, 306. 
 
 Exeter, Lord, 37. 
 
 Fady [midshipman], 25 ; (1801), at Mer- 
 ton, 386. 
 
 Falaguerra \litiirateur\ 121. 
 
 Falco [physician and conspirator], (1793), 
 144 n, 2. 
 
 Falconet [agent], 407. 
 
 [banker], 259 ». 2. 
 
 Faypoult [French commissary], (1799), 
 262, 270. 
 
 Ferdinand iv. , King of the two Sicilies 
 (1752-1826), 20 ». 1, 22 n. 7, 25, 48 ». I ; 
 (1776), 65; (1782), 69, 90-92, 9j;; (1786), 
 and Lady Hamilton, 103 ; episodes of 
 Lady Hamilton's meeting with, 103, 
 III and «. 3, 1 12-14; Ws character, 
 education, and early surroundings, 
 115-18, 139; musical, 116, 155; his 
 humour, 118 and ». i; pro-Spanish bias 
 up to 1796, 118, 125, 139, 141 ; effects 
 of French Revolution on, 126 ; (1791), 
 attitude to affairs and his wife, 139; 
 anti-bureaucratic, and so popular, 
 though despotic, 143 ; (1792), Sir 
 William's illness, 150, 153; (1793), 
 attentions to English, 155 ; reception 
 of Nelson, 162-63 ; (1795), 174 ; (1795- 
 96), his pro-Spanish policy, keeps 
 Acton and Hamilton in the dark, 
 corresponds secretly with his brother 
 the Spanish King, 186 and seq. ; re- 
 ceives threatening letters from him, 
 188; temporises, ih., 191 ; (Sept. 1796), 
 receives the King of Spain's secret and 
 crucial letter announcing terms of 
 alliance with France, 191, 192 ; (1797), 
 and Acton regarding Mediterranean 
 squadron, 197; (1798), dejectionatpoliti- 
 cal situation, 202 n, 4, 212 ; dispersed by 
 Nelson's arrival, 202 and ». 4 ; now lean- 
 ing on Austria, 203 ; awaiting Austria's 
 {q.v.) negotiations, 203, 205, 206; 
 (June 17), the informal ' order ' in his 
 name procured through Hamilton 
 (q.v.) for Acton (q.v.), 207 and seq., 
 219 ; ignorant of Queen's action at 
 Emma's instance, 210 and seq. ; in- 
 structions to Sicilian port Governors, 
 216 and ». 4, 217, 218 ; to be kept in 
 the dark as to his wife's secret letter 
 to Nelson, 218 ; the ' Governor of 
 Syracuse's letter' purposely meant to 
 be shown to him, it. ; gratitude to 
 Nelson, 227 ; reception by, of Nelson, 
 228; now waiting on Austria, 232, 
 23s ; his frivolous outlook, ib. ; starts 
 with Mack on ill-starred campaign, 
 234, 239 ; (Nov. ), enters Rome, ib. 240 ; 
 (Dec. ), Rome re-taken, ib. ; (Dec. ), 
 retturns ashamed to Naples, 243, 244 ; 
 plans for escape of, 247, 249 ; altered, 
 ib. ; his reasons for hesitation, 248 ; 
 (Dec. 21), dallies, 249, 256 ; the flight, 
 248-255; refuses deputies' petition to 
 
532 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Ferdinand IV. — eontimied. 
 remain, 256; (Deo. 23), voyage, 256 
 and seq. ; arrival, 258 ; rage v. Queen, 
 259 ; effects of flight at Naples, 260 ; 
 (1799)1 instructions, 267 n. 2 ; (April), 
 replaces Pignatelli (q.v.) by Ruffo 
 (q.v.) ; his strict injunctions limiting 
 powers of, 271 and n. i ; his commis- 
 sion to Rufto and institution of new 
 tribunal divulged to Jacobins, 272; and 
 LuisaSanfelice(y.i'.), 272 ; listens again 
 toGallo, 276 ; (June), confers full powers 
 on Nelson, 282 ; (June), suspects Ruffo, 
 but awaiting certainty, lets Nelson 
 depart without him, 288 ; (June 16), 
 council about Ruffo, 289 ; letters to, 
 289 notes I and 2 ; latent cruelty, 290, 
 304, 310 ; his orders to Nelson, 303 ; 
 Caracciolo and Nelson, 306 n. 3 ; 
 (July 9), arrival in Naples, 308 ; eventual 
 plans as mentioned by Lady Hamilton, 
 309 ; at English prayers, ib. ; fgtes 
 and honours for Nelson at Palermo, 
 312-14 ; withholds grain from Malta, 
 315, 316; not a gambler [teste Ben- 
 tinck], 318; (1800), pensions Trou- 
 bridge, 320 n. i ; anger with Lady 
 Hamilton and eventual reconciliation, 
 321 and B. 2 ; trims towards France, 
 327 n. I ; (iSor), Nelson's letter to, 
 374 ; writes to Nelson, 375 ; (1803), 
 400; (i8o5), addresses English minis- 
 ters on Emma's behalf, 408 n. 2 ; 
 condition of his affairs, 410; (1804), 
 despairs at Nelson's departure from 
 Mediterranean, 418. 
 
 Ferdinand, Archduke, 115. 
 
 [the younger], 115 «. i ; mar- 
 riage, 138 n. I. 
 
 Ferrari (1798), 250. 
 
 Ferrers, Lord (1786), loi n. 3. 
 
 Fetherstonehaugh, Sir Henry (1777), 66 
 K. 2 ; (1781), 34 and «. i, 47, 49 and 
 "■ 3i S°' 52-53 ; (1809-10), letters of, 
 to Lady Hamilton, 453, 455. 
 
 Lady, 50. 
 
 Filangeri [jurist], 120. 
 
 Filisan [Mrs. Billington's second hus- 
 band], 451. 
 
 Filomarino, Clemente (1799, Jan.), and 
 Lazzaroni (q.v.), 268. 
 
 Fisher, Dr. , 382 », i, 386; (1804, Aug. i), 
 416. 
 
 Fitzharris, Lord, 332. 
 
 Fitzherbert, Mr., 278. 
 
 Fitzmurray, 338 «. i. 
 
 Flaxman [sculptor], 36 ». i ; (1791), 147 ; 
 (1800), 334 ; interview with Nelson, 341 
 and n. 2 ; App. 514. 
 
 Fleury, Duchess of (1789), 12S. 
 
 Flint [King's messenger] (1793). 156. 
 
 Foote, Captain (1799, May), commis- 
 sion by Nelson to reduce Neapolitan 
 mainland, 282 ; proclaims blockade, 
 ib. ; his part in events of June de- 
 tailed and discussed, 292-294. 
 
 Ford, Mrs. ['Mrs. M. Nelson], (1800), 
 
 334 and «. I ; (1801), 374, 378 ; (1804), 
 419 ; (1808), 444. 
 
 Foster, Lady Elizabeth [afterwards 
 Duchess of Devonshire], 15 ; (1793). 
 122 ; (1798), tribute to Lady Hamilton s 
 heroism, 255 n. i ; (1799), and Lady 
 Hamilton, 276 K. 2; (1800), 328; (1805), 
 condolence with Lady Hamilton, 431 ; 
 (1806 and after), remains her warm 
 friend, 439. 
 
 Fox, C. J. [statesman], 122 ; and Carac- 
 ciolo, 306 ; and Nelson, ib. n. 2. 
 
 France, historical ambitions of French 
 Bourbons for Italy, 113, 114; (1789), 
 125-26; (1791), beginnings of league 
 against, 138 ; (1792), 144 ; (1793), her 
 Neapolitan representative dismissed, 
 223, 239 ; Tr6ville spreads revolution- 
 ary ideas at Naples, 145 ; designedly 
 foments the ferment, 172 and j«^.; effect 
 of Directoire on Italian Jacobinism, 
 173 ; French designs up to and after 
 i79Sj 173 ; (i79S)> National Convention 
 bribes Austria, 141 n. 2 ; (1795-6), 
 uses republicanism to possess Italy; 
 manoeuvres rapprochement with Spain, 
 182 and seq. ; (1796-7), exacts com- 
 pact from Naples, dictates treaties to 
 Pope and Emperor, 183 ; (1797), forces 
 Naples to acknowledge Cisalpine 
 Republic, 184 ; bullies and blackmails 
 her, 198 ; her conspiracy with Spain 
 V. Naples, 185 ; regains Ionian Islands 
 and Low Countries, 196 n. i ; (1798), 
 her forces v. England, 199 ; objects of, 
 in countenancing Napoleon's Egyptian 
 expedition, 202 «. i ; gold lavished on 
 revolutionising Italy, 204 ; influence of 
 her compulsory engagement vrith 
 Naples on events of June 17, 1798 [see 
 ' Treaties,' Franco-Neapolitan], 205 ; 
 boasts disappointed by Nile battle, 
 223, 228 ; threatens to burn fleet, ib. ; 
 gains ground in Italy, designs on 
 Naples, 231 ; and Ireland, 232; Nelson's 
 aims of intercepting Egyptian com- 
 munications of, 234 ; in Malta, 238 ; 
 Naples declares war against, 239 ; 
 declares war also, ib. \ successes in 
 Rome, 239 ; prepares Neapolitan in- 
 vasion, 244, 2411, 247 ; occupies Rome, 
 ib.; (1799, Jan.), approaching invasion 
 to ' Parthenopean Republic,' 260-6 r ; 
 reflections on French manufacture of, 
 261-65 I Pignatelli's armistice, 273; 
 Directory's exactions at Naples, 270 
 and seq. , 306, 309 ; garrison reduced, 
 271 ; Calabrian campaign, and conduct 
 in, 271 and seq.; Leghorn surrenders 
 to, ib. ; Capuan successes, 274 ; fleet, 
 ib. , 276 ; fleet quits Brest, 279-80 ; 
 Neapolitan-Jacobins anxiously await 
 it, 292, 294 ; (1800I, troops in Egypt, 
 321; (1801), 37S; (1803), and Naples 
 again, 410 ; (1805), prepares to invade 
 England, 417, 423 n. i ; and to cope 
 with Nelson, 419 ; Trafalgar, 242 ; 
 
INDEX 
 
 533 
 
 (iSrs), effects of Bourbon reaction, 471, 
 
 473. 
 Francis, 'Prince' [Neapolitan Pretender], 
 
 (1799). 270. 
 Francis 11. [Emperor of Austria and 
 
 Germany], 115 n. i ; marriage to 
 
 Princess Maria, 138 n. 1 ; (1798), 199 ; 
 
 Ms cold hesitation and caution, 232; 
 
 (Dec), 243. 
 Francis, ' Old Dame ' [Lady Hamilton's 
 
 faithful servant], (1808), 448 ; (1814-15), 
 
 465, 471. 
 Fuss, Miss, 382, 
 
 Gaetano [servant], 411. 
 
 Gainsborough, T. [artist], 20, 47. 
 
 Galanti [scientist], 120. 
 
 Galliani [scientist], 121. 
 
 Gallini [impresario], 136. 
 
 Gallo, Marquis of [Neapolitan Foreign 
 Minister], (1779), 122; (1791), 139; 
 pro-Spanish, 140; and (1795-6), 189; 
 (1798), and Queen, 199; on Nelson's 
 arrival, 203; (June 17), in irregular 
 council, hesitates, 205; (June 22), in 
 regular council, 205 ». 3, 207 n. 5 ; his 
 replies to Nelson's requisitions for- 
 warded, 207 ; Emma on, 214 ; Nelson's 
 disgust at, 231; his policy, 231-32; 
 (1798, Nov.), despatched to Vienna in 
 vain, 243 ; (Dec), 248 ; (1799), intrigues 
 V, Queen, 276. 
 
 Galluci [musician], gg. 
 
 Garat, -Citizen' [French Minister at 
 Naples], 152 n. i ; (June 17-22, 1798), 
 20s, 206 ; his demands refused, 214 ; 
 Emma on, 214 ; (1798), furious at Nile 
 battle, 223-228; Nelson on, 233; dis- 
 missed, 223, 239. 
 
 Gardener, G., Rev., 40 «. 2. 
 
 Garrick, IDavid [actor], 104. 
 
 Gaynor ['Friend'], (1804), 411. 
 
 Geddes, Alexander [scholar], 57. 
 
 George in., 33, 48; (1786), loi «. 3; 
 (1791), 129, 132 ; Hamilton's statement 
 about, 130; confirms him in ambassador- 
 ship, 136, 169 ; his prejudices v. Lady 
 Hamilton, 171 ». 4; (1794), renews 
 war, 177 ; (1799), and Troubridge, 322, 
 328; (1801), 356, 364, 36c, 371, and 
 Emma's claims, 447 n. 2 ; (1S13), 4.58. 
 
 Prince of Wales, and Prince 
 
 Regent, 26, 45, 48, IS3 «• S. 278; 
 (1791), 356; (1801), repulsed by Lady 
 Hamilton, the Prince of Wales episode, 
 356-366, 357 a. I ; (1805), 423 n. 2 ; 
 and Nelson, 423 ; (1808), 448 ; (1813),, 
 458. 
 
 Gibbs [manager of Bronte], 313, 402 k. 3 ; 
 App. 521. 
 
 Gibson, Mrs. [alias 'Jenkins'], 352 and 
 a. 4 ; (1801), 370 n. 2, 417, 455. 
 
 Girdlestone, Mrs. (1810), 455, and App. 
 Sii. 
 
 Gloucester, Duke of (1787), and Lady 
 
 Hamilton, loi. 
 Godolphin, analogy of, 122. 
 
 Goethe, Wolfgang, 15, and Sir William 
 Hamilton, 68, 107 ; (1786), description 
 by, of Naples, 96 ; and Lady Hamilton, 
 ioi ; account of her attitudes, 10^ ; 
 (1787)1 of his dinner at the Embassy, 
 106, 335 
 
 Goldsmid, Abraham, 332, 380 and n. 1, 
 383, 422 H; 3, App. 511 ; (180O, letter 
 to Lady Hamilton, 430 ; (1808), on her 
 'committee.'buysMerton, 449 and n. 3; 
 Emma's mention of, 450 ; (1810), 
 suicide, 454. 
 
 Grafer [steward], (1793), 156; (1799), 156 
 n. I ; 281 M..I, 313; (1803), 402 n. 2. 
 
 Mrs., S3 «. I, 156 n. i; (1808), 
 
 Emma intercedes for, 443 ; App. 510. 
 
 Graham, Colonel, App. 523. 
 
 Dr. James [empiric and showman], 
 
 47-49, 52 ; App. 476. 
 
 Graves, Mr., 379. 
 
 Gravina, Duke of (1798), 257. 
 
 Duchess of (1798), 250. 
 
 Admiral (1805), App. 525. 
 
 Greece (i79g), gift of, to Nelson, 314. 
 
 Grenville, Lord [statesman], (1759-1834), 
 his coldness, caution, and lack of 
 initiative, 142, 416 ; Acton's opinion of, 
 agrees with Canning's, ib.; ' chicaned,' 
 ib, n. 3 ; (1798), speech, ii. ; (1795-96), 
 receives the Queen's secret information 
 through the Hamiltons, 186 and seq.\ 
 advises Naples to give up the game, 
 189 ; grows fainter and cooler, it. ; Sir 
 William Hamilton's despatch to, 191, 
 193 and n. 2, 194 ». i, 195 ; (1797), still 
 dallies over a Mediterranean squadron, 
 196; (1798), his conduct in at length 
 consenting to it, igg n. 2 ; his stress 
 on necessity of obtaining free and un- 
 limited admission of British vessels 
 into Mediterranean harbours, 203 ; 
 (June), Hamilton despatches and draft 
 despatches to, and Emma's claims, 
 205, 206-7 ^°'l "• 2; (July 22), 
 Nelson's letters forwarded to, by 
 Hamilton, 220 and n. 4 ; (1798), orders 
 to Nelson, 273 ; (1799), 294 n. 2, 300 
 'i- 3i 307 «. 3 ; (1800), 322 n. I, 327 ; 
 Nelson sends him Czar's letter about 
 his services and Emma's, 3J0 n, 3 ; 
 (1805), 448 ; (1806, April 30), interview 
 with Earl Nelson, 433 «. i ; and 
 Nelson's codicil, 435, 436, 444 ; (1810), 
 admits fairness of Emma's claims, 
 
 447. 
 Greville, the Hon. C. F. (1749-180^) 
 [' Pliny the Younger'], on Lady Hamil- 
 ton, 6, II, 13, 15, 19, 23, 24, 41, 44, 46, 
 47,51, 52, 224; characterandantecedents 
 of, 33 ». 1, 35-39, 23s ; (1781), character- 
 istics, 4, 37-39, 50; (1782), 33 ; Emma's 
 letter to, 34; his answer, 52-53; his views 
 of womankind, 54, 56 ; establishment 
 in Edgware Row, 57 and seg. ; his 
 accounts of Emma's simplicity, 60, 61 ; 
 in Romney's studio, 62 ; reference to, 
 by Hayley, 63 ; his description of iirst 
 
534 
 
 EMMA. LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Greville, the Hon. C. Y.— continued. 
 Lady Hamilton, 66 ; condolences with 
 uncle on first Lady Hamilton's death, 
 68; (1783), 69; (1784), 70 and seq.; 
 his income, 71 n. 1 ; and Emma's 
 Park Gate visit, 72 and seq. ; and ' little 
 Emma' ('Carew,' Emma), 74 and seq., 
 77; sends porter to Naples, 393; his 
 uncle's kindness to, 77, 82 ; (1785), 79 
 and seq. ; his conduct and motives in 
 Emma's disposal, 80, 86 and seq., 90, 95 
 seq., 96 ; (1786), effects of his conduct, 
 89 and seg. ; his orders to Emma, 92 ; 
 his cynical comment to Hamilton, 
 94, 98 ; Lady Hamilton's letter to, 103, 
 107 ; his intentions as to settlement, 
 9S j (1787), letters to, from Hamilton, 
 100, 104, III n. I ; (1789-1791), his 
 fears for and information of his uncle's 
 imminent marriage, 128-133; ^^^ feel- 
 ings, 13s ; (1792), on Grenville's policy, 
 142 n. 5; Sir William's illness, 151, 
 IS3 »• S ; (1794). 178, 181 ; (179s), 182 ; 
 (1796), 193; (1798), 246; (1799). 26°. 
 270 n. 2, 275 n. 4 ; tribute of, to 
 Emma's heroism, 283, 286 n. i, 300 
 n. I, 308; (1800), 320, 334, 335 and 
 "• 3i 337; (1801), 342, 344; influences 
 Sir William in Prince of Wales 
 episode, 357, 362 ; his conduct known 
 to Nelson, 362 and n. i, 368 ; Milford, 
 377; and Merton, 383, 385, 389; his 
 warnings and his contrivance, it. ; 
 (1802), the peerage scheme, 389-390; 
 the Hamilton-Nelson tour to Milford 
 and Cardiff, 393-397 ; (1803), his letter 
 concerning Emma's services and 
 Hamilton's unrequited claims, 170 ; the 
 will, 400; his influence, 399-400; his 
 strong application in Emma's favour 
 to Government, 400, App. 524 ; 
 for Hamilton, 401 n. 2 ; (May), be- 
 haviour to Emma, 403, 434; coUeeto- 
 mania again, 405 ; (1808), thaws to- 
 wards Emma, 442, 449-50; (1809), 
 death, 452 ; (1812), sale of his collec- 
 tions, ib.; App. 510, 518, 524. 
 
 Colonel the Honourable R. Fulke, 
 
 61 (1810) ; 455 (1814) ; 466 (1815) ; 
 lawsuit, 469-472. 
 
 Guidobaldi (1794), 174. 
 Gustavus of Sweden, 144. 
 
 Hackert [painter], 20 ; (1786), 105 «. i. 
 
 Hackwood [milliner], 59. 
 
 Halifax, Earl of, his alleged association 
 
 with Lady Hamilton's family, 41. 
 Halfhide, Mr. and Mrs., 380, 382. 
 Hallowell, Captain (1799), 271, 286; 
 
 (1805), 424. 
 Hamilton, Cecilia, 38 n. 2, 67. 
 
 Duke of, 66 n. 2, 389. 
 
 Elizabeth (Countess of Warwick), 
 
 35- 
 
 Gavin [artist], 16, 21, 22 ». i; (1792), 
 
 148. 
 
 Lady [Sir William's first wife], 35, 
 
 66 and seq., 67 ; funeral of, 68 ; 
 Hamilton's promise, 67 ; which was 
 
 kep'> 399- 
 Hamilton, Emma, Lady (1765-1815), date 
 of birth and her real name, 39-51 ; App. 
 476 ; a power, prompts as well as acts, 
 medium for genius, 2 and seq. , 399 ; 
 enthusiasm infectious (see at end 
 ■Qualities'); a true daughter of de- 
 mocracy, 22, 393 ; ' nonpareil,' 10 and 
 «. 5 ; spontaneous, 4 ; naturally 
 theatrical, 11 ; inspiration, feminine, 
 10 ; and Hayley, 11 ; unachieved self- 
 discipline, II, 213; self-education, 12- 
 13, 15 ; knowledge of languages, 12 n. 
 8, 467-S, App, 481, 483 ; physical 
 organisation, 14 ; effervescence and dis- 
 interestedness, ch. i. passim ; defects 
 (see 'Qualities'); domesticity and 
 simplicity (see ' Qualities ') ; resent- 
 ment at being thwarted, 14 ; could awe 
 beholders, ib. ; love of surpirses, 14-17 
 (and see 'Qualities'); artistic accom- 
 plishments, 13 and seq. (and see 
 ■Qualities'); an excellent nurse, 15- 
 25 ; devotion to kindred, 14 and seq. 
 (see 'Qualities'); beloved by English 
 women of distinction, 15 ; big-hearted- 
 ness, 15 ; kindness and love of children, 
 24 ; gaiety and mimicry, ib. ; accent, 
 17 ; spelling, 8 n. 3, 102, 131 n. i ; 
 and Romney {,q.v.'\, 16-21; faculty for 
 rendering emotion, 17 and seq. ; pic- 
 tures of, 17-21, 60, 61, 62, 63, 77, 79 ». 
 I, 92 n. I ; her verses, 277, 372 ; 
 Bohemianism, 22, 181, 386, 413, 451 ; 
 protean changes of face, 21 ; her Atti- 
 tudes, IS, 47, 99, 105 and notes 4 and 5 ; 
 a muse, 21-23 i theatrical associations, 
 45 ; appearance, 22 ; like Trilby, 23 ; 
 tirades, 8 n. 3, 347, 349, 393, 396 ; clues 
 to her and Nelson's attachment, 2, 
 26-7, i6i-2, 225-6, 234-5, 275-6, 286, 
 299. 3". 318, 323. 3SI. 352, 363. 
 psychological problems, 31, 32; sum- 
 mary of career, 472-5 ; birth and 
 environment, 39-51. 
 
 (1782) Appeal to Greville, 34 ; his 
 answer, 52; education, 41, 64, 441, 
 443 n. 2 ; Edgware, 57 and seq. 
 
 (1783) 69. 
 
 (17S4) Accounts, 58 ; affection for 
 Greville (?.».), 59 ; Park Gate and 
 Emma 'Carew' (?.».), 4, 59, 60, 72 
 and seq. ; return to London, 76 ; 
 Ranelagh incident, 60 ; progress, 60 
 and seq. ; acquaintances, 61 ; Romney, 
 61 ; his brother's account of her con- 
 duct, 62; Hayley (?.w.), 62-64; first 
 sight of Sir W. Hamilton, 71 and seq. 
 
 (1785) 79 and jey. ; terms of his in- 
 vitation to Naples, 84.86; her reply, 
 87 ; her situation and her feelings at 
 parting, 86 and seq. 
 
 (1786-S9) Arrivalat Naples — pleading 
 letters to Greville, 88 and seq., 90: 
 final appeal, 91 ; indignant reply to 
 
INDEX 
 
 S3S 
 
 Hamilton, Emma, hady—contiftued. 
 Greville's order, 92 ; repeated trust in 
 him, 93; her enlarging horizon, 94; 
 Greville's intentions, 95, 96 ; outlook, 
 98; as 'Madonna,' 5, 108, 109; in- 
 vites Romney and Hayley, 8, 94 ; feel- 
 ings towards Hamilton as rescuer and 
 friend, 99 and leg;., 105 «. 2 ; progress 
 at Palazzo Sessa, loi and seg. ; sudden 
 conquest of society, 102 ; scenes and 
 sensations of her triumph, 90, 102-9 I 
 Santa Romita, 99, 109 ; and the nun, 
 iio-ii ; and the King (see ' Ferdinand 
 IV.'), 103, III and K. 3, 1 12-14 ; and 
 San Leucio colony, 122. 
 
 (1789) 127; the Duchess of Argyll's 
 friendship for her and its influence, 
 ii. ; and Madame Le Brun, 127 ; social 
 standing, 128, 137; the great recep- 
 tion, ii. 
 
 (1790) Lord Bristol, 130; GreviUe, 
 128-30 ; tentatives for marriage, 129, 
 130 : her allowance, 129, 193 ; the 
 marriage project, 131 and seg. ; desola- 
 tion at the Duchess's death, 130 ; 
 journey homewards, 131 ; London at 
 last, 133 and seg, ; Romney, ib. ; 
 Gallini's offers, 134 ; Jane Powell, 135 ; 
 wedding, 136 ; visit to Marie Antoi- 
 nette, 136 ; evidence as to, considered, 
 145-6; returns to Naples in complete 
 favour with society, English and Nea- 
 politan, 137; begins political study, 
 138, 150 ; political situation, 138-46. 
 
 (1791-1796) England's advocate, 140 
 and seg. ; spurs on Acton and Hamil- 
 ton, 142, 224. 
 
 (1791, Dec.) Letter to Romney, 146, 
 147; attention of English ladies to, 
 148 ; Sir William's correspondence 
 v^ith, 148-50 ; her grief and assiduity 
 on Sir William's illness, 150-1 ; to 
 GreviUe of her grandmother, 151. 
 
 (1792) Her general acceptability now 
 fortified by Queen's regard, 146 ; ' im- 
 provement,' ib. 
 
 (1793-94) Diplomatic beginnings and 
 intimacy with Queen, 152 and seq. ; 
 App. 481 ; on Jacobin libellers, 153 n. 5, 
 ascendency, 154, i68 ; music with King, 
 15s ; with Sir William, and botany, 156 ; 
 catches the Queen's tone, ib. ; first meet- 
 ing with Nelson, 163 and seq. ; her first 
 impressions of, 164 ; her power of 
 inspiring him analysed, 2, 9, 10, 22; 
 161 and seq., 163-4; a human docu- 
 ment, 162 ; joins in Nelson's enthusi- 
 asm, 166 ; rouses the Queen, 166 ; her 
 r61e as ' stateswoman ' begins, 169 ; her 
 claims for serving England in 1793 con- 
 sidered, 169-73 ; ber correspondence 
 with the Queen, 176 and seq. 
 
 (1795) Husband's renewed illness, 
 177 and «. 5 ; friendship with Lord 
 Bristol, 178 ; and Countess of Lich- 
 tenau, 135-6; her claims for services 
 in 1795 and 1796 fully discussed, 182- 
 
 96, App. 483 ; her transcripts of docu- 
 ments and ciphers, 183 ». 6, 184 and 
 n. 1, 190 ; her main claim non-relative 
 to a cipher, 185 ; probabiUty of her 
 being twice instrumental in forwarding 
 a critical document, 186 ; her con- 
 fusion explained, 187 ; joins Acton and 
 her husband in detecting the facts of 
 Spanish connivance with France, so as 
 to urge on the vacillating Lord Gren- 
 ville to decision, 189 ; her close con- 
 fabulation with Queen, 190; her report 
 to GreviUe, ib. ; the ' Chiffre de Gala- 
 tone,' 190-1, App. 483 ; her initiative, 
 
 190 «. 5 ; pricks her husband to action, 
 
 191 ; a trusted gp-between, ib. ; her 
 husband's statement of the Queen's 
 confidence in her, 191 ; opportunities 
 and motives, ib. 
 
 (1796, late summer and early 
 autumn) Spain, who in previous years 
 had wriggled out of coalition, now pro- 
 poses to join France ; Emma gets wind 
 of the terms through the Queen, 191 
 and seq. ; presumptions favouring 
 Emma's own account of the transac- 
 tion, 193, 194; some presumptions 
 against, rebutted, 195 ; her letter from 
 the Queen and to GreviUe, about special 
 courier, 193 ; (1797], reheartens Queen 
 and braces Hamilton, 196; through 
 her Nelson's views as to Mediterranean 
 squadron prevail, 197 ; the Queen rests 
 all on her influence, 199 ; together they 
 await Mediterranean squadron, 200. 
 
 (1798) Together chafe v. Franco- 
 Neapolitan pact enforcing neutrality, 
 204; Nelson's arrival in the bay, his 
 message and messengers, 204 ; Emma's 
 service in procuring the Queen's order 
 to water and provision British fleet cor- 
 roborated by some new and important 
 evidence, 205 and seq. , App. 486 ; her 
 early awakening — difference in EngUsh 
 and Neapolitan time, 204 n. 3 ; her 
 action with Queen for Nelson, 208 and 
 sef. ; her two letters to Nelson, 209, 210 ; 
 his hitherto disputed reply, 211 ; her 
 indorsement, ib. ; evidence that she met 
 him, 209 n. 2 ; resumes correspon- 
 dence with Nelson immediately — her 
 remarkable letter, 214 ; initiative, 214 ; 
 for war, ib, (July 19-23) had promised 
 Nelson to ' come down Mediterranean' 
 to Sicily if Queen's private and secret 
 letter ineffective, 216 and n. i, 220 ; 
 episode of Governor of Syracuse and 
 Nelson, 216-23 \ Nelson's letter of first 
 disappointment at private order's tem- 
 porary failure, 220 ; his two letters of 
 rapture at success, 221-22 ; evidence 
 that change of tone was due to inter- 
 vention of ' Queen's letter, ' see Nelson ; 
 her transports at Nile victory, as re- 
 lated by her to Nelson, 6-8, 223 and 
 seg., App. 489-501 ; the first to hear 
 of it, 223 », I ; her feelings, 224 and 
 
536 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Hamilton, Emma, Lady — continued, 
 seq. ; her own account of them con- 
 firmed, 224 n. 3 ; problems of heart 
 and temperament, 225, 226, 232, 240 ; 
 correspondence with Nelson, 6, 29, 223, 
 226-8, 235-40, App. nSgsxiAseq. ; writes 
 to Lady Nelson, 227, 229 «. i, 231 ; 
 unwell, 227; her meeting with Nelson, 
 228; nurses Nelson, 229; her general 
 exertions, 230; her reception in Nelson's 
 honour, 230, 231; (Sept-Oct.), under 
 political outlook in close confabulation 
 with Nelson, 232 ; affinities to, ib. ; 
 Nelson's manifesto, 233; Foreign 
 Minister during Nelson's absence, 234, 
 23s and seq. ; Nelson's letter before 
 voyage to Malta, 234 ; inspires Queen 
 with Nelson's spirit, 235; her strong 
 political initiative as shown by her 
 letter to Nelson, 235 and seq. ; Tria 
 juncta in uno, 238, 366 ; at Caserta with 
 Queen, 240; awaits Nelson's return 
 from Leghorn in (Nov.) crisis, ih.\ her 
 indefatigable alertness in preparing the 
 Queen's flight, 242-55 ; constancy to 
 Queen, 242 ; her accounts of her 
 various exertions confirmed, 245 and 
 seq. , 252 ; stows the royal effects, 245 ; 
 foils the Jacobin spies,'247 ; resourceful- 
 ness, 248; Queen leans on her, 246, 248, 
 250 ; the secret passage a fact, 250 and 
 n. 3 ; romantic incidents of the escape 
 resuscitated, 251 and seq. ; Emma's own 
 accounts tested, 252-3, 255 ; the pro- 
 bable episode, 254, 255 ; she, her 
 husband, and mother to be embarked 
 separately by Nelson, 248; her hero- 
 ism during the storm on the voyage, 
 255, 256 and seq. ; Maopherson's, Lady 
 Betty Foster's, and Lord St. Vincent's 
 tributes to, 255 and notes T. and 2; 
 acknowledgment also by English 
 royalties, 283 ; the voyage, 255 and seq. ; 
 Emma's exertions — Nelson's account 
 of hers, 257 ; comforts the Queen, 
 ib. ; discharges Embassy duties, 259. 
 
 (1799) Does not detain Nelson from 
 duty, 272 and seq. , 285 ; sympathetic 
 and energetic aid of Nelson, 275 
 and seq. ; Nelson's amanuensis, ii. 
 n. 6; 'Fate will carry me dov/n,' ib. 
 and 276 ; helps Nelson with Acton, 
 ib. ; her verses to Nelson, 277 ; religious 
 influences, 277 ; helps "Troubridge, 
 278-9 ; (May), letters to Nelson, 280-1 ; 
 (June), the Queen's requests, 282 ; her ex- 
 citement, 283 ; her own invitation, 284 ; 
 her mixed feelings, 285-6; glory for 
 her meant honour, ib. ; her mother, 
 285-6 ; starts with Nelson, Sir William, 
 and Miss Knight on Foudroyant for 
 Naples, 289 ; Nelson's growing ascend- 
 ency over, 289 ; her telling part in 
 events of June- August, 297-311 ; inter- 
 prets and translates, 297, 298; and 
 Ruffo, ib, ; a woman of action ; the 
 episode of Pali, 299-300; forms a 
 
 ■Queen's party,' ib. on Queen's 
 reformation, ib. ; thanked and con- 
 gratulated by Ruffo, 303 ; corresponds 
 with Queen, ib, ; compassionate, 304 
 and n. 3, 308 ; and Caracciolo, 307 ; 
 (July), on the situation, the King and 
 the Queen, 308 ; episode of Caracciolo's 
 reappearance, 311 ; zenith reached, 
 312 ; the Palermo pageant, 312-13 ; 
 Italian poem on, 313 n. 3; procures 
 Bronte for Nelson, cf. App. 513 (10) 
 (a); her 'trousseau,' 314; (Septem- 
 ber and December 1799, and spring 
 i8oi), exertions for Maltese loyalists, 
 315, 316 and n. 3 ; deputies lodge at 
 Embassy, ' Ambassaciress ' receives 
 Maltese Grand Cross from Czar through 
 Lord Whitworth, 316; present to 
 Nelson, 318 ; gambling, and Trou- 
 bridge's remonstrances, 318-20 ; 
 ' many enemies, ' unconsciousness of 
 unpopularity, reason for illusions, 319- 
 20 ; her letter to Greville, 320 ; diplo- 
 matic correspondence, 320 and ». 2 ; 
 good ofiices for others, defies King, 
 grief at prospect of parting from Queen, 
 321 and n. i ; shares Nelson's aims 
 and objects, 321, 322 ; invited to Malta, 
 322; (April 23), the journey to and 
 from, 322-26 ; reflections on the 
 present climax of Nelson's and Emma's 
 passion, 323-25 ; despondency en 
 voyage, 325 ; her poem, 326 ; (May 20), 
 Palermo again, ib. ; Queen's letter to, 
 of intense trust and affection, 328 ; 
 King George's birthday fSte, ib.\ tri- 
 butes to her from many before the 
 final farewell, 328, 329 ; absence creates 
 void, 326 ; the homeward journey, 329- 
 40 ; Leghorn, pacifies mob, 330 ; 
 Vienna, 332; Dresden, and Mrs. St. 
 George, 333 ; Hamburg, 335 ; Yar- 
 mouth and London, 336 ; had created 
 a world of her own, 330-31 ; anticipa- 
 tions, 334 ; facf to face with Lady 
 Nelson, 337; offers to call, ib. n. 2; 
 London, 337-8 ; Fonthill, 338 ; scene 
 with Lady Nelson, 338 ; the breach 
 discussed, 340 ; her relentlessness, and 
 letter to Mrs. W. Nelson, ib, ; Nelson's 
 avowal of his feelings, 340 n. 3. 
 
 (1801, March) In Piccadilly, 341 
 and seq, ; sells jewelsfor husband, 341 ; 
 her coming ordeal, 342-3, 346 ; Nelson 
 departs, 346 ; imminence of Horatia's 
 birth, ' Thomson ' correspondence, 
 347 and seq. ; Nelson's extreme and 
 prayerful agitation, 350-2 ; her inspira- 
 tion, 352 ; birth of Horatia, and attend- 
 ant circumstances, 352 and seq. ; Nel- 
 son's letters on, 353-5; the singular 
 Prince of Wales episode, 355-66 ; 
 'firm as a rock,' 357 and seq. ; Mrs. 
 W. Nelson comes up to protect her, her 
 correspondence with her, 363-7, 370 ; 
 and with Maria Carolina, ib. «. 5 ; on 
 'Tom Tif [Lady Nelson], 364; 
 
INDEX 
 
 537 
 
 Hamilton, Emma, Lady — continued. i 
 (March) Nelson's departure for the 
 North, 366 and seg. ; on it, 370, 371 ; had 
 confided psist to Nelson, 362 and ». i ; 
 concealed ' Emma Carew' (?.».), 367- 
 70 ; Nelson's declaration to, 368 ; visits 
 Horatia, 370 and «. i ; Yarmouth visit 
 falls to ground, 371 ; verses, 372 ; wait- 
 ing, care for sick, 373 ; enthusiasm 
 over Copenhagen, 375 ; on Nelson's 
 return they visit Staines, 376 ; with him 
 at Parker's death while Nelson in 
 Channel, 377 ; spurs Nelson afresh, 
 377 ; acquisition of Merton, 378-84 ; 
 'GuardianAngel,'378 ; share-and-share 
 alike, 380, 382 ; her activity in prepar- 
 ing Merton, 379-81 ; 'Economy,' 381 ; 
 and Nelson's father, 3B1 and «. 8 ; 
 her description of their life there, 382-3 ; 
 governess, 382; 'Paradise, '383; lavish- 
 ness, 385-S ; support of relatives, id. ; 
 a chaperone, 386 ; husband's murmurs, 
 3S8 ; Beckford's peerage scheme, 389- 
 90 i her party and its critic, 391-3 ; 
 (April), loss in death of Nelson's father, 
 390-91. 
 
 (1802) Her letter of enthusiasm to 
 Nelson, 8 ». 3, 347, 348 ; embonpoint, 
 391-2 ; deaths of Romney and Pajme, 
 394 ; Eton 4th of June, 451 n. i ; 
 the Milford and Cardiff tour, 394-7 ; 
 Nelson's enemies defied, her own 
 account of the journey, 396 ; conjugal 
 tiff and reconciliation, 396-97. 
 
 (1803, May) devotion in Sir William's 
 illness, her grief at his death sincere, 398; 
 her indorsement, ib. ; Madame Le Brun 
 and the Attitudes l^q.v. ), 399 ; Sir Wil- 
 liam's will, 399-400; the furniture 
 assignment, 399 ; her real pecuniary 
 condition, Greville's mention of her to 
 Government, 400 ; her application to 
 Addington, 401 ; a wedding (Bolton) 
 and a christening (Horatia), 402-3 ; 
 (May), Nelson's departure, 402-3 ; 
 Greville's conduct, 403 ; burden of 
 Merton ' improvements,' 405, 444 n. 3, 
 446, 449 ; her friendly correspondence 
 and intercourse with all Nelson's rela- 
 tions, 405-6, 413 and seq. ; the ' suitors,' 
 40s and n. i, 40S, 414; at Southend, 
 408; her occupations and preoccupa- 
 tions up to September, 408-9 ; on Nel- 
 son's lack of prize-money, 408 ; wishes 
 to rejoin Nelson, 409 ; royal letters, ib, ; 
 carelessness of fashion, 412 n. i ; birth 
 of Emma, 412 ; death, ib. n. 6 ; the 
 Boltons' and Matchams' correspond- 
 ence, 413 ; contradictions in her char- 
 acter as displayed in her answers, 413- 
 14 ; ' the Arms of Lyons,' 414 ; Rams- 
 gate with William Nelsons, 415 ; 
 applies to Government for Boltons, 
 416 ; (August), Canterbury, ib. ; Nelson 
 prescribes the story to be told of 
 Horatia now that she can live at Mer- 
 ton, 417-18. I 
 
 (1805) Suspense, visits, debt, second 
 visit to Southend, 421 ; (Sept. 17th) 
 hurries from Southend to Merton to 
 welcome Nelson, 422 ; Nelson's assur- 
 ance to Pitt respecting her services, 445; 
 new corroboration of her story that she 
 bade him ' go forth, ' 423, App. 509 ; her 
 last adieu, 424 ; her ' face an honest 
 image of her heart, 'App. 507 ; last heart 
 broken notes, encloses Horatia's letter, 
 425, 426 ; ' May God send you victory 
 and home,' 426; on Horatia to Nelson, 
 425, 426 and n. i ; Nelson her ' idol,' 
 426 ; his last words of her, 426-8 ; 
 the codicil, 427 ; his last letter, and her 
 indorsement, 427 n. 2 ; how she 
 received news of his death, 429 ; her 
 prostration and thoughts for others, 
 429, 430 ; her letters, 430 ; letters to 
 her of sympathy, 430-31 ; a creature of 
 the past, 430 ; at the grave, 432 ; true 
 financial state after Nelson's death, 
 the conduct of Earl Nelson towards 
 her examined in light of new evidence, 
 433-7 ; addresses Sir R. Barclay in 
 1805, 434 n. 2 ; had addressed Tyson, 
 ib. ; Nelson's sisters uphold her, 436 
 n. 2 ; her benefactions to Earl Nelson's 
 family, 437 n. 4 ; his conduct respect- 
 ing Nelson's coat, 437 ; her annuity 
 unpaid till 1808, 434 ; fresh embitter- 
 ments, 438 ; her statement to the Rev. 
 A. J. Scott regarding her traducers, 
 438, App. 409; her influence over 
 Nelson, ib. ; ' glory,' 439. 
 
 (1806-8) Affectionate intimacy with 
 Nelson's relations, befriended by dis- 
 tinguished ladies, 439-441, 440 n. 2 ; 
 136 Bond Street, 440 and n. i, 441 ; 
 ' beloved by all,' 440 ; her education of 
 Horatia, 441-2, 451, 467, 468 ; her 
 letter to Greville, 442, App. 510 ; her 
 persistent support of poor kinsfolk, 
 443-4 ; intercedes with Queen pf Naples 
 for Mrs Grafer, 443, 444 ; continues 
 her presents to Nelson's connections, 
 444 ; the Queen continues an affection- 
 ate correspondence (1808), 444 ; its 
 bearing on Emma's claims, ib, ; (April), 
 Merton up for sale, ib. , and notes 2 and 
 3 ; addresses Lord St. Vincent, 444-5 ; 
 and Abercom, ib. ; justice of her claims 
 admitted even by Grenville [q.v.), 447 ; 
 sends a pathetic memorial to Rose, 
 446 ; her piteous plight; 448 ; ' Old 
 Q. 's ' refusal, ib. ; retires to Richmond, 
 ib. ; her will, 443 ; debts, 448 n. 2, 
 449 ; visits Boltons and returns to 
 arrange affairs, the committee, ib. ; 
 settlement, and her gratitude for, 450 ; 
 Greville's reappearance on her scene, 
 and her letter to, ib., and App. 510; 
 her pecuniary rehabilitation, ib. 
 
 (1808-9) Richmond, royalty, and 
 Bohemia ; Horatia's education, Harrow 
 speeches, 450-1 ; ' Old Q.'s' unavailing 
 legacy, 452 ; Greville's death, ib. 
 
538 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Hamilton, Emma, Lady, continued. 
 
 (1810) Various abodes, 452; Mrs. 
 Cadogan's death desolates her, 453 ; 
 sympathy, her letter to Mrs. Girdle- 
 stone, ib,, and App. 511. 
 
 (1810-12) Lavish kindness and hospi- 
 tality despite debts again, 454 and 
 notes 2 and 3, 455 ; Brighton, ib. ; visits, 
 ib. ; revives petitions, 456. 
 
 ('8^3> JS'"') The crash comes, her 
 letters, 457-8; Temple Place, 457; 
 rescued once more, 45S ; her two royal 
 memorials, ib. ; Bond Street again, 
 458 ; admonishes Horatia, 459 ; parts 
 with relics, 460 ; (July), re-arrest, 461 ; 
 Smith bails her, 464; the publication 
 of her letters, 461 ; its disastrous 
 results, 461-2 ; evidence as to, con- 
 sidered, 462-4. 
 
 (1814) ist of August in Temple Place, 
 ib. ; her unselfish interest in another 
 ' dupe of villains,' 465 ; everything sur- 
 rendered for creditors, ib. ; full dis- 
 charge, ib. ■ flight 'with honour' to 
 Calais, 465, 466 ; at Dessein's, Quillac's, 
 and the farm ; new last letters, 467-69 ; 
 her last claims, 466, 467 n, 2, 468 ; the 
 second farm, 467 ; Lawyers' letters 
 and calumnies, 469 ; (December), 106 
 Rue Franpaise, ib. ; her straits, 470. 
 
 (181S, Jan.) Her buoyancy suc- 
 cumbs, the lawsuit v. her trustee, 469 ; 
 her death-illness and death-scene, ib. 
 and 471; her Romanism, 471, 472; 
 funeral, 472 ; mouldered monuments, 
 474 ; summary of her qualities and 
 career, 472-74 ; epilogue, 475. 
 
 Her few last surviving letters to 
 Nelson, 6-9, 209, 214, 226-27, 235-38, 
 347-48, App. 489-501. 
 
 Her Claims. — Grevilles testimony, 
 130 «. 1, 171; Canning's, 142; Nelson's, 
 162. Tkose of 1793 discussed, 169-173, 
 App. 481. Of 1795-1796, 182-196, 
 App. 483. That of June 1798, 205 to 
 end of chap, viii., App. 486. Of Dec. 
 1798, for full assistance in stowing 
 royal treasure, and in the secret passage 
 episode of the royal flight to Palermo, 
 24s and seq. Of getting provisions for 
 the Maltese state in 1799 and early in 
 1800, 315, 316 and n. 3. 
 
 Generally, 400-1, 403, 416, 424, 425, 
 431. 433-437. 438, 44S-8 ; real reasons 
 for refusal, 446-7, and notes 1 and 2 ; 
 (1811), 456, 458 ; (1814), 466-7. 
 Qualities — 
 
 Ambitions, singularity of, 6, 9, 13, 
 14, 137, 161, 165, 196, 224, 23s, 
 309, 439. 
 
 Artistic gifts, 15, 47, 5° »• i. 102. 
 103, 104, 105 n. 5, 177, 343. 393- 
 
 Capacity for friendship, 9, 13. 15> 99. 
 Ill, 238, 240, 242, 246, 445. 
 
 Courage, g, 10, 107, 235 and seq., 
 
 2.S3. 2SS. 299. 300. 330. 342-3, 
 352 and seq., 393, 402, 423, 470. 
 
 Devotion to mother and kinsfolk, 14, 
 
 285, 443. 453. 459- 
 
 Disinterestedness, 13, 31, 79, 80, 81, 
 85, 90, 92, 93-102, 225 and seq., 
 255. 341. 408. 414. 416, 429-30, 
 443-4, 446, 4S4-S. 458- 
 
 Energy, 8, 99, 142, 150, 151, 155, 
 162, 168, 199, 23s and seq., 244 
 and seq., 248 and seq., 253, 255, 
 27s, 276, 278-9, 286, 309, 373, 
 
 393. 414. 441. 469-70- 
 Enthusiasm, 2, 6, 11, 12, 107, 163, 
 
 166, 177, 181, 199, 223 and seq., 
 
 23s and seq., 275, 318, 377, 414. 
 Expressiveness, 3, 6, 29, 223, 226, 
 
 228, 235, 240. 
 Generosity, 11, 13, 23, 59, 80 and n. i, 
 
 85, III n. I, 151, 443-4, 454-5 and 
 
 n. 5. 458. 
 Genuineness, 89, 91 and n. i, 94, 
 
 161, 162, 172, 196, 211, 224 ». 3, 
 
 240, 349, 363, 385-7, 398. 
 Gratitude, 99, 147, 151, 412, 413, 
 
 450- 
 Homeliness, 8, 15, 24-25, loi, 128, 
 
 2SS. 373. 413. 425. 426. 
 Humanity, 25, 97 n. i, 162, 255, 
 257, 276, 304, 308, 309, 310, 373, 
 
 4SI- 
 Impulsiveness, 208, 223 and seq., 
 
 33S, 338 n. I. 
 Independence, 39, 79, 85, 92, 162. 
 Industry, 146, 169-173, 182-196, 184 
 
 ». I, 208 and seq., 248 and seq., 
 
 27s. 276. 
 'Nature,' 3, 4, 17, log, no, 151, 
 
 ISS, 162, 348, 385, 413. 
 Sense of humour, 99, 108. 
 'Sensibility,' 3, 17, 59, no, in, 162, 
 
 321 «. I, 323, 340, 385, 394, 413, 
 
 425, 426, 4i'9i 430. 
 Simplicity, 19, 20, 87, 128, 137, 15s, 
 
 413- 
 Sympathy, 27, 28, 153, 156, 176-7, 
 
 199, 214, chapters viii. and ix. 
 
 passim, 309, 328, 413 n. i. 
 Defects and Errors — 
 
 Generally, 11-14, 25, 59, loi, 109, 
 
 131 ». I, 161, 162, 318, 340, 373, 
 
 378, 381. 386. 392, 401, 405, 413, 
 
 414. 418, 421, 441. 4SS- 
 Admiration, love of, 50, 109, no, 
 
 in, 392, 414. 
 Aggressiveness, 104, 108, 109, 128, 
 
 334-4. 392-3. 414- 
 Excitement, love of, 14, 318-329, 332, 
 
 414. 
 Extravagance, 405, 413, 414, 421, 
 
 434. 443. 45S- 
 Lack of self-control, n, 14, 414. 
 Love of ' surprising people,' 14 and 
 
 seq. , 109, 192, 418. 
 Self-consciousness, 109, 161, 208, 
 
 309- 
 Temper, 5, ii, 13, 14, 59, 73, 95, 
 
 129, 147, 441, 460. 
 Hamilton, Mrs., 35 n. 2. 
 
INDEX 
 
 539 
 
 Hamilton, SirWilliam{i73o-i8o3)[' Pliny 
 the Elder'], ii, 12, 18 ». 4, 20 n. i, 21 n. 
 1, 23, 23, 25, 29, 32, 45, 46, 52, ss ; early 
 life and nrst marriage, 64 and seq. and 
 «. I ; early associations with Acton, 
 124 ; his part in the Tria juncta in 
 uno foreshadowed, 31 ; description of, 
 33, 65 and seq. ; his friendship with 
 (SeviUe, 35 ; (1774), 36 ; his archaeo- 
 logical and artistic talents, his pub- 
 lished works, ii. n. 2, 70, loi, 140 ; 
 his picture-collecting, 37; scientific 
 experiments, 48 «. i ; referred to in 
 Hayley's verses, 63; (1782), 68 and 
 seq. ; (1784), first acquaintance with 
 Emma, 70 and seq. ; returns to 
 Naples, 77; makes Greville his heir, 
 ib. ; (1785), 79 and seq. ; his invitation 
 to Emma, 84, 86 ; his intentions con- 
 trasted with Greville's, 85 ; (1786), 95 ; 
 his reception of Emma at Palazzo 
 Sessa, 88 and seq. ; intentions and 
 settlement, 95 ; his tenderness and 
 chivalry towards Emma, 99 and seq. , 
 129 and seq. ; (1787), 161 ; and me 
 'belle's' stratagem, 112; (17S9), his 
 growing devotion to Emma, the anti- 
 quarian excursion, 127 ; (1790-91), 128 
 and seq. ; and Greville astosetdement, 
 I2g ; tentatives for marriage, 129, 130 ; 
 privy councillor, 129 ; his perpetual 
 neglect by ministers, 130 n. i ; the 
 marriage project, isiandjej. ; journey 
 home, 131 ; London and festivities, 
 133 and seq. ; answers Gallini, 134 ; 
 wedding, 136 ; return by way of Paris, 
 136 ; political situation and his present 
 attitude towards it, 138 and seq. ; the 
 two Sicilies, a shuttlecock, 141 ; his 
 troubles with English visitors, 66, 148 ; 
 correspondence between him, while 
 sporting with the king, and Emma, 
 148-150 ; illness (1792), 150 and seq. ; 
 (1793), music with Lady Hamilton, 
 155 ; and botany, ii. ; first meet- 
 ing with Nelson, 163 ; his friendship 
 with, and enthusiasm for, 163-165, 
 168; (1794), on Sicilian Jacobinism, 
 173 «. 5 ; Medici's treason, 174 and 
 »■ I ; (1795). ill again, 177 ; and 
 Countess Lichtenau {q.v.), 181; on 
 Emma and politics, 182; on Spanish 
 policy, 185 n. I ; in close correspond- 
 ence with Acton about, 186 and seq. ; 
 competes with Acton in forwarding 
 (1795-96) documents to British minis- 
 ters, 188 ; through the Queen and Emma 
 detects real facts of Franco-Spanish 
 conspiracy, and joins Acton in pressing 
 the lukewarm Grenville into co-opera- 
 tion with Naples, 189 and seq. ; urged 
 into activity by his wife, his own state- 
 ment of her position, 190-91 ; his com- 
 munication of naval secrets to Britain, 
 191 ; the King of Spain's secret letter 
 announcing terms of alliance with 
 France, ii. , 192 ; his custom as to 
 
 despatches, 193 n. 2 ; as to special 
 messengers, 194 ». i, 195 n. i ; 
 (1797), and Acton regarding England 
 and Mediterranean squadron, 197-99 ' 
 on Grenville, 199 ; (1798), correspond- 
 ence with Nelson ; (1798-99), his 
 arrival, 202; endeavours to surmount 
 obstacles of Franco-Neapolitan treaty 
 of 1796 enforcing neutrality and ex- 
 cluding anti-French ships from Medi- 
 terranean harbours, 203 ; correspond- 
 ence with Nelson, 204 ; his share in 
 critical events and councils of June 
 17-22 ascertained, 205 and seq. ; the 
 'order,' 206-8; recitals, official and 
 in draft, 206-7, 4^7 ; (June 17-22), in 
 councils, irregular and regular, 206, 
 207 n. 5 ; sends Nelson GaUo's replies, 
 207; on Nelson's weighing Acton 
 resumes correspondence, 214; Anglo- 
 Sicily V. France and Spain, ii. ; know- 
 ledge of instructions to Sicilian port- 
 governors to make ' show of resistance ' 
 pending conclusion of Austria's negotia- 
 tions, 216 and n. 4, and seq. ; impor- 
 tant distinctions between private, 
 official, and semi-official despatches, 
 216 ; (July 22), Nelson's letters to, of 
 disappointment at failure both of public 
 and private orders, his letters of 
 extreme joy, 219-22 ; evidence to show 
 that change of tone was due to inter- 
 vention of Queen's letter, see ' Nelson '; 
 all along in correspondeiice with 
 Nelson, and intending to run down and 
 see him at Syracuse should Queen's 
 letter not operate, or Acton's {q.v.) 
 'order in King's name,' 216 and «. 2 ; 
 (Sept.), unwell, 227; nursed by over- 
 tasked wife, 230 ; party to Nelson, 231 ; 
 Nelson writes to, on policy after 
 addressing Lady Hamilton, 233 and 
 n. I ; pushes affairs with Grenville, 
 234 ; and Emma, 235 ; her mention of, 
 to Nelson, 29, 238; co-operation in 
 preparations for 'royal' escape to 
 Sicily, 244 and seq. ; stronely attests 
 wife's services, 246 ; (Dec. 21), his com- 
 munications with Acton, Embassy only 
 centre of energy and resource, 248 ; the 
 flight, 248-255; his and wife's name 
 absent from court lists of embarkation, 
 248 ; on the vo3rage, 257, 258 ; inten- 
 tion to retire temporarily to England, 
 ii. 260 ; depredations of his property, 
 ii. 270; a 'philosopher,' mistrust of 
 R\iSo{q.v.), 271; (i799),attestsNelson's 
 adherence to duty in staying in Sicily, 
 27s and seq. ; Emma and Acton, 276 ; 
 Nflson, 280 ft. I ; acquaints him of 
 Ruffo's perfidy, 288 ; ill, but starts with 
 Nelson (June), 284, 289 ; his part in 
 events of June-August, 291-31 1 ; in 
 Nelson's interview with Ruifo, 298 ; 
 (June 26), 302, 303 ; (June 27), 304 ; 
 
 July), 309 1 (August), Palermo pageant, 
 312-13; ' Nestor," 314 ; worn and irrit- 
 
540 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Hamilton, Sir WAliam— continued. 
 able, his borrowings from Nelson, ii. and 
 «. 2 ; with Acton, ii. and //. 4 ; crippled 
 fortunes, 318 ; home slanders of, 319 ; 
 decides to retire home, but supposes 
 only for a time, 321 ; (1800, March), 
 Ball's tribute to and invitation of, 321 ; 
 definitely superseded, ii. ; forwards 
 Nelson's letter to Grenville, 322 n. i ; 
 (April 23), the journey to Malta and 
 back, 322-326; reflections on his part 
 in the present climax of passion between 
 Emma and Nelson, 324 ; (May), Queen 
 wishes him to remain ambassador, 327 ; 
 (June lo-Nov.), the homeward journey, 
 329-340 ; offers civility to Lady Nelson, 
 337 n. 2 ; Fonthill, 338 ; (1801), in 
 Piccadilly, 341 and sec/. ; exhausted, 
 343 ; Greville's renewed influence 
 over, 344 ; anxieties, 344 ; pension, ii. 
 and 401 n. 2 ; (February), to Nelson 
 on Emma's health, 352 n. 6, 356 n. 4 ; 
 on W. Nelson's eccentricity, 353 ; his 
 part in the strange Prince of Wales 
 episode, 356, 357, 358 ; belittles him, 
 369 ; wish for ministerial compensa- 
 tion, hopes of governorship of Malta, 
 356 ; Tria juncta in uno, 366 ; selling 
 wife's portraits, 26, 361, 363, 371; Yar- 
 mouth visit frustrated, 371 ; to Nelson 
 on Copenhagen, 375 ; prosiness and 
 Staines visit, 376-7 ; Milford with 
 Greville, 377; Merton, 37S-384 ; 
 objections, 379 ; on its charms to 
 Nelson, 380-81 ; ' share-and-share 
 alike,' 3S0, 382, 395 n. 2; content 
 with, 382, 383 ; present to church, 
 383 ; accounts, 387 and n. i ; Piccadilly 
 expenses, 38B ; Greville's warning 
 and his complaint, ib. ; Nelson's ' best 
 friend,' ii. ; (1802), peerage scheme, 
 389-90 ; condolence on Nelson's 
 father's death, 391 ; (1803), the Milford 
 and Cardiff tour, 393-397 ; last conju- 
 gal tiff and reconciliation, 396-97 ; 
 authentic account of death, 397-98 ; 
 burial, 399 and ». 4 ; his will, 399-400 ; 
 last expressions of devotion to Nelson, 
 400 ; and to Emma, 397 ; reflec- 
 tions on them both and, 400 ; old 
 dependants cared for after his death, 
 411, 430; App. S18. 
 Qualities — 
 
 Beliefs of, 68. 
 
 Courtesy and good-kumour of, 65, 66, 
 96 n. I, 99 ; Emma on, 124 ; to 
 visitors, 66, 148. 
 
 Economy and extravagance of, 23 
 »■ I. 37. 154. 276, 3S1, 387 n. 1, 
 388. 
 
 Indolence, 178. 
 
 Love of music, 102. 
 
 Perennial youth, 150. 
 
 Phrases of, 12, 15 n. 2, 21 «. i. 
 
 Rationalism, 3. 
 Handel [composer], 102. I 
 
 Hardy, Captain (June 17, 1798), 204, I 
 
 205 and «. 2, 208 ; (1801), 345, 353 ; 
 (1805), 427 and n. 2 ; (1806), 433, 43S ; 
 App. 498, 526. 
 
 Harfrere, Mrs. , 36. 
 
 Harrison, Mr. (1806-7), 44i' 
 
 Hart, Emily. See Emma,-i Conjectures 
 Lady Hamilton. I as to reasons 
 
 ' Little' Emma. See [for thename, 
 
 ' Carew,' Emma. 3 51 and n. i. 
 
 [musician], 15 ; (1786), 104. 
 
 Hartley, Colonel, 61. 
 
 Harvey, Mrs., traditions of, regarding 
 Lady Hamilton examined, 51, 
 
 Haslewood [Nelson's solicitor], 437 n. i, 
 460. 
 
 Hatton, Lady A., 149 and n. 2. 
 
 Haydn [composer], 333. 
 
 Hayley, William (1745-1820), character 
 and career, 63, 64 ; influence on Lady 
 Hamilton of his Triumphs of Temper, 
 II, 147 ; his friendship with, 8, 12, 17, 
 18 K. 4, 62, 63, 64 ; in Roraney's studio, 
 ib. ; (1786), invited to Naples, 94 ; 
 (1791), 133, 147 ; (iSoo), 334, 341 and 
 n. 2 ; (1801), 386 ; (1804), 99 ; (1805), 
 169 ; to Lady Hamilton, 430 ; (1806), 
 439 ; App. 508. 
 
 Heaviside [surgeon], 17 «. i ; (1808), 
 442. 
 
 Hervey, Lord Augustus (17281804), See 
 Bristol, Earl of. 
 
 Lord, 92, 153 n. 3. 
 
 Hippisley, Sir J. C. , 173 n. 5. 
 
 Hodges, Mrs. (i793). 1S3- 
 
 Hogarth, W. [artist], 57. 
 
 Mrs., 57. 
 
 Holland, Lord, 171 n. 4, 172. 
 
 Hompesch [Knight of Malta], (1798), 
 213, 231. 
 
 Hood, Lord [Admiral], (1793), 153, 156, 
 157. 170; (179S-96). 182. 
 
 Hope, Captain (June, 1798), 214 ; (Dec. ), 
 245, 252, 21^4. 
 
 Hoppner, J. [artist], 20. 
 
 Hoste, Captain, 7; (1798), sent by Nel- 
 son to Lady Hamilton with first news 
 of Nile victory, 223 «. i ; his account 
 of Neapolitan ecstasy, 223 ; and the 
 Queen, 224 ; Emma's kindness to, 
 227. 
 
 Hotham 1795-36), 182. 
 
 Humphries, Richard [Lady Hamilton's 
 kinsman], 443. 
 
 Hunter, Mrs., her statements regarding 
 Lady Hamilton's last days criticised, 
 469 n. 3, 474. 
 
 Hyde, Anne [see ' Solari, Marchesa Di ']. 
 
 Ingram, Jonathan, 41. 
 
 Jacobins and Jacobinism, 21 ; and St. 
 Januarius, 97 «. 3 ; (1791), 122; lam- 
 pooners, 119 ; meaning of, for Great 
 Britain, 141 and j^y. ; 'mobbing system' 
 of, and Nelson, 143 n. i ; his detesta- 
 tion of, 239 ; and Naples, ii. ; begins 
 to affect offended nobles, 144 ; (1793), 
 
INDEX 
 
 541 
 
 in Naples, 152, 154 ; libels by, 153 ». s, 
 156 ; (1794)1 172 and seq. ; in Sicily, 
 173; executions, 174; (1795-97). 182; 
 (1797.). 196 ; disturbances at Rome, ib. ; 
 fugitives to Naples, igS ; (1798), black- 
 mail Naples, ib. ; (June 17), effect of 
 Nelson's arrival on, 202 ; Emma on, 
 214 ; (June 30), already plot the death 
 of Kingand Queen, 215 ; insolence and 
 its disappointment, 233 ; Lord St. 
 Vincent on, 224, 227 ; (August, Sept., 
 and Oct.), 231, 232; (Nov.), fresh con- 
 spiracies at Naples, 239, 243 ; (Deo. ), 
 Nelson's allies against, 245 ; spies on 
 Emma and Nelson, 247 ; their Neapoli- 
 tan pillage, 258 ; (1799, J^"' )• 2^° < 
 Neapolitan, distinguished and analysed, 
 261-65 ; action of ' Patriots ' and ' Eletti, ' 
 265 and 5«;, ; ' Parthenopean Republic,' 
 260, 266 and seq. , 269, 273 ; part played 
 by St. Januarius in, 97 n. 3, 266, 267 ; 
 'Civic Guard,' 268, 270; Lazzaroni's 
 moderation towards, 268 ; poets and 
 pamphleteers, 269 ; paper systems, 270 
 and n. i ; (March), Nelson already 
 wishful to crush, 274 ; (June), Republic 
 which had touched provinces limited 
 once more to Naples, 272 ; hopes from 
 Frenchfleet, 276 ; Queen prays Nelson's 
 aid against, 282 ; Foote's commission 
 V. , 282 ; (June), Ruffo's armistice, 288 ; 
 conduct as to capitulation and armis- 
 tice and Nelson's attitude and policy 
 fully discussed, 291-311 ; (June 19), 
 refuse clemency, 293 ; (June 26), some 
 escape, fate of others, 303 and seq. ; 
 (June 27), 304, 305, 328. 
 
 Jerocades [' Patriot '], 291. 
 
 Jesuits, 98-115. 
 
 Jewitt ['Jematt'], Mrs. (1814), Lady 
 Hamilton's unselfish interest in, 464, 
 App. 512. 
 
 Johnson, Dr., 26. 
 
 Joseph II. of Austria, 115; (1791), death, 
 138. 
 
 Kauffmann, Angelica [artist], 20, go, 
 259. 
 
 Kaunitz [Austrian Premier], 115. 
 
 Keith, Lord (1799), replaces St. Vincent, 
 282; summons Nelson to Minorca, 
 287; appoints to chief Mediterranean 
 command, 317 n. 2 ; (1800, January), 
 it expires, 321. 
 
 Kelim Effendi (Dec. 22, 1798), 251. 
 
 Kellermann, General, 144. 
 
 Keppell, Admiral, 96. 
 
 Kidd, Francis, 41 n. 2. 
 
 Mrs. [Lady Hamilton's grand- 
 mother], of Hawarden, 51, 71, 72. 
 
 Mary [wife of William Kidd], 43. 
 
 see Mrs. 'Cadogan.' 
 
 Thomas [cousin of Lady Hamilton], 
 
 40. 
 William ['labourer'], 41, 43, 443, 
 
 4SS- 
 Klopstock [poet] (1800), 335. 
 
 Knight, Mr. R. Payne, 104 ». 3, 395. 
 Cornelia, Miss, 42, 100, 171, 227, 
 
 230, 231, 240 ; (1800, March), 322 ; 
 
 (April), her verses, 325 and n. 2 ; (Jime 
 
 lo-November), 329 and seq. ; (1801), 
 
 verses, 372. 
 Lady, 240. 
 
 Ladmore, Mrs., 43. 
 
 Lancaster, Mr. and Mrs. , 380. 
 
 Landor, W. S. [poet], quoted on Lady 
 
 Hamilton, 343 ; as to her, 429 ; App. 
 
 519- 
 Langford, Captain (1805), 422. 
 Lansdowne, Lord (1802), 396. 
 Lavater, i8a 
 
 Lavie, Mr. [solicitor], (1808), 449. 
 Lawrence, Sir T. [artist], 20, 316. 
 Lazzaroni, the, 9, 97, 122, 143 ; (1793), 
 
 IS3 ; (1794). 173 ; (1797). 197 ; (1798), 
 
 and Queen, 199 ; and Nelson, 202 ; 
 (Sept. and Oct.), 231; (Dec.), 241, 
 244, 248 ; (Dec. 21), 249 ; (1799), 260, 
 265 and seq. ; remain staunch, 267, 
 270 n. 2 ; their leaders, 268 ; conduct 
 to, when betrayed, moderation to ' Pat- 
 riots,' 268 ; betrayed by Roccomana 
 (q.v. ), 268 ; stand their ground, ib. ; 
 at first gulled by Championnet (q.v.), 
 269; dispersed, 270; (June), 291; the 
 Hamiltons their friends, 299, 308 ; and 
 Caracoiolo, 290 ». 2, 306. 
 
 Le Brun, Madame Vigfe, on Lady 
 Hamilton, 5 n. 5, 105 n. 5 ; (1789), 
 127 «. 4, 361, 371 K. 4 ; ( 1803), 393 ». 2 ; 
 App. 516. 
 
 Legge, Heneage, Honourable, 67 ; (1791), 
 on Lady Hamilton to Greville, 131, 
 132, 398. 
 
 Mrs. (1791), 131. 
 
 Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1779), 
 115, 124; (1791), accedes to Austrian 
 throne, family council at Vienna, 138 ; 
 (1792), 149. 
 
 Prince of Naples, 108, 115 ». i, 138 
 
 ». I, 249 ; (1798), 257, 327 ; at Merton, 
 386. 
 
 Lewold, Miss, 421. 
 
 Lichtenau, Countess of, 24 ; account of, 
 180-81. 
 
 Lind, Mrs., at Merton, 386; (1805), 
 condolence with Lady Hamilton, 
 
 431- 
 Lindley, Mr. [manager of Drury Lane], 
 
 45- 
 
 Liverpool, Lord, 458 ; (1814), 468. 
 
 Lock [consul], 260, 276 «. 2 ; (1799), 
 rnisfeasances, 315 n. 2. 
 
 IMrs., 276 «. 2; reward by Govern- 
 ment, 445. 
 
 Locker [artist], 385 n. i. 
 
 LoUi [violinist], 57. 
 
 Louis, Captain (1799), 281 ; (September), 
 314 ; (1801), 345, 356 ». 3 ; (1804), 413 ; 
 (1805), 430. 
 
 Philippe [afterwards French King], 
 
 115 «. I. 
 
542 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Louis XVI. (1789), 126; (1791), 138, 143 ; 
 (1792-93), 152. 
 
 XVII., 153. 
 
 Lovell, the Rev. — , 179. 
 
 Lucian, 224. 
 
 Luigia, Princess of Naples, marriage, 
 138. 
 
 Lunardi [balloonist], 60. 
 
 Luttrell, Lady Elizabeth (1786), loi. 
 
 Lutwidge, Mrs. , 382 n. 3. 
 
 Lynch, Sir William [Hamilton's prede- 
 cessor at Naples], 65. 
 
 Lyon, Charles [Lady Hamilton's brother], 
 40. 
 
 Emily [see Emma, Lady Hamilton], 
 
 Henry [' smith of Nesse,' Lady Ham- 
 ilton's father], 40 ; his marriage certifi- 
 cate, ib. ». 2 ; ' arms,' 414. 
 
 Mary [see Mrs. ' Cadogan ']. 
 
 Macartney, Charles [Greville's in- 
 timate],, 38. 
 
 Lord, 102 ; (1796), 140. 
 
 Macaulay, Mrs. Catherine [authoress], 48. 
 
 Mr. [contractor], 183 «. 3. 
 
 Macdonald, General, his part .in 
 Januarius' procession (Jan. 1799), 267 ; 
 on entry of French into Naples, 269 ; 
 replaces Championnet, 270; (April), 
 retires from Naples, 290. 
 
 Mack, General, 9; (1798), 232, 233, 
 234; (Nov.), 23s; short-lived suc- 
 cesses, 239; (Dec), in despair, ib. ; 
 Nelson on, 239 n. 4, 256 ; his com- 
 plete rout, 239, 24s ; (Dec. 23), on 
 Vanguard, 256 ; at Capua, 257. 
 
 Mackau, ' Citizen ' [ambassador] (1793), 
 
 152- 
 
 Mackinnon [contractor], 183. 
 Macmahon, Colonel, App. 512. 
 Macpherson, Sir John (1798), tribute of, 
 
 to Lady Hamilton's heroism, 255. 
 Mahoney, Countess of (1787), loi. 
 Maiden, Lady (1791), 147. 
 Malmesbury, Lady (1792 and 1796), 105 
 
 «• S ; (1791). 147. 320 »• I. 343- 
 
 Lord, on Nelson, 10 «. i. 
 
 Malta (1798), bribed by France, 202 n. i, 
 204 ; (June-August), 207 ». 5, 211 n. 2, 
 213-215, 230, 234 ; and Nelson, 238 
 and n. 4, 243 ; (i799). =72. 279, 314. 
 315. 316, 398; (1800), 321, 322-327, 
 330 ». 3; (1801), 356. 
 
 Mann, Sir Horace (1780), 124. 
 
 Mansfield, Lord(i8io), 455. 
 
 Maria Princess of Naples, marriage, 138 
 n. I ; (1798), 243, 250, 252, 256. 
 
 Queen of Portugal, 148. 
 
 'Carolina' [Charlotte], Queen of the 
 
 two Sicilies(i7S3-i8i4). 7. 9. ". ^S "o*^^ 
 I and 2, 23, 48 ». I, 90 ; (1786). 103, 112, 
 156 ; (jy7i), her right to sit in council, 
 119, 204 ; her character, 126, 127, 152; 
 her education and marriage, 114; her 
 freemasonry, 115, 139, 144; l>er early 
 enlightenment and reforms, 119-121 ; 
 her experiment in monarchical social- 
 
 ism, 121 ; her need for an able financier 
 and leader in 1779, 123 ; beginnings of 
 pro-English bias, 124 ; reasons for 
 Acton's ascendency with, 124; pro- 
 Austrian policy, 118, 125 ; effects on 
 her of French Revolution, 126, 138 and 
 seq. ; (1790), her first public recogni- 
 tions of Emma, 128 ; (1791), her policy 
 and its objects, 138 and seq. ; visits 
 Vienna and Rome, ib. ; her fury with 
 France, 139 ; ancestral ideas of duty ; 
 'de Bourbonisation,'ji. ; Acton's com- 
 mission, 140 ; England's aloofness, 
 i4i ; becomes bureaucratic, 143 ; finds 
 her ' enlightenment ' has favoured 
 Jacobinism, 144; methods of first re- 
 pression, and efforts for anti-Gallic 
 coalition, 144-5; 'camera oscura,' 
 145 ; Lady Hamilton's message to, 
 from her sister, 145, 146 ; gaieties in 
 disaster, 148 ; (1791), receives Lady 
 Hamilton with favour, 146; (1794), 
 Sir William's illness, 150 ; (1793), 
 prompted by revenge, 152 ; redoubles 
 defences against imported Jacobinism, 
 153; 'Junta,' ib.; organises second 
 coalition, ib. ; efforts to save her sister, 
 ib. ; her craving for Emma's sympathy, 
 153-4; Anglo-mania, 154, 155, 166, 
 168, 177, 181 ; welcomes Nelson, 162- 
 3, 165-7 i fresh conspiracies, 167 ; 
 through Emma made enthusiastic for 
 Nelson, 168 ; her close intimacy with 
 Emma, ib. ; (1794), resolves more than 
 ever to go ' thorough ' v. Jacobins, 172- 
 175, and cf, 144 ; her embarrassments 
 and her new tribunal — ' Cerberus,' 174 ; 
 a crusade preached v. Jacobins, 175 ; 
 parts with jewels to support war v. 
 France, 175; hails British victories, 
 ib. ; her correspondence with Lady 
 Hamilton, 176 and seq. ; home ex- 
 plosions arrested, but foreign defeats 
 and defections exasperate her, 183-4; 
 (1795-1796), her part in obtaining the 
 King of Spain's letter to her husband, 
 184-196 ; her close confabulations with 
 Emma, igo, 193, 199; (1796), anger at 
 Britain's intention to evacuate Mediter- 
 ranean and at her compelled compact 
 with France, 183 ; furious at Peace of 
 Brescia (see ' Treaties ') enforcing Nea- 
 politan neutrality, ib. ; wishes Lord 
 Grenville not to compromise her by 
 the information confided through 
 Emma to Sir William, 186 and seq, ; 
 her detestation of Spain, 189 and «. i ; 
 her close confabulation with and great 
 trust in Emma accounted for, 190, 191 ; 
 the crucial letter from the King of 
 Spain announcing secretly the terms of 
 an alliance with France to Ferdinand, 
 191, 192, 194 n. I j her letter to Emma 
 as to an exceptional courier, 193 ; 
 (1797). cheered by English successes, 
 but dejected by foreign failures, 196, 
 203 n. 4, 211 ; more Anglophil than 
 
INDEX 
 
 543 
 
 Maria Carolina — continued. 
 ever, 196; becomes conciliatory at 
 home, Vanni deposed, 197 ; joins in 
 pressing England for squadron, 197; 
 her feverish impatience for, 199 ; her 
 extreme reliance on Emma's influence, 
 199 ; her indissociability from, 200 ; 
 (1798), effects on, of Nelson's arrival, 
 S02 and n. 4 ; and after, 214 ; her 
 eager desire to break enforced neu- 
 trality, 204 ; (June 17), her secret action 
 at Emma's instance confirmed, 208 and 
 seq. ; nature of, 210 ; 'a royal letter, ' 
 217, 218 ; a letter of indemnity, 219 ; 
 will not allow her name to transpire, 
 210, 220; instructions to port gover- 
 nors, 210, 216 n. 4; her rage over 
 Malta, 213-215 ; Emma indispensable ; 
 renewed Anglo-mania, 213-214; dis- 
 like of Gallo {q.v. ), 214 ; Emma on her, 
 ib. ; (July 19), time for her ' open 
 sesame' delivered to Nelson, 215; at 
 first ineffective, 219 ; evidence to show 
 that Nelson's quick change from dis- 
 appointment to rapture on July 22 was 
 due to her letters of intervention, 216, 
 219 n, I, 220, 222; her transports at 
 battle of Nile related by Emma to 
 Nelson, 6, 8, 223 and seq., 226 ; App., 
 Part II. A. ; and from other sources, 
 223 ; her letter to Emma, 223 and n. i 
 to 226 ». 2 ; to Circello, it. ; unwell 
 on Nelson's arrival from Egypt, 228 ; 
 continues ill, 230; Nelson's manifesto 
 to Lady Hamilton v. procrastination 
 for her, mentions dignity of, 233 ; 
 catches his promptness from Emma, 
 235 ; her ' regency,' 235 and ». 4 ; 
 conversation with Emma, 238 ; cheered 
 by brief Neapolitan successes at Rome 
 (Nov. ), plunged in despair by defeats, 
 pities her husband, 239 ; fresh home 
 conspiracies, 239, 247 ; devotions, 240 ; 
 pride under reverses, 241 ; (Dec), rage 
 and despair, 243; first disinclination 
 to follow Nelson's advice and Emma's 
 lead, 243 ; letters to her daughter, 243, 
 250, 256 ; her doubts, 244 ; relies 
 wholly on Emma and Nelson, who 
 persuade and protect her, 246 and seq. ; 
 the original plan for her escape, 
 247, 249 ; altered, it. ; causes of her 
 hesitation, 248; scene within palace, 
 ib. ; episode of her flight, 250 and seq. ; 
 her account of the escape, 252; the 
 voyage, storm, and Emma's heroism, 
 25s and seq. ; arrival, bereavement, 
 and grief, 258 and seq. ; devotions, 257, 
 278 ; reflections on flight, 260 ; events 
 at Naples, ib. ; (1799), and Luisa 
 Sanfelice (?.».), 272; Leghorn sur- 
 renders ; Tuscany in revolt, 273, 276 ; 
 (June 11), begs Nelson to undertake 
 the suppression of Neapolitan Jacobins, 
 282; and Mrs. Cadogan (q.v.), 286; 
 (June 13), forbidden to accompany 
 • Nelson to Naples, 288 ; suspects Ruffo, 
 
 288 n, 2, 300 n. 3 ; her counsel to 
 Nelson, 297 ; ascribes mischief to 
 ' Eletti,' 299 ; Emma's action for, 299- 
 300 ; her humanity, 304 n. 3 ; (August), 
 her royal recognition of Emma's ser- 
 vices, 314 ; witlSiolds grain from Malta, 
 316; (autumn-New Year), gambles, 
 318 ; (1800, March), exasperated at 
 probable transference of Malta, 322, 
 327; (May), her plans for a journey 
 with Nelson and the Hamiltons, 327 ; 
 her letter, 327; wishes Hamilton not 
 to resign his post, ii. ; her intense ex- 
 pressions of trust in and friendship for 
 Emma, 328; (June 10), journey to 
 Leghorn, Trieste, etc., and Vienna with 
 Hamiltons, 329 ; presents, 329 ; part- 
 ing with Emma, 332 ; the portrait, 
 3SS ; (1801), resumes correspondence 
 with her, 363 and n. 5 ; writes to 
 Nelson, 375 ; and to Emma, 397 ; 
 (1804), 402 ; addresses British ministers 
 on Emma's behalf, 409; her dis- 
 tressing situation, 410 ; (1804), de- 
 spairs at Nelson's quitting Mediter- 
 ranean, 418 ; (1S06), writes to Emma, 
 438; (1S08), disregards Emma's peti- 
 tion for Mrs. Grafer, 443 and n. 3 ; 
 continues, however, affectionate corre- 
 spondence, 444 1 fears that discussion 
 of Emma's claims may compromise 
 her, ib. ; gratitude, ib. ; much beset, 
 ib.; (1810), again an exile, 454; (1814), 
 death, 471 ; App. 511 ; Letters of, 
 to Lady Hamilton, 13, 139, 148, 176- 
 177, 190, 199, 202 n. 4, 214, 223 n, 
 
 1, 226 n. 2, 229 n. 4, 244 ». I, 245- 
 247, 250, 284 n. 2, 288 n. 2, 292 
 n. I, 299 «. I, 300 ». 3, 304 n. 3, 320 
 
 «• I. 327. 332. 363 »• 5. 397. 402. 484. 
 485 n. 2 ; the Queen and Lady Ham- 
 ilton's Attitudes, (q.v.), 134. 
 Maria Theresa, 113-115, 114 ». 2, 
 
 243- 
 Marie Antoinette, 9, 126, 136; (1791), 
 
 138, 14s; (1792-1793), 152, 153 
 
 n. 5- 
 Marlborough, Duke of (1802), 393. 
 
 Duchess of, analogy to, 154. 
 
 Masham, Abigail, 154. 
 
 Masquerier, James [artist], 21. 
 
 Massa, General [' Patriot ' commander] 
 
 (1799, June), 298 ; misled, 302. 
 Matcham family, the (1802), at home at 
 
 Merton, 386 ; the Milford tour, 394 ; 
 
 (1804), 414 ; (1805), remain at Merton 
 
 to bid Nelson farewell, 424; (1806), 
 
 Emma's warm upholders, 436 notes i, 
 
 2, and 3 ; (1811-1812), invite her, 456 ; 
 (1813), 458 ; (1814), assist her, 461, 
 470 ; plans and invitations, 464. 
 
 Matcham, Mr. (1800), 334. 
 
 Mrs. [Nelson's pet sister] (1800), 
 
 334 ; (1803), 405 ; (iSro), 455. 
 
 George [their son], 333 «. 3, 386 ; 
 
 (1805), sees Nelson off, 424 ; (1813), 
 visits Emma at Temple Place, 461. 
 
544 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Mateham, Miss, letter to Lady Hamilton, 
 
 414; (1813), 457. 
 Maynard, Lady [Nancy Parsons], 24. 
 Medici, Luigi di, Cavaliere (1789), 123 ; 
 
 (1799). 'regente,' 145, 174; his early 
 
 treason, i6. n. 2 ; (1794), trial of, 174 ; 
 
 and Queen, 199. 
 Medicis, Catherine of, 119. 
 M^jean [French commandant of San 
 
 Elmo] (1799, June), 291-3x1 ; motives, 
 
 and apathy to ' Patriots, ' 294 ; hostages, 
 
 ih. ; threatens bombardment, 298 ; 
 
 selfishness, 30J ; bombards, 307. 
 Melville, Lord, and Emma's 'claims,' 
 
 205, 401; (1805), 448. 
 Commodore (1787), and Lady 
 
 Hamilton, 107. 
 Merlin [mechanic], 57. 
 Metastasip [poet], 121, 
 Meyricks, the (1803), 399. 
 Michelle, Count [French ambassador at 
 
 Naples], 152 n. i, 
 Micheroux, Chevalier (1797), 198 ; (1799, 
 
 June), ib. and n, 3, 292, 298, 301. 
 Middleton, Lord (1784), 70, 83. 
 Minasi, Padre [musician and antiquarian], 
 
 120. 
 Minto, first Earl of [see Elliot, Sir 
 
 Gilbert]. 
 Lady [and see Elliot, Lady], 320 
 
 K. I. 
 
 Mirabeau, 143. 
 
 Moira, Lord, and Emma's music, 104 
 
 n. 3. 
 Moliterno, Prince [general] (1795), 17s ; 
 
 (X799, Jan.), 266; and Lazzaroni(;.2'.), 
 
 268; App. 500. 
 Monaco, Prince of (1789), 128. 
 Moore, Mr. and Mrs. John [Lady 
 
 Hamilton's uncle and aunt], 42. 
 
 Ephraim and Catherine, 42 n. 5. 
 
 Morland, Henry [painter], 33. 
 Moutray, Mrs., 157. 
 Mulgrave, Lord, 163. 
 Munster, Count (1796), 193. 
 Mturay, Lady Augusta, 148 «. i. 
 
 Nancy [Lady Hamilton's servant], 421, 
 448, 460. 
 
 Naselli, General (1799), 267. 
 
 Nelson, Charlotte [afterwards Lady 
 Bridport], 25, 41 ; (1800), 334 ; (1801), 
 36s and n. s, 37i. 376-7. 382, 384 ; 
 (1803), 40s, 407; (1804), 413. 415; 
 (1806-7), constantly at Merton, 439. 
 
 Horatia [afterwards Mrs. Ward], 
 
 12 n. S, 13 n. 6, 14, 23, 25, 27, 162 ; 
 birth and christening, 352 and n. 3, 
 353-35S, 368. 370. 381, 383. 384. 38s 
 n. I, 403, 404, 407, 412 ; {1804), small- 
 pox, 417 ; fixed at Merton, ii. ; (x8os), 
 422, 424; to be styled 'Nelson,' 427 
 n. I ; (1806-8), 434, 438 «• I ; 'cousin,' 
 439, 441, 442, 444 ; proposal for pension 
 to, 447 «. 2; education, 441-2, 451, 
 467, 468 ; (1809), 452 ; (1810), 45S n. s ; 
 (1812-13), 456, 457 and seq; (1813), 
 
 458 ; maternal admonitions to, 459-60 ; 
 her cup, 460 ; (1814), flight with Lady 
 Hamilton to France, 465, 466 and n. 3, 
 467 n. 3, 469 n. 3, 470 n. 3 ; and Earl 
 Nelson, 472. 
 
 Nelson, the Rev. Edmund [Nelson's 
 father] (1798), 240 ; (1800), 334, 336; 
 (1801), visits Merton, 381; (1S02, April), 
 death, 390 ; Lady Hamilton mentions, 
 App. 515. 
 
 Horatio, 'The Younger,' (1800), 
 
 334. 383. 385 »• I ; (1802), 394 ; (180S), 
 designed by his uncle to marry Horatia, 
 418 ; buried in Nelson's vault, 432 
 n. 2, 
 
 Horatio, Viscount (1758-1805), 14, 
 
 20 «. I, 46, 137, 142; sobriety, 333 
 «. 3 ; on Lady Hamilton's kindliness, 
 24-27 ; his idealisation of her exempli- 
 fied in a new and remarkable instance, 
 25-26, 225; his treatment of Lady 
 Nelson treated in advance, 29; his 
 keen desire for fatherhood, 29 ; his 
 amativeness, 157 «., 226 ». i ; 'electric,* 
 10 and n. i ; exaggerativeness, 35S ; 
 dislike of crowds, 381 ; heart complaint 
 in his family, 415 ». i; his character and 
 antecedents considered, 157-162, 368; 
 Scott's tribute to, 160 «. 3 ; his idealisa- 
 tion of Emma, psychologised and 
 analysed, 2, 9, 10, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28 
 and n. 2, 29, 161 and seq. , 163-4, 225, 
 274-6, 285, 323-4, 348-52, 363, 390, 
 438-9. 473 ; (1793. Sept. 10), arrival at 
 Naples, 156 ; description of his recep- 
 tion by court, 162; by Hamiltons, 
 163 ; first impressions of Emma, 165 ; 
 awakes Naples, 166 ; his parting enter- 
 tainment, 167 ; his view of Jacobinism 
 chimes with Evirope's, 173; (1795), 
 166, 172; {1796), his anger at minis- 
 terial lukewarmness in prosecuting the 
 war, 183 ; (1797), 196 ; his view of Eng- 
 lish Government and Mediterranean 
 squadron, 196; his views prevail at 
 Naples, 197 ; (1798), Gfenville on, 199 
 ». 2 ; sails for Mediterranean, 200 ; 
 chases French fleet, 201 and seq, ; 
 approaches Naples, 202'; 'conservated,' 
 202 n. 4 ; his instructions, projects, and 
 prospects, 203 and seq. ; his letter to 
 Hamilton, 203; the obstacles to be 
 faced, it.; Hamilton's correspondence 
 with, 204; his need and wish for a 
 roving 'credential,' 204, 206; his mes- 
 sage to Hamiltons (June 17), his 
 further requisitions, 206 ; the order ' in 
 King's name,' 206 and seq. ; his two 
 letters from Emma, 209-210 ; his 
 hitherto disputed reply to one of them 
 proved, 211 ; on setting sail immedi- 
 ately resumes correspondence with 
 Hamiltons, 'laurels or cypress,' 213, 
 222; on Malta, ib.; "co-operation,' ib.; 
 in hot pursuit, 215; (July 19), at 
 Syracuse,;*.; episode and significance 
 of 'Governor of Syracuse letter,' and 
 
INDEX 
 
 S4S 
 
 Nelson, Horatio, Viscount — continued. 
 events of July ig-23 fully considered, 
 216-223 ; ' show of resistance, ' 217, 218 ; 
 his disappointment, and inefficacy both 
 of Acton's irregular order and Queen's 
 private and secret letter, 219 ; his desire 
 to hasten the watering, etc. , of fleet, 
 time all important, 219 and n. i ; 
 until late on July 22, did not expect to 
 be ready till 23rd, 219 n. i, 220; his 
 two letters of invitation to Hamilton 
 and Lady Hamilton, 219, 220 ; his two 
 rapturous letters following them, 220- 
 222 ; evidence that change of tone was 
 due to intervention of 'Queen's letter,' 
 216, 219 ». I, 220, 222 ; the Arethusa 
 letter considered, 221, 222 ; his letters 
 explain each other, 221 n. 4 ; sails re- 
 fitted and reheartened, 222 and seq.\ 
 habit of rehearsing his plans, 223 ; 
 battle of the Nile, and its effects, 223, 
 224 ; as related in Emma's correspon- 
 dence with him of this date, 6, 8, 
 223, 224; bis letters to her, 224 n. 
 3 J to his wife, ib. n, 4 ; his feel- 
 ings towards Emma, 225, 226, 232, 
 235, 2S3, 2S5; (Sept. 22), arrival in 
 Naples, 228-9 > ^i^ account of meet- 
 ing with Lady Hamilton, 228-9; his 
 bad state of health, 229 and n. 4 ; at 
 Castellamare, it. ; Lady Hamilton's 
 party for his birthday, 230, 231 ; 
 consults Lady Hamilton (Oct. 3), his 
 political manifesto addressed to her 
 for the Queen's attention, 231-233 and 
 ». I, App. 493 ; plans and movements, 
 234; parting letter to Emma before 
 sailing for Malta, 234; leaves 
 Emma as vicegerent, her letters to 
 him, 13s and uq. ; his important 
 declaration as to unauthorised Maltese 
 capitulations, 238 and ». 2; (Nov.), 
 returns, Naples dedares war, 238 ; 
 starts for Leghoi'n, which surrenders, 
 239 ; (Dec), returns, his avowal 
 of Emma's influence on him, 240 ; 
 his preparation with her for royal 
 escape, 144 and seq. ; omens, 244 ; his 
 view of Neapolitan situation, 244 ; 
 protects coasts, 24s ; his plans, 247 and 
 seq. ; his official accounts of Emma's 
 services, 246, 252, 255 ; (Dec. 21), 
 irritated at Acton's delays and stolidity, 
 248; merchants look to him and 
 Hamilton for protection, 248 ; brooks 
 no more delay, 249 ; account of the 
 escape, 252; the scene of, 253, 254; 
 voyage, tempest, and arrival at Palermo, 
 25s and seq. ; his tribute to Emma, 
 257 ; reception on arrival, ib. ; present 
 to Emma, 259; lodges with Hamiltons, 
 259; offers ship to take ailing Hamiltons 
 home, 260; disgust at Neapolitan 
 events, 265 ; opinion of Ruffo, 271 ». 3 ; 
 anxiety for Egypt and Malta, 272 and 
 «. 2, 273 i and Lady Nelson, ib.\ his 
 pre-occupations, 273 and seq. ; (March), 
 
 2 
 
 already declares willingness to suppress 
 Neapolitan Jacobins, 274 ; and France, 
 ib.; slights of, 273, 274; sends Trtu- 
 bridge to Procida, Tunis, 274; duty 
 detains him in Sicily, evidence that, ib, 
 and seq., 289; ill health, 275; Lady 
 Hamilton's sympathetic activity, 275- 
 6; his verses to Emma, 278; "Trou- 
 bridge's mission to Procida, 278-9 ; 
 (March), opinion of Caracciolo, 279 ; 
 (May), hears of French fleet, move- 
 ments and motives up to June 17, 279- 
 289 ; (May), and Hamiltons, 2S1 and 
 seq.; bequests, 281 ; (May 28), re-lands 
 at Palermo, Foote's commission, Fou- 
 droyant, 282 ; (June), invitation to 
 St. Vincent, 282 ; (June 11 and 12), 
 Queen's invitation to suppress Jacobins, 
 his feelings, 2S3-4 ; Emma s, 284 ; 
 his mixed feelings, 286; vexations 
 and affronts, 287 ; and Minorca, 287 
 n. 2; decides to start for Naples, 
 embarks (June 13) and disembarks 
 (June 14) the Crown Prince, takes 
 fourth short cruise of survey, 288 ; 
 learns Ruffo's unauthorised armistice, 
 288 ; starts with Hamiltons for Naples, 
 289 ; short view of his approaching 
 policy, 289-90; Jacobin 'mob-system,' 
 143; (June 25), concerts battle-place 
 with iSuokworth, 289 «. 5, 296, 297 ; 
 state of affairs on arrival, 291-297 ; the 
 terms of capitulations and armistices, 
 295-6 ; Nelson's views on, 297 ; joy of 
 loyalists, 297, 299; his memorandum 
 to Ruffo, 297; he annuls armistice 
 and capitulations, 298 ; interview with 
 Ruffo, ib. ; signatories to capitulations, 
 protest, 298 ; castles Uovo and Nuovo 
 surrender, 298 ; Emma's energy and 
 resource, 299-300; distinction between 
 armistice with French and capitulations 
 with Patriots, 300 ; (June 25), refuses to 
 let rebels 'quit or embark,' ib. n. 2; 
 (June 26), does not change front to 
 rebels, 302 ; will not oppose ' embarka- 
 tion,' 303; awaits King's orders, ib.\ 
 his after-vindication, 303-304 ; Govern- 
 ment endorses his policy, 304 ; Carac- 
 ciolo,305-307; demands from Ruffo con- 
 cerning, 306; King's influence, 306 n. 3; 
 the 'sentence,' 307; attacks St. Elmo, tb. 
 308 ; on Lady Hamilton's labours and 
 humanity, 308 ; celebration of August i, 
 311 ; commanding admiral, ib. ; episode 
 of Caracciolo's resurrection, 311 ; 
 (Aug. 9), Palermo, 311 ; the signal 
 pageant in his honour, 312-13 ; Bronte 
 and other honours, 312 - 13 [and 
 for Emma's part in, see ' Hamilton, 
 Emma, Lady, and reference to App. 
 there given]; Acton, 314 «. 4; 'Jove,' 
 314, 340; (August- December), his 
 many and various activities, 314-316; 
 Port Mahon, and care for Malta, 315 ; 
 (Sept. 22), lands again at Palermo, 
 sends to free Rome, ib.\ Barbary 
 
 M 
 
546 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Nelson, Horatio, Viscount — continued. 
 States, deplores Napoleon's elusion of 
 British fleet, ih. ; dejection, ih. and 
 316 ; home annoyances. East India 
 Comjiany's grant, 317 ; temporary 
 chief command, 317 n. 1 ; tone of 
 letters, 317, 318 ; letter to Lady Hamil- 
 ton, 318 ; ' Dame Fortune,' hotne 
 slanders, 319 ; refuted, 320; again 
 under Keith's orders, 321 ; aims and 
 annoyances, ib. ; Leghorn, Malta, 
 Capture of Z-e Gdnireux, ib, and 322 ; 
 (March), Maltese blockade progressing, 
 re-lands at Palermo, 322; (April 23), 
 the journey to Malta and bacls, 322- 
 26 ; reflections on his present climax 
 of passion, 323-25, 340 «. 3, 370 ; his 
 recollections . of voyage, 325 n, i ; 
 (May 20), Palermo, announces his 
 return home, 326 ; the homeward 
 journey, 329-40 ; Leghorn, 329-30 ; 
 ignorance of big world, 330-31 ; 
 Vienna, 332 ; Dresden, 333 ; Hamburg, 
 335 ; Yarmouth and London, 336 ; 
 medal, ib. n. 2; and Lady Nelson, 
 337 i events in London, 337-8 ; 
 Fonthill, 338 ; scene with wife, ib. ; 
 repudiation and provision, 338-9 and 
 ''• 3> 349 "• 3! 'outcast,' ib. n. 4, 
 375 ; the breach considered, 339-40 ; 
 (1801), and Flaxman, 341 ; fresh causes 
 for admiration of Emma, 341-43, 346; 
 ill, but eager for action, Northern 
 Coalition summons him to confront 
 it, anxiety for Emma, lawsuits and 
 vexations, 343 - 46 ; parting from 
 Emma, San Josef, y^fi-j ; imminence 
 of Horatia's birth, the singular Thom- 
 son correspondence with Emma, 347 
 3.nAssq.; Nelson's agitation and pious 
 affection, 350-52 ; a remarkable letter 
 to Lady Hamilton, 351 ; another ex- 
 pressing attachment for her character, 
 353 ; birth of Horatia, 352 and n. 3 ; 
 his transports and anxiety as shown by 
 letters, 353-55 ; bequeaths the Queen's 
 portrait to Emma, 355 ; anagrams, ib. 
 and «. 2 ; the Prince of Wales episode, 
 and his letters on, 358-66, 371 ; and 
 Sir William, 360 and seq., 362; de- 
 termines to 'run up to London,' 
 362 ; praises Emma's constancy, 362 ; 
 about Greville, ib. ; affinities to Emma, 
 363 ; his canonisation of, 26, 363 ; 
 (February), hurries up to London, 364 
 and seq. ; (March), visits Horatia, 370 
 and «. i; departure for Copenhagen, 
 366 and seq. ; patriotism, 367, 368 ; 
 vents feelings to Emma, 368 ; wish to 
 i-etire to Bronte, ib.; hopes for a visit 
 at Yarmouth, 371 ; on Hamilton's sell- 
 ing portraits, 371 n. 4; Copenhagen, 
 fresh slights and misconstructions, 374- 
 76 ; Emma's birthday, 375 ; (July r), 
 returns, only to be ordered ofl soon to 
 Channel, ib, ; visit to Staines, 376 ; 
 Parker's death, 377; kept off Kestish 
 
 coast, ib, ; forwards Hamilton's in- 
 terests, 378 ; recollections, 378 ; acquisi- 
 tion of Merton Place, 378-84 ; its church, 
 384; offers Merton to Emma, 379; 
 divides expenses, 380 ; entry into, 381 ; 
 generosity to father, ib. «. 7 ; exhausted, 
 383 ; liberality practised on, 35 ; wine, 
 386 ; accounts, 387 ; prefers Merton to 
 social solemnities, 391 ; (1802), the 
 Beckford-Hamilton peerage plot, 389- 
 90 ; (April), grief at father's death, 
 Hamilton's sympathy, 391-2; gene- 
 rosity, 390 ; (June), Eton, 451 n. i ; 
 (July), the Milford and Cardiff trip and 
 demonstrations, 394-96 ; (1803), Sir 
 William's death, and Nelson's letter, 
 397-8 ; the will, and his suspicions as 
 to Greville, 399 ; Hamilton's eicpres- 
 sions about Nelson, 400; applies for 
 Emma, 401 ; (May), a wedding and a 
 christening, 402, 403 ; departs for the 
 Mediterranean, 402-3 ; on GreVilie's 
 conduct to Emma, 403 ; his farefrell 
 words, 404; occupations and ob- 
 sessions, 406-7 ; (1804), writes to 
 Horatia, 407 ; and King and Queerl of 
 Naples, 408, 410 and «. 4 ; daemonic, 
 410 ; ill-health and dispiritments, 409- 
 10, 411, 418 ; on guard, his move- 
 ments; Emma, Merton, and Horatia 
 haunt him, 411-12 ; (1804), the regained 
 portrait, 412 ; anxiety for Emma and 
 Horatia, 351, 417 ; his announcement 
 concerning Horatia, 417; (1805), pre- 
 pares to quit Mediterranean, 418 ; his 
 movements in search of French 
 squadron, 419 and seg,\ West Indies, 
 420 ; letters opened, 421 ; secures safety 
 of Cadiz, his further efforts, lands at 
 Spithead (Aug. 18), 422 ; at Merton for 
 the last time, 422, 423 ; parting hours 
 and scenes of farewell, 423-4, 422 «. 3 ; 
 forebodings, 424 and n. 3 i last mes- 
 sages before 'Trafalgar to Emma and 
 Horatia, 424-26 ; Trafalgar and death, 
 426-29, App. 524-26 ; his body's home- 
 coming, 429, 431 ; Scott's description, 
 431-2 ; funeral, 432 ; his sword, 426 n. 
 I ; his sword of honour, 465 and n. 2 ; 
 his coat, 430, 437 ; particulars about 
 sarcophagus, 432 n. 2 ; his will, 434 ; his 
 annuity to Emma does hot take effect 
 till 1808, and even then not wholly, 
 434, and App. 489 ; Lady Hamilton's 
 devotion to his memory and wishes, 
 441-2 ; his solemn assurance to Pitt 
 as to Emma's claims, 445 ; Mrs. 
 Darner's bust of, 67 «. 5 ; his Verses, 3 
 and n. i, 277 34a. 
 Qualities — 
 
 Ambition, r6o. 
 
 Fanaticism, 406. 
 
 Infectious enthusiasm,, 161, 166, 419, 
 423. 
 
 Intuition, 159 n. i, 232, 241, 410, 
 419, 42b. 
 
 Magnanimity, 409. 
 
INDEX 
 
 547 
 
 Nelson, Horatio, Visconnt— continued. 
 Poetical fArases of, 3 ». i, 7 n. i, 10, 
 
 213 n. I. 
 Religious ideas, 160. 
 Simplicity and generosity of, 158. 
 Spontaneity, 160, 161. 
 Theatricality, 159. 
 Unselfishness, 223, 406, 409, 419. 
 Various letters of, alluded to [Ch. i. , 
 passim and App. Pt. 11. D. and E.], 
 99 «. 1 ; on Sardinia, 141 n. 2 ; 
 (1801), of Greville, 109 n. 2, 402 
 n, s, 406-7, 409, 411, 412, 417, 
 418, 419, 421, 426, 429. 
 His wording regarding Emma's 
 several ' Claims. ' [See ' Lady 
 Hamilton, Emma,' and 'Claims' 
 under same heading.] 
 
 Frances, Viscountess, 29, 157 ; 
 
 character of, 158 ; (1798), Nelson to, 
 229 n. 3 ; letters to, from Lady Hamil- 
 ton, 227, 229 n. I, 231 ; App. 491 ; 
 Lady Hamilton on, 238; (1798, Oct.), 
 273; (1799), 285 and n. 2; and 
 East India Company's grant, 317; 
 (i8od), her injuries considered, 323-4, 
 326, 336 ; absent in Nelson's welcome, 
 336 ; scene with husband and Lady 
 Hamilton, 338 ; eventually repudiated, 
 338, 339 and n. i ; 'Tom Tit,' 339, 340, 
 364; her defiance, 339 and n. 3, 350; 
 vindictiveness, ii. ; Brighton, 346, 349, 
 364, 371 ; (i8o6), vindictiveness, 433 and 
 ». 2. ; buried with Nelson, 432 n. 2 ; 
 Lady Hamilton's third letter to, App. 
 
 514- 
 
 Maurice, 334, 339 n. 1, 365, 374. 
 
 Sarah, Mrs. William [afterwards 
 
 Countess Nelson] (1800), 334, 340 ; 
 (1801, February), hurries up at Nelson's 
 request to protect Emma; Emma's 
 correspondence with, 364 and seq. , 370, 
 376, 394, 405, 413, 415 ; his behaviour 
 regarding the codicil discussed in light 
 of her evidence, 433-36, 450, App. 
 508 ; her conduct concerning Nelson's 
 coat, 437; shabbiness, 436-7; (1806 
 and after), continued her friendship 
 for, and visits to Emma, 439 ; conduct 
 to Mrs. Maurice Nelson [see ' Ford, 
 Mrs.'], 444 «. I ; App. 501-507. 
 
 the Rev. William [Earl Nelson], 42; 
 
 (1800), 334 and ». 2, 339; oddities, 
 353 ; praises Emma's conduct, 362 ; 
 characteristics, 363 «. i, 370 n. 3 ; 
 Staines, 376-7; (1802), 394, 408 ; (1803), 
 405, 413, 415; (1804, Aug. i), 417; 
 (1814), Lady Hamilton on his conduct, 
 468-9 ; his hardness, 470, 472. 
 
 William (i8io), 454. 
 
 Nepean, Sir Evan (1801), 365 ; App. 
 
 S03. 
 Newton, Mr. and Mrs. , 380, 382. 
 Nichol, family of, 43, 443. 
 Nicholson, Margaret, 6r. 
 Nicolas, Sir Harris N., 221, 350. 
 Nisbet, Francis [see Nelson, Viscountess]. 
 
 Nisbet,Josiah, Captain [Nelson'sstepson], 
 i6S, 227, 231 ; at Neapolitan Embassy 
 (1798), 240; ill conduct, 273 ; (1801), 
 36s and «. 2, 370. 
 
 Mrs. (i8oi), 343, 357, 360. 
 
 Nizza, Admiral (1799, September), 314. 
 
 NoUekens [sculptor], 57. 
 
 Northwick, Lord, 16 «. i ; (1808), 451. 
 
 Nudi, Dr., 179. 
 
 Ogilvie [banker], 80 n. 4. 
 
 Oliver [interpreter] (1800), 335 ; (1801), 
 
 350, 368, 408. 
 Opie, J. [artist], 21. 
 Orde, Sir John (1805), 419, 420. 
 Orloff, Count [Russian ambassador at 
 
 Naples] 24 n. i. 
 
 Pagano [jurisprudent], 120 and n, 4. 
 
 Paget, Mr. [Hamilton's temporary suc- 
 cessor], 99 «. 4 ; Hanoverian ambas- 
 dor, 180 n. 2, 322 and n. 2, 327. 
 
 Paisiello [composer], 102, 117, 228. 
 
 Pali [leader of the Lazzaroni], g, 299-300. 
 
 Pallanti [envoy], 139. 
 
 Palmerston, Lady (1793), 154. 
 
 Palmieri [scientist], 120. 
 
 Panthea [freedwoman], Emma's proto- 
 type, 224. 
 
 Parker, Sir Hyde (1801), 345, 362. 
 
 Captain(i8oi), 345, 353; (deaai),376. 
 
 Lieutenant (1801), 345, 361 ; (death), 
 
 377; App. 516. 
 
 Parma, Duke of (1791), 139. 
 
 Parratt, Dr., 380. 
 
 Patterson, Mr. and Mrs. , 380. 
 
 Payne, Willet-, Rear-Admiral, 46, 49 ; 
 (1802), death, 394. 
 
 Peddieson [upholsterer], 424 n. 3. 
 
 Peirson, Mrs. (1806), 440. 
 
 Pembroke, Earl of, 31, 150. 
 
 Pep6 [afterwards General] (1799), 268, 
 (June), 291 and seq. 
 
 Perceval, Lady (1805), 431. 
 
 Spencer, 4^8. 
 
 Perconti, Eliza (1800), 328. 
 
 Perring, Sir John (1808), 449. 
 
 Perry, Mr., 380, 423, 457, 458, 462, 465. 
 
 Pescher [banker and conspirator] (1793), 
 144. 
 
 Potion (1791), 143. 
 
 Piazza, 267. 
 
 Pignatelli [author], 121. 
 
 Count, 144 n. I. 
 
 Prince (1794), 174; (Dec. 23), 
 
 Captain-General, 256; (1799, Jan.), 
 260; his action and absconsion, 265, 
 268 ; secret negotiations with French, 
 267, 273 ; ill behaviour, 279 ; ' sur- 
 rounded by scoundrels,' 30 n. 3. 
 
 Pimentel, Eleonora de Fonseca [poetess 
 and revolutionist], 121-2 ; (1799), 264 ; 
 edits Monitore, 269, 305. 
 
 Pitt, William [statesman] (1783), 69; 
 (1794), 177 K. 6; (1801), 364;(i,8o2), 394; 
 andEmma'sclaims,205; andHamilton, 
 
548 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 378; (1803), 402; {1804), 4ii;-(i8os), 
 assured by Nelson of Emma's services, 
 44S ; Melville addresses him on her 
 behalf, 448 ; Emma's admiration for, 
 416 ; energy, 419 ; and Nelson, 423 ; 
 (1806, Jan.), his death affects Emma's 
 claims, 435, 448. 
 
 Pisa, Colonel (1798), 197 n i. 
 
 Pius VI., Pope (1791), 120, 138; (1797), 
 and Austria, 196 n. i ; ejected from 
 republicanised Rome, 183, 196 and 
 n. I, 197 ; death of, ib. 
 
 Plymouth, Lady (1791), 147 ; her letter 
 to Emma, 148 ; (1792), 150 ; (1793), 
 122, 155. 
 
 Polignac, Prince (1791), 131. 
 
 Pope cited, 160, 176 n. 3. 
 
 Portland, Duke of, 31. 
 
 Portman Square, 33 «. 2, 41. 
 
 Potemkin, Prince, 127 n. 4. 
 
 Pott, Emily [see Seaforth, Lady]. 
 
 Potter, Mr. , 43. 
 
 Pova, Mary, 41. 
 
 Powell, Harriet [actress], [see Seaforth, 
 Lady]. 
 
 Jane [actress], 45 and ib. note 2 ; 
 
 (1791), 13s ; (1803), with Lady Hamil- 
 ton at Southend, 408. 
 
 Prussia, and Frederick, King of (1792), 
 and Austria, 144 ; (1793), 152 ; (1794), 
 resents spread of Jacobinism, 173 ; 
 Countess Lichtenau (?.w.), 180; (1795- 
 96), deserts coalition against France, 
 182, 184 ; (1803), Third Coalition, 402. 
 
 Puleston, Sir R. (1811), 456. 
 
 QUEENSBERRY, Duke of ['OldQ.'], 23; 
 (1791), 135 ; (1801), 3S7, 373. 376 ; at 
 Merton, 386; (1803), 408; (1805), 
 422 n. 3; (1807), 440; (1808), 448; 
 (1810), death and luckless bequests of, 
 452. 454- 
 
 Rasoumowsky, Count, 24 n. i, 
 
 Rega [intaglio-cutter], 20. 
 
 Reynolds family, the, 43, 443. 
 
 Ann [Lady Hamilton's maternal 
 
 aunt], 43. 
 
 Richard, 43, 443, 455. 
 
 Sir Joshua, and Romney, 17 ; and 
 
 Lady Hamilton, 20; on Hamilton's 
 connoisseurship, 34 k. i ; and 'Thais,' 
 
 38. 
 Richard [Lady Hamilton s uncle], 
 
 43- 
 
 Sarah, 43, 421, 455. 
 
 Riario, Prince (1791), 144, 167. 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, 119. 
 Robespierre (1794), 173. 
 Robinson, Mrs. ['Perdita'], 20, 24. 
 Rocco, Padre [Royalist reformer], 120. 
 Roccomana, Duke of (1799, Jan.), leads 
 
 Lazzaroni (?.!'■)> 268. 
 Rodney, Lord (1780), 124. 
 Rohan, Pierre Camille de, 85 ». i. 
 Romney, George (1734-1802), 8, 11, 12, 
 
 14 ; and Lady Hamilton, 16-21, 26, 
 
 44; evidence as to first acquaintance 
 with Lady Hamilton, 46, 49, jo, 51, 
 56; (1782-86), his friendship with Emma, 
 60-62 ; acknowledges her ' inspiration,' 
 99 and «. 5 ; scene in his studio, 62, 
 63; (1784). 77; (178s). 79. 9°; (1786), 
 invited to Naples, 94 ; intended to be 
 Emma's trustee, 95 ; (1791), Emma's 
 surprise visit to, 133 ; intercourse 
 between him and the Hamiltons till 
 her marriage, 19, 133-135. 136 n. 3; 
 letter to, from Lady Hamilton, on her 
 new happiness, 147 ; his answer to her 
 invitation to Naples, ib. ; (1800), 334, 
 341 ; (1801), desire to see Emma again, 
 342 and n. 3, 361 ; (1802), death, 394 ; 
 on sensibility of Emma's mouth, ih. , 466. 
 
 Romney, John [son and biographer of the 
 artist], 18 n. 4, 19 n. 3, 60 and n. 3, 61 
 n. 4, 62. 
 
 Rose, George, the Right Honourable, 
 42 ; and Emma's claims, 205, 412 ». 4, 
 416 ; (1805), last interview with Nelson, 
 424, 429, 430 ; acknowledges Emma's 
 'claims,' 437 ; (iSo8), 445, 446 ; (1810), 
 447 notes I and 2, 455; (1813), 458; 
 (1S14), 466 n. 2, 467 ; App. 52s, 526. 
 
 Cajjtain, App. 502. 
 
 Rosenheim, Count (1798), 243. 
 
 Ross [banker], 80 n. 4. 
 
 Rothery, Mr., 42. 
 
 Roulanch, Mile. [Horatia's governess 
 after Sarah Connor went as governess 
 to the Boltons], 4S1. 
 
 Rousseau, J. J. , 263. 
 
 Rovedino, Carlo, 456. 
 
 Rovere family, the, 123, 
 
 Ruffo, Cardinal Fabrizio (1744-1827), 
 character of, 271 ; 42 ». 2 ; (1792), 
 and ' camera oscura,' 145, 197 n. i ; 
 (1799), 267 n. 2; designated Vicar- 
 General ; King's strict injunctions to, 
 271 and n. 1 ; Nelson's opinion of, and 
 the Hamiltons, ib. and n. 3; proclaims 
 holy war, 271 and sef. ; movements 
 till May, 279 ; (June), his armistice sus- 
 pected at Palermo, 288 ; and Queen, 
 289 n, 2, 291 ». 2 ; and King, 289 
 notes I and 2 ; (early June), nears 
 Naples, 290; (June 16), council at 
 Palermo respecting him ; intercepts 
 land communications, gives battle and 
 wins, 290, 291 ; his humanity, 291 ; 
 his shifty and unauthorised manoeuvres 
 for peace detailed and discussed, 291- 
 303 ; and M^jean, 292, 300-1 ; and 
 Foote, 292-94 ; and Acton, 293 ; and 
 Micheroux, 292, 300; at Nelson's 
 arrival (June 23), 297 ; (June 24), inter- 
 view with Nelson and Hamiltons, 298 ; 
 (June 25), 298; 'surrounded by 
 scoundrels,' 300 n. 3; his twisting of 
 facts, 301 and seg. ; saved from King's 
 anger, 303; grateful to Lady Hamil- 
 ton, ii. ; (1804), Viennese mission, 410 ; 
 App. S20. 
 
 Francesco, 291 n. 2. 
 
INDEX 
 
 549 
 
 Rumbold, Lady, 8g. 
 
 Sir Thomas, 89 and n. 
 
 Rushout [diplomatist], 15 «. $. 
 
 Russell, Mr., 456, 465. 
 
 Mrs., 456, 46s ; App. 512. 
 
 Russia, and Paul, Emperor of, and Cathe- 
 rine II. , Empress of, and Lady Ham- 
 ilton, 107 ; (1794), resents spread of 
 Jacobinism, 173 ; (1798), declares war 
 V. France, 232, 234 ; promises fleet to 
 Naples, 239; (1799, May), co-operates 
 with Ruffo, 271 ; treaty with Naples, 
 232 ; and Malta (Nelson), 273 ». 2 ; 
 fresh treaty with Naples, Austria, and 
 Turkey, 279 ; Corfu blockaded, 290 ; 
 (June), disappointed of arranging peace 
 with Neapolitan rebels, 297 ; (October), 
 inactive at Valetta, 315, 330 ». 3; and 
 Nelson's and Lady Hamilton's Maltese 
 services, 350 n. 3 ; (1803), third coali- 
 tion, 402 ; (1810), 4S4. 
 
 Ruvo, Count (1793), 167 ; (1799), 270. 
 
 Vincenzo [patriot], 291. 
 
 Ruzzi, Dr. (1798), 250. 
 
 Saeoff, 180. 
 
 Safibry, Ann (1788), 120 n. a, 
 
 Sanfelice, Molines Luisa (1799), her part 
 in betraying royal secrets, and her fate, 
 72. 
 
 St. George, Miss, ,38 «. 3. 
 
 Mrs. [MelesinaChenevix, afterwards 
 
 Mrs. Trench], 22 ». 6, 333 n. 4. 
 
 Saint Maltre, Duke and Duchess of 
 (1787), lOI. 
 
 St. Vincent, Earl, and Lady Hamilton, 
 10, 25, 169, 170, 196, 276 n. 2 ; (1798). 
 and Acton, 198; correspondence with 
 Emma, 202 n. 4 ; and Captain Bowen, 
 210 n. 2; on Nelson, the Nile, and 
 Jacobinism, 224 ; on Nelson's sus- 
 ceptibility, 226 n. I ; (1798), on Lady 
 Hamilton's heroism, 255 ; (1799) 258, 
 280 ; Lady Hamilton's appeal to, 171, 
 App. n, E. ; retirement, 282 ; Nelson 
 invites, ii. ; and appeals to, 287 ; 
 (1800), on Nelson's philandering, 323, 
 330 ». 2; (1801), squabbles, 344-5, 
 367; (180S), Emma addresses, 444-5, 
 App. 512. 
 
 Salandra, Duke of (1799, August), ' Vice- 
 General,' 311. 
 
 Sambuca, Marquis of (1776), 122. 
 
 San Clemente, Marchioness (1793), 1S3. 
 
 San Leucio (Royal and socialistic 
 colony), 121. 
 . San Marco, Marchioness (1793), 153. 
 
 Sandby, Paul [artist], 57- 
 
 Sardinia, 115, 141 ». 2, 153; (1798), 
 203. 
 
 Saunders [savant], 14, 16. 
 
 SauveiU", Alexandre ['hermit of Vesu- 
 vius'], 107 n. 2, 180. 
 
 Saverio, 245. 
 
 Sawbrige, John, M.P., 48. 
 
 Saxe, Chevalier, 180. 
 
 Saye [mezzotinter], 21 «. i. 
 
 Sberri, the, 97 n. i. 
 
 Schiavonetti [artist], 57. 
 
 Schinato, Marquis, at Merton, 386. 
 
 Schipani (1799, June), 290. 
 
 Schomberg House, 47. 
 
 Scott, J. [Nelson's secretary], 406. 
 
 Rev. Dr. A. J. [Nelson's chaplain and 
 
 secretary], 160 «. 3, 419, 423 and «. 2, 
 426 ». I, 428 notes I and 2 ; breaks news 
 of Nelson's death to Emma, 429, App. 
 524 ; his vigil over Nelson's remains 
 and care for Emma, 431-2 ; on Nelson, 
 431 ; his tribute to Emma, 432 ; at the 
 funeral, ii. ; (1806, Sept.), Lady 
 Hamilton's vindicatory letter to, 438. 
 
 r Sir William [Lord Stowell], 12 n. 
 
 8, 39 n. 2 ; (1806), 43S ; (1814), 466, 
 468. 
 
 Seaforth, Lord, 69. 
 
 Lady, 24, 41, 45. 
 
 S^mouville, 'Citizen' [ambassador] 
 
 (1793). 152 »• 2- 
 Shelbume, Lord [statesman], S7- 
 Sheldon [balloonist], 60. 
 Sicigniano [ambassador] (1789), 123 ; 
 
 (1793), 145. 
 Sicily (as distinguished from Naples), 
 
 119 n, 4 ; (1794), Jacobinism, 173 ; 
 
 (1798), 204 ; (1799). 289. 
 Simpson, Miss Molly, 157 n. 5. 
 Singleton, W. [artist], 21. 
 Skamousky, Madame, 150. 
 Skavonska, Madame [wife of Russian 
 
 ambassador at Naples] (1789), 127. 
 Smith, Jonathan [alderman], 383 ; (1813) 
 
 458 ; (1814), 461, 465, 466, 472 ; App. 
 
 513- 
 Sidney, Admiral Sir (1799), 273, 
 
 274. 315- 
 
 Solari, Marchesa Di, Anne Hyde, 16, 
 42, no; (1792), 143; and Lady 
 Hamilton's message from Marie 
 Antoinette, 145-6 ; and Lady Hamil- 
 ton's intimacy with the Queen, 153. 
 
 Soraerville, Captain, App. 519. 
 
 Sorrentino, Duchess of (1800), 121. 
 
 Spain, — Spanish Bourbon's historical 
 ambition for Italy, 113, 114; (1791) 
 13S ; the key of the Neapolitan situa- 
 tion, 139 ; anti- Freemasons, ib. and n. 
 I, 141 ; (179S-6), gradual rapproche- 
 ment with France, 182 and seq. ; she 
 deserts allies, 1S4, 1S5 and seq. ; (1796), 
 her real objective v. England, 185 ; 
 declares war, 186 n. 2 ; puts troops in 
 Leghorn, 188 n. 3 ; (1798) 201, 203 ; 
 (1799), joins fleet with French, 280 and 
 seq. \ (1805), Trafalgar, 428. 
 
 Spencer, Lord, and Nelson (1798), 234 ; 
 (1799)1 290 «. 2, 273 ; indorses his 
 anti-Jacobin policy, 304 and n. 2 ; 
 (1800), suspicions, 326. 
 
 Lady (1793), 155 ; (1798), 232. 
 
 Spilsbury, Mrs. , 360. 
 
 Sterne, L., 311, 466. 
 Strafford, Lady, 67 n. i. 
 
550 
 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Stuart, Sir Charles, General (1799), 274. 
 
 Suckling, Sir William, 157 n. 3, 412 n. 2. 
 
 Wibrew, 412 n. 2. 
 
 Sussex, Duke of, 16 k. i; and Mrs. 
 Cadogan, 42 ; (1792 and 1793), at 
 Naples, 148, 163 ; (1794), 177 ; birth- 
 day ffite, 181 ; (1B09), meets Lady 
 Hamilton at Harrow, 451. 
 
 Sutton, Captain (1793), 163, App. 520. 
 
 Suwarrow, 373. 
 
 Swinburne, Henry (1786), 104 n. 3. 
 
 Tacitus, quoted, 306. 
 Talma [actor], 16. 
 Tarsia, Prince of (1794), 175. 
 Tegart, Dr., 458. 
 
 Tenucci, Marquis [Neapolitan Finance- 
 Minister] (1760), n8 ; (1775-6), 122. 
 Thomas, Mrs. [ofHawarden], 44; (1807), 
 
 443- 
 Thomas, Miss, 44, 443. 
 Thomson, J. D., Mr., App. 507. 
 Thugut [negotiator for Austria of the 
 
 Campoformio treaty], 236. 
 Thurn, Count [Austrian Admiral] (1798, 
 
 Dec), part in Royal escape, 247 ; (Dec. 
 
 22), watchword, 249, 250 ; (1799, May), 
 
 282 ; (June 29), 307. 
 Tischbein [painter], 20, 22 ». 4 ; (1786), 
 
 105 and n. i. 
 Torella, Prince, 123. 
 Torre [Pyrotechnist], 60. 
 Torre, Delia, Duke (1799, Jan.), and 
 
 Lazzaroni (n.v. ), 268. 
 Totty, Admiral, 26 ; App. 516. 
 Treaties and truces — 
 
 Amiens (1801, September; 1802, 
 March), 367, 378 n. 8. 
 
 Anglo- Sicilian, the first (1793, July), 
 152, 156, 171, 177; the second (zj^i, 
 December), 224. 
 
 Austro-Neapolitan (1798, July), 204, 
 205, 206 and n. z, 207 and n, 5. 
 
 Austro-Turkish (X799, March), 279. , 
 
 Brescian (1795-6), 175, 179. 
 
 Camfoformian {1797, February), 183, 
 196 ». I, 236 n. 3, 243. 
 
 Franco-Neapolitan (1796, December), 
 183, 198, 203, 205, 216 ; Nelson on, 
 213, 216, 219, 2go ; Gallo and, 230-1, 
 
 243- 
 Franco-Spanish (1796, August and Sep- 
 tember), 186 n. 2. 
 Russo-Turkish-Neafolitan(i7cii,Ma.y), 
 
 232. 
 Of Tolentino (1797, October), 183, 196 
 n. I. 
 Trench, Mrs. [see 'St. George, Mrs.']. 
 Tresham, H. [artist], 20, 49. 
 Tr^ville, Latouche, Admiral (1793), 152 ; 
 
 (1804), 411. 
 Trevor, Captain, App. 517. 
 Trogofif, Admiral (1793), IS3. IS7 «• 2. 
 Troubridge, Sir Thomas, 10 «. 5; (1798, 
 June), 204, 206 n. i, 207, 208 ; (July, 
 19-23), at Syracuse, 217 n. i ; (Sep- 
 tember), at Castellamare, 229 ; ill. 
 
 230 ; future attitude to Lady Hamilton, 
 ii. ; (December), 245 ; (1799), at 
 Procida, 274 ; suppresses island rebels, 
 278, 279 ; message to Nelson, 280, 281 ; 
 (June 26), takes over the two smaller 
 Neapolitan castles, his false and his real 
 proclamation, 302 notes 3 and 4, 303 ; 
 (June 27), 'to execute the business,' 
 304 ; Caracciolo, 305 ; invest St. Elmo, 
 308 ; (August), Commodore of Naples 
 squadron, 311 ; (September), Civita 
 Vecchia, 314 ; (autumn), remonstrates 
 with Lady Hamilton on gambling, 
 319, 320 ; his own receipt of Neapolitan 
 pension and Nelson's advancement of, 
 320 n. i; (1801), Lord of Admiralty: 
 Nelson's complaints of, 337 ». 3, 345 
 and n. i ; sends Nelson's letters, 353, 
 364 ; App. 498, 517, 519. 
 
 Tschudi, Madame, 67, 
 
 Turkey, and Sultan of, 8, 24 n. i, 227 ; 
 (1798), declares war v. France, 232, 
 234 ; (1799, May), co-operates with 
 Ruffo, 271 ; treaty with Naples, 232 ; 
 fresh treaty with Russia, Austria, and 
 Naples, 279 ; Corfu blockaded, 290 ; 
 (1799), fresh gifts to Nelson, 314. 
 
 Twiss, Mr. (1810), 454. 
 
 Tyson, Captain (1799, autumn), acts as 
 Nelson's secretary, 286 n. i, 317 n. 2, 
 322 «. i; (1804), 413 ». i; App. 498. 
 
 Mrs. , and Lady Hamilton, 386 ; 
 
 (1805, July), a day at Merton, 421, 
 434 n. 2 ; App. 515. 
 
 Udney, Mrs., 343 ; (1801), 360. 
 
 Vanni [inquisitor], 123 ; -(1794), made 
 
 assessor and marquis, 174; (1797), 
 
 deposed, 197. 
 Varden, Mr., 518. 
 Vaudreuil, Count (1791), 131. 
 Ventiraiglia, Prince, App. 498. 
 Vestinus, analogy of, 306. 
 Villeneuve, Admiral (1798), 223 ; (1805, 
 
 April), starts from Toulon, chased by 
 
 Nelson, 420 ; App. 525. 
 Vincenzo [servant], 86. 
 VoUer, Miss [schoolmistress], App. 506. 
 Voltaire, 306. 
 
 Wade, Matthew (1799), on Jacobins, 
 
 pillage, and shifts, 310-11, 
 Waller, Captain, App. 498. 
 Walpole," Horace, 16 ; and Mrs. Darner, 
 
 67 ». 5 ; and Sir W. Hamilton, 89 n. 2 ; 
 
 on Sir'T. Rumbold, 71 «. 2; (1791), on 
 
 Lady H.'s wedding, 137; 'Austriacity,' 
 
 138. 
 Sir Robert, analogy of, with Acton, 
 
 124. 
 
 Mrs., 343 ; (1801), 357. 
 
 Ward, Horatia [see ' Nelson, Horatia ']. 
 [gardener], his statements regarding 
 
 Lady H., 469 n. 3. 
 Warwick, Francis, Earl of, 31, 35, 80 n. 
 
 2,85. 
 
INDEX 
 
 551 
 
 Warwick, Dowager-Countess of, 135 «. 3. 
 Watson, Dr., 458 «. i. 
 Watt, James [inventor], 52. 
 Webster, Lady (1792), 150 ; (1793)1 iSS- 
 
 Sir George (1793), 155- 
 
 Wedgwood, Josiah, 36 ». i. 
 Wellington, Duke of, 158. 
 Wells, J. [artist], 21. 
 
 Mrs., 84, 96, 98. 
 
 White, Robert, in n. i. 
 
 Whiteford, Caleb [wit, a wine merchant], 
 
 S7- 
 Whitworth, Lord, 402. 
 Williams, Miss [Jacobin], 31. 
 
 of Gwint [heiress], 35. 
 
 Willock, 444 n. 2. 
 Willoughby, Mrs., 71. 
 
 Willoughby, Miss, provided for by 
 
 Government, 454. 
 Wittig [Knight of Malta], 203, 231. 
 Wolcot, Dr. [' Peter Pindar '], 16 ; at Mer- 
 
 ton, 386. 
 WooUett [mezzotinter], 109. 
 Wright, Lady (1791), 147- 
 Wurmser, General (179s). 182. 
 Wyndham [minister at Leghorn] (1795- 
 
 96), 188. 
 
 Yanch, Admiral (1799), 279 ». 3. 
 York, Duke of, 137. 
 
 ZURLO, Archbishop (1793), 167 ; (i799> 
 Jan. is), 266 ; (Jan. 22), 267. 
 
ADDENDA 
 
 The picture of Lady Hamilton mentioned on page 21 as by Gavin Hamilton 
 is more probably by Angelica Kauffmann. 
 
 To the incidents of the voyage enumerated in the text at pp. 257, 258 should 
 be added a story presumably true. Sir William, prostrated by the horrors and 
 terrors of the storm, was found by his wife with pistols by his side. On being 
 questioned as to his reason for firearms, he replied that he would prefer suicide 
 to dying ' with the guggle, guggle, guggle of water in my ears.' 
 
 The 'Miss Connor' whose letter about Horatia, just before the battle of 
 Trafalgar, is mentioned on page 425, is Miss Mary Connor. It has not been 
 sufficiently shown in the text that Horatia was for some time under her charge 
 as well as under Sarah Connor's, and, afterwards, Cecilia's. Mary seems to 
 have been a far more refined and better educated woman than her more showy 
 sisters. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Press