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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 
 
MEMOIRS OF 
 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 The Friend of Lord N e I so n 
 AND THE COURT OF NAPLES 
 
 With a Special Introduction 
 and Illustrations 
 
 $i^i,WMx$ycU^ 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 P F COLLIER 6c SON 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
Copyright 1910 
 By P. F. Collier & Son 
 
 ^sV 
 
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 ©CU305503 
 NO A 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGI 
 
 Introduction 5 
 
 I. The Curtain Rises: 1765-1782 . . . .13 
 
 II. The "Fair Tea-maker of Edgware Row": 1782-1784 37 
 
 III. "What God, and Greville, pleases": To March 1786 60 
 
 IV. Apprenticeship and Marriage: 1787-1791 
 V. Till the First Meeting: 1791-1793 . 
 VI. "Stateswoman" : 1794-1797 
 VII. Triumph : 1798 .... 
 
 VIII. Flight: December 1798 — January 1799 
 IX. Triumph Once More: To August 1799 
 X. Homeward Bound: To December 1800 
 XL From Piccadilly to "Paradise" Merton : 1801 
 XII. Exit "Nestor": January 1802 — May 1803 . 
 
 81 
 124 
 
 157 
 191 
 231 
 
 252 
 
 305 
 335 
 380 
 
 XIII. Penelope and Ulysses: June 1803 — January 1806 . 402 
 
 XIV. The Importunate Widow in Liquidation : February 
 
 1806— July 1814 433 
 
 XV. From Debt to Death : July 1814 — January 1815 . . 465 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 1 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 "Among the lovely faces that haunt history 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 en- 
 titled 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 singu- 
 lar faculty, moreover, of rendering and revealing the 
 thoughts and feelings of others, that lent an especial 
 glamour to both beauty and charm." 
 
 Walter Sichel thus strikes the keynote to the re- 
 markable life-story here presented — a story which 
 transcends the bounds of romance and fascinates and 
 baffles the reader by turns. Indeed, no two critics of 
 this famous beauty and confidante of Lord Nelson 
 have ever agreed as to her place in history. To one 
 she is an adventuress, luring Nelson on by the sheer 
 power of her physical charm; to another, she is his 
 guiding star, his inspiration; while others see in her 
 merely an astute politician, eager for power. To 
 quote Mr. Sichel again: 
 
 "It will be found that Lady Hamilton, by turns ful- 
 somely flattered and ungenerously condemned, was a 
 picturesque power and a real influence. She owned 
 
 5 
 
6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 a fine side to her puzzling character. She was never 
 mercenary, often self-abandoning, and at times actu- 
 ally noble. Her courage, warm-hqartedness and gift 
 of staunch friendship, her strength in conquering, her 
 speed in assimilating circumstances, 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. 
 She rose suddenly to situations and fulfilled them, 
 while these again led her both to climax and catas- 
 trophe. She worked long and hard, and with suc- 
 cess; she took a strong line and pursued it. She be- 
 came 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 at- 
 tracted his. She was indeed singularly capable of 
 feeling enthusiasm, and of communicating and en- 
 kindling it. It is as an enthusiast that she must 
 rank." 
 
 "The story of her wonderfully checkered career 
 from her cradle to her grave," writes W. H. Long in 
 an earlier edition of her Memoirs, "and her connection 
 with the greatest naval commander the world has ever 
 seen, is as attractive and thrilling as a romance, and 
 will serve for all time 'to point a moral or adorn a 
 tale.' " We find in these pages the life history of a 
 girl of obscure but honest parentage beginning her 
 career as a household servant, then practically cast 
 adrift in the streets seeking a precarious living in 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 doubtful ways; thence rising- from the very edge of 
 circumstance by successive stages to become the in- 
 spiration of artists and Bohemians, the protegee of 
 ministers, the wife of an ambassador, the trusted con- 
 fidante of a queen, and the all-absorbing passion of a 
 nation's hero. Rapid as this ascent to power was, the 
 descent was no less swift, and the poverty which ac- 
 companied her early years again greets her at the end 
 of the journey. The bare outline of such a career 
 exhibits its remarkable contrasts of light and shadow. 
 We can only explain it in part by a study of the 
 woman herself — the same woman who, as an un- 
 tutored girl of nineteen, sighed : "If I only had a good 
 education, what a woman I might have been!" 
 
 Lady Hamilton rose to power not merely through 
 beauty of face — many other women have been thus 
 endowed — but through a combination of rare qualities 
 which astounded such critics as Goethe, Sir Horace 
 Walpole, the artists Romney and Madame Le Brun, 
 and men and women in every walk of life. These 
 qualities were a naturally fine mind, a magnetic per- 
 sonality, an overflowing sympathy and generosity, 
 and a boundless enthusiasm. One may also character- 
 ize her as naturally theatrical. She did not pose, she 
 was the living personification of the emotions she 
 typified; and this natural adaptiveness became in- 
 tensified by the scenes into which the untutored girl 
 was so suddenly cast. 
 
 And what a theatre it was ! England, just recover- 
 ing from the American War of Independence, was 
 facing a conflict with France. The latter country had 
 emerged from the throes of Revolution only to plunge 
 into a Titanic struggle with every other European 
 nation. Napoleon marched through Italy, overran 
 Egypt and swept the Mediterranean with his ships, 
 preparatory to wider conquests. The Mediterranean 
 
8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 thus became a seething caldron, and in its very centre 
 the kingdom of the Two Sicilies struggled for exist- 
 ence. It was at Naples, the capital of this kingdom, 
 that Emma, Lady Hamilton, as wife of the English 
 Ambassador spent the momentous years of her life, 
 and here her peculiar genius found full scope. She 
 stirred her sluggish ambassador husband to action. 
 She became the real power behind the Sicilian throne, 
 through the friendship of Maria Carolina the Queen 
 (sister of the ill-fated Marie Antoinette of France). 
 And when the fleet of Nelson drew near in pursuit of 
 the French, she it was who procured water and provi- 
 sion for it, enabling Nelson to fight and win his fa- 
 mous Battle of the Nile. Upon the return of the victor 
 began his remarkable intimacy with both the Hamil- 
 tons, which was to endure through the lifetime of 
 each and all. And of the three, the chivalrous atti- 
 tude of the elderly Sir William is alone meritorious. 
 His regard for his wife and his friend never wavered ; 
 while they, carried mutually onward by a wave of ir- 
 resistible love, forgot the one his wife, the other her 
 husband in the liaison so widely known to history. 
 
 That Lady Hamilton's influence upon Nelson was 
 permanent and paramount is never disputed. He ideal- 
 ized her and strove to live up to the fond ideal which 
 he cherished. His letters constantly attest his devotion, 
 and his dying message confided her and her child to 
 the care of his country — a charge which ungrateful 
 England wholly neglected. Nelson, indeed, always 
 hoped to have been able to legalise this union of hearts. 
 Emma was his "wife before God," his "pride and de- 
 light." While to her, Nelson was "the dearest husband 
 of her heart," her "hero of heroes," her "idol." They 
 lived for each other, and died in the hope that they 
 should meet again. "Nelson's unselfishness trans- 
 figured her to herself j she became capable of great 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 moments. And she was born for friendship. 'I would 
 not be a lukewarm friend for the world/ she wrote 
 to him at the outset ; 'I cannot make friendships 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 debase any within the range of her influence." 
 The earliest "Memoirs of Lady Hamilton" ap- 
 peared shortly after her death, in 181 5, from the pen 
 of an anonymous author, and were published by H. 
 Colburn, London. They were widely read, a second 
 enlarged edition appearing a few months later. 
 Frequent printings were made, and finally W. H. 
 Long brought out a revised edition in 1891. But 
 other and more authentic memoir material meanwhile 
 became available — all of which has been utilised by 
 the present editor. The first of these sources is a 
 volume of "Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamil- 
 ton," published by Thomas Lovewell & Co., London, 
 1 8 14. The reader of the present book will note how 
 these cherished letters were stolen from Lady Hamil- 
 ton, while she was ill and in trouble, and how she 
 stoutly denied any responsibility for their publication. 
 Nevertheless, they are undoubtedly genuine, many of 
 the originals having been preserved, and they furnish 
 an important basis for these Memoirs. They include 
 letters by Lady Hamilton, her husband, Greville, 
 Bristol, but chiefly a long series of private letters from 
 Nelson himself. The editor has also drawn upon 
 various recent manuscript collections in the British 
 Museum, such as the correspondence of Lady Hamil- 
 ton with Nelson in the autumn of the year 1798, after 
 the Nile Victory, and letters between Lady Hamilton 
 and Mrs. William Nelson, during 1801, relative to the 
 Prince of Wales episode which created such a scandal 
 
io INTRODUCTION 
 
 in officialdom. The latter collection was not obtained 
 by the Museum until 1896, and has therefore not been 
 available to preceding biographers. Besides the above 
 there are other important sources, such as the Nelson 
 family papers, the Acton-Hamilton correspondence, 
 the manuscript letters of Maria Carolina, Queen of 
 Naples, in the British Museum, and numerous state 
 documents and private papers. Mr. Sichel has left 
 no bit of evidence unturned, basing his story closely 
 upon contemporary evidence, with the result that he 
 has here given the first complete and accurate pen 
 portrait of Lady Hamilton which has yet appeared. 
 
 "It is a career of widespread interest and unusual 
 fascination," he finds, "a human document of many 
 problems that well repay the decipherer and the dis- 
 coverer. My aim throughout has been to quicken 
 research into life, and to furnish a new study of her 
 striking temperament and the temperaments which be- 
 came so curiously interwoven both with each other 
 and with history. I venture also to hope," he adds, 
 "that Nelson's own character and achievements stand 
 more fully revealed by the fresh lights and side-lights 
 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 ac- 
 tions." 
 
 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 husband quoted in his book of 1772: — "The 
 heroine of a thousand things." 
 
^vLe*^r-«~ \<^oOi MWUaAjm* 
 Vxo^ V3Kft V<A^c^h 'W-o-v*. <^ \vQ_OvCb 
 
 Y<~* *W^ \L* \at<lvj^ ^^ ^ WvMo 
 
 Letter from Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton 
 [See next page, also pp. 197-199] 
 
NOTE ON NELSON'S LETTER 
 (Reproduced on foregoing page) 
 
 The circumstances calling for this remarkable letter 
 are given in full in Chapter VII. "Nelson was in chase 
 of Buonaparte's fleet," it begins. The English admiral's 
 instructions were to water and provide his fleet in any 
 Mediterranean port, except in Sardinia, if necessary 
 by arms. The success of his expedition absolutely 
 depended upon it. The various ports, however, were 
 so dominated by Napoleon, then at the height of his 
 power, that they dared not welcome the English, even 
 if willing. 
 
 At this critical juncture, the woman's hand suc- 
 ceeded where the mailed fist might have failed. Lady 
 Hamilton's husband was Ambassador to Naples, and 
 she herself exerted a vital influence in affairs of that 
 little kingdom, not so much through her husband's 
 position, as her own close friendship with Queen Caro- 
 lina of Naples. She obtained secret permission from the 
 Queen to obtain supplies for the fleet, in a personal 
 note so jealously guarded that when it is forwarded 
 to Nelson, Lady Hamilton entreats him to "kiss it, and 
 send it back by Bowen, as I am bound not to give any 
 of her letters." 
 
 The overjoyed Admiral hastened to kiss the pre- 
 cious missive; his ships were quickly supplied; and not 
 long thereafter the news that the French fleet had 
 been destroyed in the Battle of the Nile thrilled the 
 world. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE CURTAIN RISES — 1 765- 1 782 
 
 ON the morning of January 10, 1782, the punctil- 
 ious and elegant Honourable Charles Francis 
 Greville, gloomy still over the loss of his War- 
 wick 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 
 and fashionable Portman Square, hung the loaned 
 " Venus " attributed to Correggio, and slightly re- 
 touched 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.B., Fel- 
 low of the Antiquarian and the Royal Societies, mem- 
 ber 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 virtuoso of Port- ■ 
 land vase celebrity, and already for about eighteen 
 years His Britannic Majesty's amiably-grumbling Am- 
 bassador at the Court of the King of the two Sicilies. 
 Greville's natural sangfroid was not easily ruffled, but 
 this letter almost excited him. It was franked by 
 
 14 
 
14 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 himself 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., 1 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 girl in 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." 
 
 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, 
 
 1 Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh, of Up Park, Sussex, who lived 
 to correspond in middle age with her in terms of deferential 
 friendship. His name is thus spelt in his letters. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 15 
 
 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 baptised 
 on June 8 following. He was born prematurely old, 
 parsimoniously extravagant, 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 unlikelihood of sur- 
 viving 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 v'rtu with discern- 
 ment, and specimens of mineralogy on a " philo- 
 sophical " 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 al- 
 ways exchanging rarities with " Pliny the Younger," 
 or commissioning him to buy, sell, or raffle Dutch and 
 Italian pictures, Etruscan urns, Greek torsos, and Ro- 
 man vases. 
 
 Hamilton was a true man of science, and a really 
 
16 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 great archaeologist. When he first came to Naples in 
 1764 he spent months in his Villa Angelica, on the 
 slopes of Mount Vesuvius, taking observations and ex- 
 cavating antiquities. He was far less a trafficker in 
 objects of art and learning than his nephew. He pre- 
 sented 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." x Not 
 quite so, however, was that of Pliny the Younger, who 
 in his turn bought crystals and works of art with equal 
 zest of connoisseurship. 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 Herculaneum 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 coun- 
 sel that any youngster has ever addressed to one nearly 
 twice his age. They are so like himself that a small 
 part of one must be given : " I begin with a subject 
 that I have resolved every time I have wrote to men- 
 tion, and now particularly I am under an obligation 
 to remember, as for the first time my handkerchief 
 
 1 Observations on Mount Vesuvius, etc. (1772). The villa was 
 probably called after the artist. Hamilton constantly ran great 
 danger in observing and recording 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, travelers, scientists, and artists, including Flax- 
 man and Wedgwood. He was a trustee of the British Museum, 
 and a vice-president of the Society of Antiquaries. A big book 
 on his Greek and Roman antiquities was written by D'Harcau- 
 ville (Naples, 1765-1775; Paris, 1787). Besides the book already 
 mentioned, supplemented in 1779, Hamilton wrote Campi 
 Phlegrcei (Naples, 1776-77), and the famous work on Greek 
 and Etruscan urns, etc., illustrated by Bartolozzi. A Life 
 worthy of him ought to be written. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 17 
 
 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 bor- 
 rowed them, and left them with an intention they 
 should be sent to Mrs. Harfrere to whom they be- 
 long. . . . The ink bottle has this moment oversett, 
 but you see I am not disconcerted, so pray don't make 
 observations, and the letter is as good as it was. Pray 
 let me 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 11 with 
 Byres, from n-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 dis- 
 agreeable task, choose me a handsome pattern for an 
 applicee, have it wrought for me instantaneously, and 
 sent to Rome. I wish an Etrusc vase could be intro- 
 duced. It must be handsome and rich; as to its ele- 
 gance, anything, particularly 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 them aside for me, and 
 don't buy them if not well conserv'd and good; nor 
 
18 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 tan- 
 talised by the temptations of virtu, that other trite 
 Horatian maxim, Virtute me involvo, would also ad- 
 mirably 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 retrenched elsewhere, seems in his 
 correspondence all debt and Correggio; while Greville 
 removed to his mansion under pretext of its size be- 
 ing a bargain. Each sought to serve the other, and 
 Greville in his youth persistently charged his uncle to be 
 his depute. 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 Reyn- 
 olds picture of " Emily in the character of Thais," 
 which had been left on Sir Joshua's hands. His char- 
 acter 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 
 compound 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 ex- 
 cuse 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 trans- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 19 
 
 actions, 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 important committees six hours 
 at a stretch. He was a steadfast 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 
 for myself." He was worthy of his uncle's 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 ac- 
 cession to estates and title in 1773 reduced his allow- 
 ance afresh, and all his resource was needed to repair 
 the deficiency. 
 
 Socially a disciple of the old-fashioned Chesterfield, 
 and affecting to flout the opinion of a world that he 
 was far from despising, politically he was a trimming 
 Whig, but an unbending supporter of all authority 
 and establishment. He throve on coalitions, and la- 
 mented 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 
 soi-disant " Emily 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 glory, the notion of which grew with her 
 expanding horizon, these trivial 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 born on April 26 in 
 1765, the year of her baptism, unless, without reason, 
 
20 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 we are to assume her illegitimacy. The Neston parish 
 registers prove the marriage of her parents to have 
 taken place on June n, 1764. The rumours and fic- 
 tions about her early adventures, seemingly requiring 
 a longer space than her extreme girlhood affords, have 
 impelled certain biographers to antedate her birth by 
 so much as four years. But many references, both in 
 Greville's letters and Hamilton's, with other evidence 
 outside them, entirely tally with 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 in- 
 correct, as will be seen in the note below. Her mar- 
 riage register, it is true, is signed " Amy Lyons " ac- 
 cording to the Marylebone clerk's information, but 
 this again seems a natural misreading 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, al- 
 though her mother soon afterwards became " a 
 scholar." Her father died, it is said, 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 21 
 
 and has been here since the 6th inst. ;" but I can find 
 no further trace of this " brother," nor is there any 
 record of relatives on the father's side. 1 This Thomas 
 Kidd may well have been the son of a William Kidd, 
 "labourer," who, as "widower" in September, 1769, 
 in the Hawarden registers, married one " Mary Pova." 
 And William Kidd is possibly Lady Hamilton's cousin 
 or uncle, who was at one time a publican, and who used 
 to complain that he was " never brought up to work." 
 If this be so, something of the paternal strain seems 
 to have descended to the son, who, in the letter just 
 mentioned, excuses his remissness in calling, as re- 
 quested, by the insinuating remark that " I declare my 
 small cloaths are scandolous, and my hat has the crown 
 part nearly off " ; while he speaks pointedly of the at- 
 tentions of a " Mr. Ingram," who in turn refers to his 
 " justifiable character " in " His Majesty's service," 
 and suggests that, since both the porter of the west gate 
 and the " roasting cook " of the college are infirm and 
 ill, there is a choice of probable promotions awaiting 
 him. In after years it was not only her humble kins- 
 folk, whom she never forsook, that were to importune 
 Emma for advancements. 
 
 The Kidds were mostly sailors or labourers. Lady 
 Hamilton's grandmother, with whom in girlhood she 
 often stayed, and whom she always cared for and cher- 
 ished, dwelt in one of some thatched cottages, two of 
 which still remain. That Mary Lyon, nee Kidd, was a 
 superior woman, is shown by her after-acquirements. 
 Tradition associates her both with dressmaking and 
 with domestic service. If tradition again is trust- 
 worthy, she may have been cook in the household of 
 Lord Halifax, who is also reported to have educated 
 both her and her child. But Lady Hamilton herself, 
 
 1 At the last moment I have been informed that Emma had a 
 sister "Anna." 
 
22 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 writing to Mr. Bowen of Portman Square (and of 
 Merton?) in 1802 about Charlotte Nelson's education, 
 declares that her own did not begin till she was seven- 
 teen — that is to say, under Greville's auspices. I have 
 read 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 
 housekeeper and a most resourceful home-physician. 
 Her letters to Emma, to George Rose, and others, seem 
 neither ill-worded nor ill-spelt. At Naples and Pa- 
 lermo we shal,l 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 be- 
 fore dubbed her " Rufiiana." 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 off and stayed with Mrs. " Cado- 
 gan " at the hotel in St. James's. There is no evidence 
 as to how this homely and trustworthy woman came 
 by her grand name. Doggin, her second husband, 
 however, may not be a myth ; although the Marchioness 
 of Solari mentions that " Codogan " 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 com- 
 panion 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 23 
 
 Moore, afterwards, it would seem, successful in busi- 
 ness at Liverpool, but at one time addressed by Emma 
 at the house of a 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 Cran- 
 wich, 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 ungrate- 
 ful; while Charles, who entered the Navy under Nel- 
 son's protection, could write an excellent letter, but un- 
 fortunately went mad, for, as Lady Hamilton recorded 
 in a very curious statement regarding four of them, 
 " there was madness in the family." Ann's showed 
 itself in eventually asserting that she was Lady Ham- 
 ilton's daughter, for which there is no evidence; in- 
 deed, to her must be traced the unfounded rumour 
 spread by the chronique scandaleuse of the time that 
 Ann, Eliza, and Charles were Greville's three chil- 
 dren. Mary, too, was to be popular, and with all her 
 sisters intimate with the whole Nelson and Hamil- 
 ton 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. The Sarah (misspelt "Reynalds") who 
 finds a mention as grateful to her titled cousin in the 
 Morrison correspondence, was probably his daughter. 
 She may further have had another brother or cousin, 
 William, an entry regarding whom and his wife Mary 
 finds place also in the Hawarden parish books. There 
 were the " Nicolls," whom, just before her own bank- 
 ruptcy, Emma is found continuously maintaining with 
 the rest of her connections. And finally there are 
 traces of friends — of her Parkgate landlady in 1784, 
 
24 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Mrs. Downward, and of a Mrs. Ladmore whom she 
 seems to have known. 
 
 When we remember the bright and intelligent letters 
 that remain of this Connor family, their acquirements, 
 and the way in which they were treated and received, 
 the fairy-tale of Lady Hamilton's conquest over cir- 
 cumstance seems to have extended also to her rela- 
 tions. 
 
 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 perhaps thirteen) she was already a 
 grown woman, which explains 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 pro- 
 fessing to be circumstantial ; 1 while Alexandre Dumas 
 has embroidered 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 Lon- 
 don. 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 Rom- 
 ney 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. 
 1 Nelson's Legacy. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 25 
 
 A far more probable conjecture is that she left 
 Hawarden for London because her mother left also. 
 It seems probable from the letter to Greville, already 
 quoted, as well as from Greville's answer, which will 
 soon follow, that Mrs. " Cadogan " was already in 
 some London situation known to and approved of by 
 Greville. 
 
 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 Sea- 
 forth. When Sir William and Lady Hamilton re- 
 turned 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 " compan- 
 ion " of a vicious " Lady of Quality." The Prince 
 Regent, who was years afterwards to solicit and be re- 
 pulsed 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 
 presence at the battle of Waterloo. It was said, too, 
 
26 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 that she had been a model for the Academy students. 
 For such canards there is no certainty, and for many 
 rumours there is slight foundation. But there is a 
 shade of evidence to show that somewhere about 1781 
 she was in the service of the manager of Drury Lane 
 Theatre, Sheridan's father-in-law, Thomas Linley the 
 elder, and that she suddenly quitted it from grief at 
 the death of his young son, a naval lieutenant, whom 
 she had nursed. Angelo in his Reminiscences has 
 drawn the pathetic picture of his chance meeting with 
 her in Rathbone Place, a dejected figure clad in deep 
 mourning; he has added an earlier encounter and an 
 allusion to her brief sojourn with the " Abbess " of 
 Arlington Street, Mrs. Kelly, who may be identical 
 with the " Lady of Quality." If so, destitution must 
 have caused her downfall. Hitherto this girl of six- 
 teen, so beautiful that passers-by turned spellbound to 
 look at her, had rejected all overtures of evil. Writ- 
 ing to Romney after her marriage, in a letter which 
 seems to imply that she had known him even before her 
 acquaintance with Greville, 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 some- 
 thing of virtue in my mind. Oh, my dear friend, for 
 a time I own through distress my virtue was van- 
 quished, but my sense of virtue was not overcome." 
 Some two years earlier, when she had insisted on ac- 
 companying Sir William on a shooting expedition, 
 and he had evidently remonstrated about hardship, 
 rough lodging did not deter her; she had been accus- 
 tomed to it. 
 
 From Angelo's story it would appear that her 
 earliest admirer was Fetherstonehaugh, who will soon 
 cross the scene, and who in her later years was to 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 27 
 
 emerge friendly and even respectful. But the name of 
 her first betrayer has been so constantly given as that 
 of " Captain," afterwards Rear-Admiral, " Jack " Wil- 
 let-Payne, man of fashion, member of Parliament, .and 
 eventually treasurer of Greenwich Hospital, that the 
 story cannot be wholly discredited. 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 sole side- 
 light, afforded by an unnoticed letter from Nelson of 
 1 80 1, which proves that she had confided much of her 
 past to her hero, more probably refers to Greville: 
 " That other chap did throw away the most precious 
 jewel that God ever sent on this earth." 
 
 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 de- 
 parture that this lonely girl fell in with Dr. Graham, 
 the empiric and showman. How she met him is un- 
 known : 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 Petti- 
 grew, who had known several of her early contem- 
 poraries, that one can hardly doubt it. The sole evi- 
 dence 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 adver- 
 tisement 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 
 
28 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 himself, 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 " Hygieia," or Goddess of Health, 
 though certainly not as his later tableau vivant of 
 " Hebe Vestina." 
 
 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 Pompeian Isis. He was no mere conjurer; he ef- 
 fected 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 re- 
 ceived 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 " his- 
 torian," 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 Sawbridge, M.P. for London." 
 He posed as a sort of prayerful alchemist, eradicating 
 and healing at once the causes of vice, and its conse- 
 quences. His advertisements are a queer union of 
 cant earnestness, travestied truth, sensible nonsense, 
 humour and the lack of it, effrontery and belief — 
 especially in himself. After he had closed his costly 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 29 
 
 and ruinous London exhibitions, he turned " Christian 
 Philosopher " 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 III. one of his numerous 
 "prayers." His specialty in 1780 (and throughout 
 his career) was the then derided but now accepted elec- 
 tricity and mud-baths. By their means he claimed to 
 restore and preserve beauty, to prolong existence, 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 
 paintings, gilt statues, and coloured windows, where 
 up to ten o'clock nightly he advertised his wares to 
 the sound of sweet music, in his " Temple of ^Escu- 
 lapius " at the Royal Terrace, Adelphi. His pamphlets, 
 sermons, hymns, exhortations, and satires, were rained 
 on the town. In one of these pieces of fulsome reclame 
 he describes his museum of elixirs as Emma may have 
 viewed it in 1780 or 1781. Over the porch stood 
 the inscription " Templum iEsculapio 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 beautiful figure 
 of Fecundity," holding her cornucopia and surrounded 
 by reclining children ; and above all, an " electric " 
 " celestial glory," which, mellowed by the stained win- 
 dows, shed a dim and solemn light. Strains of 
 
30 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 majestic melody filled the air; and here also were sold 
 his " Nervous Balsam " and " Electrical y£ther " ; 
 while in the mornings this reverse of " seraphic " doc- 
 tor punctually attended consultations in the dwelling- 
 rooms adjoining. 
 
 Whether such ambrosial tomfoolery yielded Emma 
 an intermittent livelihood at all, 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 beau and sportsman, in- 
 dulging in compliments pompous as his political reflec- 
 tions, and interlarding his correspondence with super- 
 fluous French. In his old age he educated and mar- 
 ried a most worthy peasant girl, and brought her sis- 
 ter (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 Ports- 
 mouth and the Isle of Wight. Here this erring and 
 struggling girl, for a brief space, it may be 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 ad- 
 miration which her tableau vivant in the Adelphi had 
 already aroused among clever Bohemians. Here, per- 
 haps in despair, she became so reckless and capricious, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 31 
 
 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 moment 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 1781, on one of those shooting- 
 parties in great houses which he always frequented 
 more from fashion than amusement. She had doubt- 
 less contrasted him with Sir Harry's stupid and com- 
 monplace acquaintances. Greville always took real in- 
 terest in people who interested him at all, and at least 
 he never acted below, his professions. He was nobly 
 bred, considerate, and composed; he was good-look- 
 ing, prudent, and ever liberal — in advice. No wonder 
 that his condescension seemed ideal to this girl of six- 
 teen, who had lost yet coveted self-respect; who had 
 already suffered from degrading experience, and yet 
 had ever " felt something of virtue " in her " mind." 
 He had afterwards (as his letter will show) be- 
 friended and scolded her headstrong sallies, though 
 his warnings must have passed unheeded. On her 
 retirement in disgrace and despair to her loving grand- 
 mother 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 de- 
 
'32 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 pendent 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 Southwell, 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 Rom- 
 ney and Hayley. 
 
 It is " Emly Hart's " pleading and pathetic note, 
 then, that Charles Greville still holds in his fastidious 
 hands on this winter morning. With a glance at his 
 statues, specimens, and the repaired Venus, and pos- 
 sibly with a pang at the thought of the plight to which 
 this " modern piece of 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 in- 
 vented by James Watt ; it was a minute of semi-official 
 importance. The letter is long, and extracts will suf- 
 fice; it will be gathered that he was more prig than 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 33 
 
 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 de- 
 serve good treatment, 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 pre- 
 serve 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 de- 
 cide some points before you come to town. You are 
 sensible that for the next three months your situation 
 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 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 determination. You must, 
 however, do either the one or the other. . . . You may 
 
34 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 easily see, my dearest Emily, why it is absolutely neces- 
 sary 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 avoiding 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 your- 
 self. 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 determina- 
 tion and let me hear from you once more. Adieu, my 
 dear Emily." * 
 
 And with this salutation Greville folds his paper 
 with precision and addresses it, in the complacent be- 
 lief that it is irresistible. Truly an impeccable shep- 
 1 Morrison MS. 114, January 10, 1782. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 35 
 
 herd 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, how- 
 ever, 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 ap- 
 pears 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 re- 
 source in Art, and there is to them no interval between 
 plain ground and the precipice; and the springs of ac- 
 tion 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 bom- 
 bast which would render the man who gave way to 
 it the air of a dupe and a fool. It requires much con- 
 duct 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 at- 
 tention; 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 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 2 
 
g6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 when a woman can see more than one alternative of 
 comfort or despair, of attention and desertion, they can 
 take a line." 1 
 
 Thus Greville — the prudent psychologist of woman- 
 kind and the nice moralist of the immoral. His meta- 
 phor of the " trout " must have appealed to that keen 
 fisherman, his " dear Hamilton." Greville angled for 
 " disinterested " hearts with a supple rod. His " sys- 
 tem " was to attach friendship rather than to rivet af- 
 fection; to " play " a woman's heart in the quick stream 
 of credulous emotion past the perilous eddies of head- 
 long impulse with the bait of self-esteem, till it could 
 be safely landed in a basket, to be afterwards trans- 
 ferred 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 sports- 
 man 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 contemplat- 
 ing a less expensive shrine for his minerals and old 
 masters. He was anxious to be quit of Portman 
 Square, 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 Morrison MS. 156, November (?) 1786. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 " THE FAIR TEA-MAKER OF EDGWARE ROW " 
 
 March 1782 — August 1784 
 
 A GIRLISH voice, fresh as the spring morning on 
 Paddington 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. Na- 
 ture 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 of another matter. 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 inclosure of a quaint old church, in a vault of 
 
 37 
 
38 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 ; Nol- 
 lekens 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 his- 
 tory 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 hos- 
 pital. The canal, meandering as far as Bolingbroke's 
 Hayes in one direction, and Lady Sarah Child's Nor- 
 wood in the other, was not finished till 1801, when 
 Lady Hamilton may have witnessed its opening cere- 
 mony. 
 
 Greville, still saddled with his town abode, at once 
 economised. The Edgware Row establishment was 
 modest in both senses of the word. He brought repu- 
 table friends to the house, and a few neighbouring ladies 
 seem to have called. The household expenses did not 
 exceed some £150 a year. Emma's own yearly allow- 
 ance was only about £50, and she lived well within it. 
 Her mother was a clever manager, whose services the 
 thrifty prodigal appreciated. The existing household 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 39 
 
 accounts in Emma's handwriting only start in 1784, 
 but from them some idea may be 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 preservation 
 both by nephew and uncle. 
 
 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 satis- 
 fied with her lot. Had not her knight-errant (or 
 erring) dropped from heaven? From the first she re- 
 garded him as a superior being, and by 1784 she came 
 to love him with intense tenderness ; indeed she ideal- 
 ised 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 
 circumstances which, by comparison, she viewed as 
 almost conjugal. Her petulant temper remained un- 
 quelled 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 let- 
 ters two years onwards, when she was sea-bathing at 
 Parkgate : "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 
 view, which I am determined to practice, and that is 
 eveness of temper and steadin[e]ss of mind. For 
 endead I have thought so much of your amable good- 
 ness 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 
 
40 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 compar- 
 rasons, 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- 
 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 substantially to admit of its being 
 fiction) Greville took her to Ranelagh, and was an- 
 noyed 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 at- 
 tire, and, weeping, entreated him to retain her thus 
 or be quit of her. This episode may well have 
 been the source of Romney's picture " The Seam- 
 stress." 
 
 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 41 
 
 have been present, too, when in the new " Marylebone 
 Gardens " Signor Torre gave one of his firework dis- 
 plays of Mount Etna in eruption. If so, how odd 
 must she afterwards have thought it, that her hus- 
 band was to be the leading authority on Italian and 
 Sicilian volcanoes ! But what at once amazed Greville 
 — the paragon of ml 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 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 pleas' d with accidental admiration than that of 
 crozvds which now distress her. In short, this habit, 
 of three or four years' acquiring, is not a caprice, but is 
 easily to be continued. . . ." " 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 plainness which, tho' I might have 
 wished for, I could not have proposed to confine her 
 [to]." 
 
 Their visitors seem to have included his brother and 
 future executor, Colonel the Honourable Robert Fulke- 
 Greville, with perhaps, too, his kinsmen the Cathcarts; 
 afterwards, the sedate Banks, a Mr. Tollemache, the 
 Honourable Heneage Legge, whom we shall find meet- 
 ing her just before her marriage, and oftener the artist 
 Gavin Hamilton, Sir William's namesake and kinsman. 
 He at once put Emma on his " list of favorites," re- 
 minding him, as she did, of a Roman beauty that he 
 
; 4 2 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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, ex- 
 cept in illness, was never a late riser. One portrait of 
 her, unmentioned in our previous list, represents her 
 reading the Gazette with a startled expression. I have 
 been informed (though at first I thought otherwise) 
 that this is really a likeness of her in the character of 
 Serena reading scandal about herself in the pages of a 
 journal. " While," 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 happened to be 
 placed by the concurrence of peculiar circumstances 
 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 Ele- 
 gance 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 inter- 
 course with her she was treated with the utmost re- 
 spect, 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 " Bac- 
 chante " he painted her countenance alone ; while Hay- 
 ley, in his Life of the painter, speaks of" the high and 
 constant admiration " with which Romney contem- 
 plated not only the " personal " but the " mental en- 
 dowments 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 43 
 
 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 
 expression. Romney delighted in observing the won- 
 derful command she possessed over her eloquent 
 features." He called her his " inspirer." To Rom- 
 ney, 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- 
 ing to her would seem to be Hayley, to whom she al- 
 ways 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, ego- 
 tistical eccentric, who successively parted from two 
 wives with whom he yet continued to correspond in af- 
 fectionate friendship. Curiously enough, Hayley's 
 rhymed satirical comedies * are much the best of his 
 otherwise stilted verses. He must have remembered 
 Hamilton and Greville when, in one of them, he makes 
 " Mr. Beril " account for his ownership of a lovely 
 Greek statue: 
 
 1 The Happy Prescription (1784) and The Two Connoisseurs 
 are brilliant vers de societe. For Horace Walpole's poor opinion 
 of his authorship, cf. Letters, vol. viii. pp. 235, 236, 251. 
 
£4 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 "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 " Var- 
 nish " : 
 
 " I protest your remark is ingenious and new, 
 You have gusto 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, undecay'd, 
 E'en thy Campaspe would not dare to vie 
 With the wild splendour of Cassandra's eye." 
 
 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 ar- 
 rested 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." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 45 
 
 " 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 Affection'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 Ham- 
 ilton, the Ambassador's marriage with whom in 1757 
 had been mainly one of convenience, though it had 
 proved one also of comfort 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 
 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 de famille at 
 this court than ever were the ministers of France, 
 Spain, and Vienna. Whenever there is a good shoot- 
 ing-party H.S. Majesty is pleased to send for me, and 
 for some months past I have had the honour of dining 
 
46 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 homeli- 
 ness is forgot in a moment "; and he concludes with the 
 usual complaint that — unlike his predecessor, Sir Will- 
 iam Lynch — he has not yet been made " Privy Coun- 
 cillor." So dissatisfied was he that in 1774 he had 
 tried hard on one of his periodical home visits to ex- 
 change his ambassadorship at Naples for one at 
 Madrid ; and hitherto science, music, pictures, archaeol- 
 ogy, sport, and gallantry had 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 recommended him 
 as bear-leader to the many English visitors 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 pur- 
 sued his long rambles, sporting, artistic, or sentimental, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 47 
 
 she sat at home praying for her elderly Pierrot's 
 eternal welfare. Her example dispensed with pre- 
 cepts, and hoped to win her wanderer back imper- 
 ceptibly. How little she deserved the caricature 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 num- 
 ber of years we have been married, instead of dimin- 
 ishing 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 re- 
 turn 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 protect him in all dangers and in 
 all situations. Have mercy upon us both, oh Lord, 
 and turn our hearts to Thee." 
 
 " A few days, nay a few hours . . . may render 
 me incapable 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 
 
48 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 necessary. 
 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 Pem- 
 brokeshire vault. A possibly 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 num- 
 ber the divorced lady who became Margravine of 
 Anspach, the " sweet little creature qui a I'honneur de 
 me plaire," and whom he pitied ; a " Madame 
 Tschudy " ; a " Lady A.," contrasted by Greville in 
 1785 with Emma; and, perhaps platonically, those 
 gifted artists Diana Beauclerk, once Lady Bolingbroke, 
 and Mrs. Darner, who was to sculpture one of the two 
 busts of Nelson done from the life. In England as 
 well as Naples flirtation was the order of the day. Yet 
 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 discrim- 
 inating taste. He was a Stoic-Epicurean, a " philoso- 
 pher." His confession of faith and outlook upon ex- 
 istence 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 fluctu- 
 ation 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, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 49 
 
 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 in- 
 disposition 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 extraordinary suffer- 
 ing, 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 consolation 
 that to the last you shew'd that kindness and attention 
 to her which she deserved. / 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 affairs, the troubles of trusteeships, and 
 the bequest by Lord Seaforth of a rare cameo, alas! in- 
 tervened, and therefore he could not come. So Mount 
 Vesuvius-Hamilton hurried to Mahomet-Greville, and 
 doubtless, after a little virtu and more business, re- 
 turned 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 coali- 
 tion was on the wane. For a brief interval it returned, 
 and Greville breathed again, pocketing a small promo- 
 tion in the general scramble for office. In 1783, how-. 
 
150 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ever, the great Pitt entered on his long reign, and Grev- 
 ille's heart sank once more. His post, however, was 
 confirmed, despite his conscientious disapproval of re- 
 forms 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 pictures 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 be- 
 grudge his Sieve 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 
 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 ac- 
 counts. 
 
 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 everything else in 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 51 
 
 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 per- 
 petual 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 be- 
 lieved himself his uncle's heir, but as yet 'twas " not 
 so nominated in the bond." Sir William might well 
 remarry. There was Lord Middleton's second daugh- 
 ter in Portman Square, a twenty thousand pounder, 
 weighing on the scales, a fish claimed by Greville's own 
 rod. But with others, the Court of Naples, an alli- 
 ance with a widower kinsman of the Hamiltons, the 
 Athols, the Abercorns, and the Grahams, enriched too 
 by recent death, were solidities that might well out- 
 weigh his paltry pittance of six hundred a year. And 
 if the widower re-married ? — As for Emma, it was of 
 course absurd to consider her. She adored her 
 Greville, and should uncle William choose to play 
 light father in this little farce, he could raise no ob- 
 jection. 
 
 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 
 
52 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 Grev- 
 ille. 
 
 And so she left the smoke and turmoil, hopeful and 
 trustful. Mother and child would at length be re- 
 united under purer skies and by the wide expanse of 
 sea. All the mother within her stirred and called 
 aloud; her heart was ready to "break" at the sum- 
 mons. 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 sooh as you can; 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 53 
 
 . . . 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 uncom- 
 fortable; 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 granmother 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 gran- 
 mother live together, and we board with her at present. 
 . . . The price is high, but they don't lodge anybody 
 without boarding; and as it is comfortable, decent, 
 and quiet, I thought it wou'd not ruin us, till I could 
 have your oppionon, which 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 
 
54 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 riming on. I say nothing 
 abbout this guidy, wild girl of mine. What shall we 
 do with her, Greville ? . . . Wou'd you believe, on Sat- 
 tarday 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 me ' 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, for 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 55 
 
 poor miserable 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 mis- 
 take, 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 rate 
 it is better than paying the docter. But wright your 
 oppinion truly, and tell me what to do. Emma is cry- 
 ing because I won't come and bathe. So Greville, adue 
 till after I have dipt. May God bless you, my dear- 
 est 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 compli- 
 ments to Pliney, 1 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 remember him with pleasure, and shall allways 
 1 Sir W. Hamilton. 
 
56 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 regret loesing [h]is good comppany. Tell him I wish 
 him every happiness 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 5 weeks, you know; and then the expense 
 is above 2 guineas a week with washing . . . and 
 everything. ..." " With what impatience 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 
 grateful. But this was not the letter for which she 
 looked. What she wanted was omniscience's per- 
 mission for " little Emma " to share their home, to 
 let her be a mother indeed. After a week two " scold- 
 ing " notes were his reply. " Little Emma " in Edg- 
 ware 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 my poor Emma will be comfortable 
 and happy . . . and if she does but turn out well, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 57 
 
 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 mother and sister. The latter is a 
 very genteel yong lady, good-nattured, and does every- 
 thing 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. . . . PS. — . . . 
 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." x 
 
 Empowered by the Sultan of Edgware Row, the 
 two Emmas, to their great but fleeting joy, were suf- 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 128. There is, of course, no conclusive evi- 
 dence for identifying " little Emma " with the nameless child 
 born early in 1782, but I can see no reason otherwise, or for 
 supposing an earlier "Emma." 
 
58 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 fered 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 dear- 
 est 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 own the justice of your 
 remarks. You shall have your appartment to your- 
 self, 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 my- 
 self happy abbove my sphear. So, my dear G., come 
 home. . . . You shall find 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 con- 
 sidered 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 59 
 
 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 " prepared " her mind for another separa- 
 tion, 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 posi- 
 tion of correct deportment. In August he bade fare- 
 well to his indulgent uncle, whom, indeed, he had " rea- 
 son " to remember with as much " gratitude and affec- 
 tion " as Emma did. Romney was commissioned to 
 paint her as the " Bacchante " for the returning Am- 
 bassador, 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 contemplated an 
 exchange seems more than doubtful. But the secretive 
 Greville had already begun to harbour an idea, soon 
 turned into a plan, and perpetually justified as a piece 
 of benevolent unselfishness. While the ship bears the 
 unwedded 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 III 
 
 " WHAT GOD, AND GREVILLE, PLEASES " 
 
 To March, 1786 
 
 44 ~W 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-. 1 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 bar- 
 gain " shortly to be struck after much obliquity, 
 Greville's shabbiness consists, if we reflect on the pre- 
 vailing tone of his age and set, not so much in the dis- 
 guised transfer — a mean trick in itself — as in the fact 
 
 1 In the first picture of the " Bacchante." Some trace of a goat 
 as well as of a dog figures in all the known versions. 
 
 60 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 61 
 
 that, while he had no reproach to make and was avow- 
 edly 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 absolute confi- 
 dence, so wary a strategist would scarcely have ven- 
 tured on the attempt, since his future prospects largely 
 depended on her never disadvantaging him with Sir 
 William. That she never did so, even in the first burst 
 of bitter disillusion; that she always, and zealously, 
 advocated his interests, redounds to her credit and 
 proves her magnanimity. A revengeful woman, whose 
 love and self-love had been wounded to the quick, 
 might have ruined him, as the censor of Paddington 
 was well aware. That he continued to approve his part 
 in these delicate negotiations is shown by the fact of 
 preserving these letters after they came into his pos- 
 session as his uncle's executor. He never ceased to pro- 
 test that his motives in the transaction were for her own 
 ultimate good. He was not callous, but he was Jesuit- 
 ical. Let him pursue his scattered hints further : — 
 
 " This is another part of my situation. If I was in- 
 dependent I should think so little of any other con-, 
 nexion that I never would marry. I have not an idea 
 of it at present, but if any proper opportunity offer'd 
 I shou'd be much harassed, not know how to manage, 
 or how to fix Emma to her satisfaction; and to forego 
 the reasonable plan which you and my friends ad- 
 vised is not right. I am not quite of an age to re- 
 tire from bustle, and to retire into distress and poverty 
 is worse. I can keep on here creditably this winter. 
 The offer I made of my pictures is to get rid of the 
 Humberston engagements which I told you of. I have 
 a £1000 ready and 1000 to provide. I therefore am 
 making money. If Ross will take in payment from 
 me my bond with your security, I shall get free from 
 Humberston affairs entirely, and be able to give them 
 
62 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 up. It is indifferent to me whether what I value is in 
 your keeping or mine. I will deposit with you gems 
 which you shall value at above that sum. ... It will 
 be on that condition I will involve you, for favor I take 
 as favor, and business as business." 
 
 His subsequent communications dole out the grow- 
 ing plot by degrees and approaches; he works by sap 
 and mine. In March, 1785, after discussing politics 
 at large, he doubts if his uncle's " heart or his feet " 
 are " the lightest." He compliments him on his energy 
 in sport, flirtation, and friendship — " quests " not " in- 
 compatible " in " a good heart." He moots his design 
 in the light of Hamilton's welfare. " He must be a 
 very interested friend indeed who does not sincerely 
 wish everything that can give happiness to a friend." 
 He is convinced that each of them can sincerely judge 
 for the other. He does not, of course, venture to 
 " suppose " an " experiment " for the diplomatist ; but 
 he himself has made the happiest though a " limited " 
 experiment, which, however, " from poverty . . . can- 
 not last " ; his poverty but not his will consents. And 
 then he opens the scheme. " // you did not chuse a 
 wife, I wish the tea-maker of Edgware Rozve was 
 yours, if I could without banishing myself from a visit 
 to Naples. I do not know hozu to part with what I 
 qm not tired with. I do not know hoiv to go on, and 
 I give her every merit of prudence and moderation and 
 affection. She shall never want, and if I decide sooner 
 !han I am forced to stop by necessity, it will be that I 
 may give her part of my pittance; and, if I do so it 
 must be by sudden resolution and by putting it out of 
 her power to refuse it for I know her disinterestedness 
 to be such that she will rather encounter any difficulty 
 than distress me. I should not write to you thus, if I 
 did not think you seem'd as partial as I am to her. She 
 would not hear at once of any change, and from no 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 63 
 
 one that was not liked by her. I think I could secure 
 on her near f 100 a year. It is more than in justice 
 to all I can do; but with parting with part of my virtu, 
 I can secure it to her and content myself with the re- 
 mainder. I think you might settle another on her. 
 ... I am not a dog in the manger. If I could go on 
 I would never make this arrangement, but to be re- 
 duced to a standstill and involve myself in distress 
 further than I could extricate myself, and then to be 
 unable to provide for her at all, would make me mis- 
 erable from thinking myself unjust to her. And as 
 she is too young and handsome to retire into a con- 
 vent or the country, and is honorable and honest and 
 can be trusted, after reconciling myself to the neces- 
 sity I consider where she could be happy. I know you 
 thought me jealous of your attention to her; I can as- 
 sure you her conduct entitles her more. than ever to 
 my confidence. Judge, then, as you know my satisfac- 
 tion 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 tolerable and even com- 
 forting." 
 
 Having prepared the ground, he wrote again in the 
 following May, " without affectation or disguise." 
 Delicacy had prevented him from writing about " Lady 
 C [raven] " who, Hamilton's friends were glad to 
 learn, had departed. Would not all of them prefer one 
 like Emma? The " odds " in their own two lives were 
 not " proportioned 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 assurance that he was made his heir, 
 were mere credentials to be shown by Greville to a 
 
64 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 hon- 
 oured 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 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 be 
 gathered that the lady rejected him; Greville certainly 
 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-cham- 
 berlain in 1794, to Lady Hamilton's genuine pleasure, 1 
 his fortunes drooped. 
 
 Greville's tentatives were now at an end. At length 
 he laid a plain outline before Sir William : — " If you 
 
 1 Cf . her letter of congratulation (Sept. 16, 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, hon- 
 ester, 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." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 65 
 
 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 kindness to me if she would accept your invita- 
 tion, 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 Veturine 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-froid; and I am 
 sure I would not let her go to you, if any risque of the 
 usual coquetry of the sex being likely to give uneasi- 
 ness or appearance. ..." 
 
 Sir William's " invitation " was to be perfectly in- 
 nocent. She was to understand that her dear Greville's 
 interest demanded 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 un- 
 der the best masters, by studying the arts in their 
 motherland, by learning languages amid a cosmopol- 
 itan crowd ; that by October her fairy-prince would re- 
 appear, and, like another Orpheus, bring back his Eu- 
 rydice. 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 presumably left 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 
 
66 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 towards the child forbade any suspicion of his pur- 
 pose. 
 
 To Emma his prim platitudes were the loving elo- 
 quence of Romeo. And for the last few months he 
 had been always preaching up to her the spotless ex- 
 ample of a certain " Mrs. Wells," refined and accom- 
 plished, 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 re- 
 taining 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 future, arose the feeling that Emma her- 
 self was now too fond. It was hard to resign her; 
 but, unless the choice was quickly made, it might be- 
 come impossible ever to make it; and he might be en- 
 tangled into a marriage which would hold him up to 
 ridicule. 
 
 But for once Greville 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 pre- 
 vail 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, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 67 
 
 could not agree. He had discerned powers in this 
 singular woman passing Greville's vision, and the con- 
 noisseur 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 dis- 
 tressed " 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 agreeable 
 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 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 War- 
 wick; 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 bor- 
 ough. . . ." 
 
 It was not, therefore, Emma only who had grown 
 " much more considerate and amiable." Lord War- 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 3 
 
68 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 wick 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 lec- 
 tures of Edinburgh dominies, while his " minerals " 
 would remain 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 — still his faith- 
 ful servant in Nelson's day — 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 min- 
 erals, 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 
 some 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 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 69 
 
 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 8 
 months, and that if she really wish'd it I would for- 
 ward any letter she wrote. . . . That she would not 
 fear being troublesome, as she would be perfectly satis- 
 tied with the degree of attention you should from 
 choice give her, and that she should be very happy in 
 learning music, Italian, etc., while your avocations im- 
 ploy'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 " in- 
 terest." 
 
 Enclosed was Emma's own missive. " Embold- 
 ened " by Sir William's kindness when he was in Eng- 
 land, she recapitulated 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 fol- 
 low." 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." 
 
70 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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, have business to transact and 
 visiters to see,"— here Greville dictates again — " I shall 
 always keep my own room when you are better en- 
 gaged, 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. 1 But she at once felt wretched away 
 from the man she loved, and her sole comfort lay in for- 
 warding 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 
 1 Then the Embassy. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 71 
 
 you. 1 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 impossible. 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 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 do- 
 ing everything 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 
 
 1 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. 
 
72 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 every movement. He gave her presents and showed 
 her all that romantic antiquity which he loved, under- 
 stood, and explained so well. She had gazed on Posi- 
 lippo, 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. Darner," 
 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 enchanted bay. The Ambassa- 
 dor'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 amuse- 
 ment. 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 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 car- 
 riage 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 con- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 73 
 
 junctures 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 purpose in ex- 
 iling 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, ex- 
 cept one to tell her how grateful was the nephew for 
 the uncle's care ; and still Sir William looked and lan- 
 guished. The truth began to dawn upon her, but even 
 now she dare not face, and would not believe it. At the 
 close of July, when Naples drowses and melts in dreamy 
 haze, she made her 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 fare- 
 well. 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 per- 
 
74 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 haps, 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 deter- 
 mination, 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 insupportable 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 for- 
 lorn. 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 every- 
 thing, 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 
 
 She awaited Greville's orders. Sir William had 
 commissioned still another portrait of her from Rom- 
 ney; " 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 
 1 Morrison MS. 152, July 22, 1786. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 75 
 
 for which she waited. She had just visited Pompeii 
 and viewed the wrecks of love and bloom and life un- 
 earthed 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 ad- 
 vise me ! — you that used to envy my smiles ! Now 
 with cool 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 everything 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 
 
?6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 happy without you." — " Little Lord Brooke is dead. 
 Poor little boy, how I envy him his happiness." 
 
 She had been degraded in her own eyes, and by the 
 lover whom she had heroised. Was this, then, the re- 
 ward of modesty regained; of love returned, of strenu- 
 ous 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 hear- 
 ing from you. Pray, write as often as you can. // 
 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 eleve. 
 
 But at the same time in these few months a larger 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 77 
 
 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, / will make him marry me. God bless you for 
 ever." x 
 
 And amid all her tumult of disillusionment, of un- 
 certainty, of bewilderment in the new influence she 
 was visibly wielding over new surroundings, she re- 
 mained 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 disap- 
 pointment caused by Romney's inability to comply with 
 a request dear to him 2 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 dc I'inclus est volant, 
 Hxez-le: si on admet le ton de la vertu sans la verite, 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 153, August 1, 1786. Some of the sentences 
 are quoted in the order of 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. 
 
78 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 on est la dupe, et je place naturellement tout stir le 
 pied vrai, comme j'ai toujours fait, et je constate I'etat 
 actuel sans me reporter a vous." One must not be 
 duped by the tone without the truth of virtue! The 
 " self-respect," then, instilled by him, was never de- 
 signed 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. Grev- 
 ille 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 com- 
 promise. For Emma 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 na- 
 ture, had dreaded permanence; 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 
 probably intended her to study : — 
 
 "... I shall hope to manage to all our satisfac- 
 tion, for I so long foresaw that a moment of separa- 
 tion must arrive, that I never kept the connexion, but 
 on the footing of perfect liberty to her. Its com- 
 mencement 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 79 
 
 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 view of her situation she will retain the pro- 
 tection and affection of us both. For after all, con- 
 sider 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 in- 
 dulgence 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 of her passion bal- 
 lances the beauty of the smiles. If a person knew her 
 and could live for life with her, by an economy of at- 
 tention, that is by constantly renewing very little atten- 
 tions, she would be happy and good temper'd, for she 
 has not a grain of avarice or self-interest'. . . . Know- 
 ing all this, infinite have been my pains to make her re- 
 spect herself, and act fairly, and I had always proposed 
 to continue her friend, altho' the connexion ceased. I 
 had proposed to make her accept and manage your kind 
 provision, 1 and she would easily have adopted that 
 plan; it was acting the part of good woman, and to 
 offer to put her regard to any test, and to shozv 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, be- 
 cause it arose out of the real situation, than any which 
 by conversation 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 incon- 
 
 1 Sir William offered to settle £100 annually, and Greville a 
 like sum, on her. Romney was to have been a trustee. 
 
80 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 veniently to others when our actions are founded on 
 an imaginary plan which does not place the persons in- 
 volved 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 con- 
 cern. . . . 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 sta- 
 tion." 
 
 Thus vEneas-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 ex- 
 cused 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 himself 
 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 useless 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 IV 
 
 APPRENTICESHIP AND MARRIAGE 
 I787-I79I 
 
 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 moun- 
 tain. 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 assassina- 
 tion, 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 superstition and reckless revel, midway, as it 
 were, between God and Satan. The bakers celebrat- 
 ing their patron, Saint Joseph ; the priests their child- 
 like "saint-humorous," San Filippo Neri; high and 
 low alike, their civic patrons, Saints Anthony and Janu- 
 arius, whose liquefying blood each January propitiated 
 Vesuvius. Preaching Friars, dreaming Friars; sing- 
 ing, sceptical, enjoying- Abbes. A country luxuriant 
 
 81 
 
82 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 not only with southern growths, but garlanded 
 even in February by banks of wild violets and tan- 
 gles 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 dedicated to learn- 
 ing; hard by on either side, the twin strongholds of 
 Uovo 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," commented this astute observer, resenting 
 the mention of his name at Naples, " either feels or 
 acts a part " ; and change of dramatis persona was 
 necessary, he added, " to make Emma happy " and 
 himself " free." But his careful prescription of the 
 immaculate " Mrs. Wells " only partially succeeded. 
 True, the elderly friend was soon to become the at- 
 tached lover, and the prudential lover a forgiven friend ; 
 but he ceased henceforward to be " guide " or " phi- 
 losopher," 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 83 
 
 been betrayed and rudely shaken. What she longed 
 for was a friend, and she could never simulate what 
 she did not feel. 1 His gentle respect, his chivalry, con- 
 trasting with Greville's cynical taskmastership, his per- 
 suasive endearments, eventually 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 every- 
 thing." He was to her " every kind name in one." 
 " I believe," she told him early in 1787, " 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. Already by the opening of 1788 she had 
 come to master the language and the society of Naples. 
 Disobedient to his nephew, and his niece Mrs. Dickin- 
 son, who remonstrated naturally but in vain, Sir Will- 
 iam insisted on her doing the honours, which she aston- 
 ished him by managing, as he thought, to perfection. 
 Every moment spared from visits abroad or her hos- 
 pitalities 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 " kind- 
 ness and intelligence," had already been acknowledged 
 by Romney as a source of inspiration ; her unique " At- 
 titudes," her voice which, under Galluci's tuition, she 
 was now beginning " to command," even her free and 
 easy manners when contrasted with those of the 
 
 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 choked with meanings, for which I can find no ut- 
 terance ! " 
 
84 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Neapolitan noblesse, all seemed miracles, broke down 
 the easy barriers of susceptible southerners, and gained 
 her hosts of " sensible admirers." So early as Febru- 
 ary, 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 Am- 
 bassador " 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 un- 
 published letter, " that I love him so much that I have 
 not a warm look left for the Neapolitans." His even- 
 ings, he wrote, were sweet with song and admiring 
 guests, while her own society rendered them a " com- 
 fort." Inclination went on steadily ripening, until it 
 settled within three years into deep mutual fondness. 
 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 ? "— * 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 85 
 
 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, which they pursued not as " pedan- 
 tical prigs " to air learning, but with zeal and pleasure 
 in the early mornings and fresh air of the " English " 
 gardens. Her aptitude and adaptiveness worked 
 wonders. Within a year she could take an intelligent 
 interest in the virtuoso's new volume, if we may judge 
 from Sir J. Banks, who some years later again bade 
 his old crony tell her that he hoped she admired Penel- 
 ope in his work on Urns. She aided his volcanic ob- 
 servations; Sir William laughed, and said she would 
 rival him with the mountain now. Both had already 
 stayed with, and she had enchanted, the Duke and 
 Duchess of St. Maitre at Sorrento, the musical 
 Countess of Mahoney at Ischia ; cries of " Una donna 
 vara," " bellissima creatura," 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 
 naivete won her adherents at every step. " All the fe- 
 male nobility, with the queen at their head," were 
 " distantly civil " to her already; none rude to Emma 
 were allowed within the precincts. Meddlers or cen- 
 sors were sent roundly to the right-about, and in- 
 formed that she was the sweetest, the best, the clev- 
 erest 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 worshipper had now fanned not so 
 much the flame, perhaps, as the incense of her un- 
 
86 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 feigned 1 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. Hamil- 
 ton, himself musical, used later on to accompany 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 en- 
 tered 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 
 transformations 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 ad- 
 ventures 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 be- 
 tray," seems rather to have " stooped to conquer " by 
 the approved methods of the same Goldsmith's heroine. 
 
 The scene of her debut is that of Opera, all moon- 
 light, flutter, music, and masquerade. Escaping in 
 
 1 Ci. Morrison MS. 164, 1787 (Emma to Sir William): ". . . My 
 comforter 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 gratitude remember it. . . ." And d. ibid. 172, 
 1788: "... I love Sir William, for he renounces all for me." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 87 
 
 the cool of the evening from her chambers, thronged 
 by artists, wax-modellers, and intaglio-cutters, she at- 
 tends Sir William's evening saunter in the royal gar- 
 dens at the fashionable hour. Her complexion so 
 much resembles apple-blossom, that beholders question 
 it, although she neither paints nor powders. Dapper 
 Prince Dietrichstein from Vienna (" Draydrixton " 
 in her parlance as in Acton's) attends her as " cavalier e 
 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 and 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, careworn 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 an- 
 tique." " 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." 1 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 re- 
 1 Morrison MS. 152, July 22, 1786. 
 
88 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 moves his hat, sits with it on his knees, and " when go- 
 ing 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, all 
 orange-blossom 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 compass of her 
 voice, when in fear and trembling she had been in- 
 duced 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 Tam- 
 bourin, in the character 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 — " we 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 Eng- 
 lish. I have one Cavaliere servente, and have brought 
 him with me,' pointing to Sir William." Hart, the 
 English musician, wept to hear her sing an air by Han- 
 del, pronouncing that in her the tragic and comic 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 89 
 
 Muses were so happily blended that Garrick would 
 have been enraptured. These were the very qualities 
 that even thus early distinguished her self-taught " At- 
 titudes," by common consent of all beholders a mar- 
 vel of artistic expression and refinement. Goethe, at 
 this moment in Naples, and certainly no biassed critic, 
 was an eye-witness. He had been introduced by his 
 friends, the German artists, 1 to the Maecenas Ambas- 
 sador and " his Emma." He thus records his im- 
 pressions : — 
 
 ". . . The Chevalier Hamilton, so long resident 
 here as English Ambassador, so long, too, connoisseur 
 and student of Art and Nature, has found their coun- 
 terpart 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 movements 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 him- 
 self. . . . We have already rejoiced in the spectacle 
 
 *Tischbein, Hackert, and Andreas, who, with others, were at 
 this time painting in Naples. 
 
9 o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 two evenings. Early to-morrow Tischbein paints 
 her." * 
 
 There are less familiar references also in the Italian 
 Journey. On Goethe's return from Sicily in May, the 
 author of Werther, occupied with the art, the peasant 
 life, and the geology of the neighbourhood, renewed 
 his acquaintance with the pair and acknowledges their 
 kindnesses. 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 mo- 
 tionless 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, 
 including the realistic 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. Perchance, he muses, the main 
 lack of his " fair hostess " is "geist " or soulfulness of 
 mind. Her dumb shows, he adds, were naturally un- 
 voiced, and voice alone expresses spirit. Even her 
 admired singing he then thought deficient in " ful- 
 ness." Had Goethe, however, known her whole na- 
 ture, 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, 
 1 Goethe, Italienische Reise, March 16, 1787. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 91 
 
 would have 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 Melville 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 en- 
 tered their neighbouring one. The guns salute; the 
 pinnace starts amid laughter, song, and roses, while 
 off 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 
 
92 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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. 1 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 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." Ascend- 
 ing, she meets the Prince-Royal. His " foolish 
 tuters," fearful of their charge's safety and their own, 
 escort him only halfway, and allow him but three 
 minutes for the sight. She asks him how he likes it. 
 " Bella, ma poca roba," replies the lad. Five hundred 
 yards higher he could have watched " the noblest, 
 sublimest sight in the world." But the " poor fright- 
 ened 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 [h]as been a prince paying us a visit. 
 He is sixty years of age, one of the first families, and 
 [h]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 con- 
 flagration. The contadina drops on her knees, call- 
 ing on the city's patron saints : " O fanaro mio, O An- 
 tonio mio ! " Emma falls down on hers, exclaiming, 
 " O Santa Loola mia, Loola mia! " Teresa rises, and 
 with open eyes inquires whether " her Excellency " 
 
 1 Alexandre Sauveur, who dared to love the Princess Ferdi* 
 nand, whose tutor he was. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 93 
 
 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 ungrateful ! He [h]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 ever see the 
 Virgin?' 'O yes,' says she, 'you are like every pic- 
 ture 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 oppor- 
 tunity 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 ex- 
 cellence 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 cen- 
 tury engraver, who was in the habit of firing off a 
 small cannon from the roof of his house every time he 
 had finished a successful plate. What a profuse med- 
 ley of candour and contrivance, of simplicity and van- 
 ity, of commonness and elegance, of courtesy and chal- 
 lenge, of audacity and courage, of quick-wittedness 
 and ignorance, of honest kindness and honest irrever- 
 
94 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ence! 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 les- 
 sons 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 let- 
 ter of this morning as I was buisy prepairing for to 
 go on my visit 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 de- 
 prived 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 regaining 
 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 95 
 
 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 Bea- 
 trice 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 becoming, 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 all- 
 ways laughing. She kissed my lips, cheeks, and fore- 
 head, 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 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 f reind 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 f reind, 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 pocket- 
 book of her own work, and bid me think of her, when 
 I saw it, and was many miles far of[f]; and years 
 
96 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 dif- 
 ferent from you, and how surprised was I in seeing 
 you tall in statu [r]e. We may read your heart in 
 your countenance, 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." x 
 
 The convent cloisters bordered on those " royal " 
 or " English " gardens which Sir William and she 
 were afterwards 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 than pathetic. It sounds 
 like some interlude by Beaumarchais, and recalls 
 Rosina of 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.' " 2 
 
 The madcap belle's stratagem was this. Walking 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 160, January 10, 1787. It should here be com- 
 memorated that one of her first actions at Naples was to pro- 
 cure a post for Robert White, a protege of Greville. 
 
 "Goethe, Italienische Reise, March 16, 1787. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 97 
 
 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, how- 
 ever, 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 everything was committed 
 to paper. 1 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 
 disclose the name of her unknown importuner. There- 
 upon 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 Will- 
 iam " partially " confirmed 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 by an onion, and that Emma was " on her mar- 
 row-bones " in the garden while the Queen was perus- 
 ing the tell-tale document, depends upon the number 
 of embellishments such a farce would probably re- 
 ceive. If true, it hardly redounds to Emma's credit. 
 But from Emma we must now part awhile to con- 
 
 1 From indications in her letter. Cf. Morrison MS. 157, De- 
 cember 26, 1786 (Emma to Sir William) : "If I had the offer of 
 crowns, I would refuse them and except you, and I don't care 
 if all the world knows it. . . . Certain it is I love you and 
 sincerely." And cf. ibid. 153 : " We are closely besieged by the 
 King in a roundabout manner, but ... we never give him 
 any encouragement." In this very year the prima donna Banti 
 was whisked off across the frontier by the Queen's orders for 
 presuming to favour the amorous King's attentions. 
 
98 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 sider 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 Aix, the 
 Bourbons and the Hapsburgs had been perpetually 
 wrestling for the rich provinces of central and south- 
 ern Italy — a prize which united the secular appeal to 
 Catholic Europe with supremacy over the Mediter- 
 ranean. The Bourbons, by a strange chain of co- 
 incidence, 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 Haps- 
 burgs, however, never relinquished their aim, though 
 the weak and pompous Emperor, Charles VI. , was re- 
 duced 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 mas- 
 terful 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 Na- 
 poleon, succeeded to their ambitions. Second only to 
 his hankering after Eastern Empire, was from the 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 99 
 
 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, her eldest daughter, Maria Charlotte, bet- 
 ter 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-presumptive 
 to the French throne, which he ascended four years 
 afterwards. Both daughters were to fight manfully 
 with a fate which worsted the one and extinguished 
 the other, while the husbands of both were true Bour- 
 bons 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, imperialists, 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 con- 
 sorts 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 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 4 
 
ioo EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the Pope if he 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 II. 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 educa- 
 tion 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 
 freemasons, and Queen Maria Carolina's family en- 
 thusiasm 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 101 
 
 of San Nicandro, who was restricted 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 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 bouffe, and of Tenucci, a corrupt vizier of the 
 old-world pattern, who preferred place to statesman- 
 ship, and pocket to power. The young King, how- 
 ever, 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, de- 
 voted 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 afterwards. 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 fish- 
 ermen, noisy, loyal, superstitious, rollicking, unthrifty, 
 vigorous, in alternate spasms of short-li -ed 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 suf- 
 fer 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 
 
102 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 with them. They had their recognised leaders, their 
 acknowledged improvisatores, their informal func- 
 tions 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, in a country where 
 even composers like Cimarosa and Paisiello were al- 
 ways 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, Ferdinand 
 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 mis- 
 rule 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 free- 
 booting bodyguard; he was also King Reynard the 
 Fox, with intervals of trick and avarice, although, un- 
 like 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 im- 
 puted, 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 boister- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 103 
 
 ous 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 Canova 
 his marble Hercules throwing Lichas into the sea, ac- 
 quired 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 Nim- 
 rod. 
 
 While he was at first proud of his femme savante 
 and left affairs of state until 1799 almost entirely in 
 her hands and Acton's, his jealousy tended more and 
 more to treat her as a preciense 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 
 
104 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 " Feste," " Forca " was superadded. If he pauper- 
 ised his people with farinaceous morsels and festiv- 
 ities, he did not as yet execute them. Nor was 
 he destitute of bluff wit and exceedingly common 
 sense. 
 
 There is a familiar anecdote which may illustrate his 
 rough and ready humour as well as his favourite 
 methods of government. On one occasion his pedantic 
 brother-in-law Leopold asked Ferdinand what he was 
 u 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." This was the same Leopold whom the royal 
 pair visited in their " golden journey " of 1785 which 
 paraded the new navy organised by Acton. 
 
 The Queen, however, was an " illuminata " by bent 
 and upbringing. She was always devising theories 
 and executing schemes, and besides literature, botany, 
 too, engrossed her attention. It is a 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 litterateurs, one at least 
 among the most violent of whom 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 Medicis : — 
 
 " Si nous faisons l'apologie 
 
 De Caroline et Jezabel, 
 L'une fut reine en Italie, 
 
 Et l'autre reine en Israel. 
 Celle-ci de malice extreme, 
 L'autre etait la malice merae." 1 
 
 1 "Would casuists find excuses try 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 105 
 
 Neither King nor Queen, though both have much 
 to answer for at the bar of history, were ever the pan- 
 tomime-masks of villainy and corruption that resent- 
 ment and rumour, public and private, have affixed 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 constitu- 
 tion, 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 limitation 
 proved long afterwards the main cause of the nobil- 
 ity's share in the middle-class revolution of 1799. The 
 marriage laws were re-cast much on the basis of Lord 
 Hardwick's Act in England. The administration of 
 justice was purified. Besides locating the University 
 in the fine rooms of the suppressed Jesuit monastery, 
 to some of which she transferred the magnificent an- 
 tiques of the Farnese and Palatine collections, she 
 founded schools and new institutions for the encour- 
 agement of agriculture and architecture. Even the 
 hostile historian Colletta admits that she drew all the 
 intellect of the age to Naples. Waste lands were re- 
 claimed, colonies planted on uninhabited islands, ex- 
 isting industries developed, and the coral fisheries on 
 the African coasts converted into a chartered com- 
 
 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. 
 
106 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 pany. 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 uni- 
 versally 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 de- 
 spite the fact that, though regular in her devotions 
 and the reverse of a free-thinker, she resolutely op- 
 posed 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 enthusiast for freemasonry (and long 
 after her death the Neapolitan lodges toasted her 
 memory), she assembled around her through these so- 
 cieties 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 Revolu- 
 
 ' tion; Palmieri, Galanti, Galiani, Delfico, the scientists; 
 Caravelli, Caretto, Falaguerra, Ardinghelli, Pigna- 
 telli, all lights of literature; and Conforti, the his- 
 torian. 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 107 
 
 " 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 in- 
 dited her " Orfeo " as elegy. When the " golden jour- 
 ney " was accomplished, the Miseno port re-opened, 
 and the fleet re-organised, her " Proteus and 
 Parthenope " celebrated the commencement 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 build- 
 ings were converted into schools ; even the prayers and 
 religious ordinances were regulated, as were all observ- 
 ances of the hearth, and every distribution of property. 
 Allegiance was to be paid first to God, then to the 
 sovereign, and lastly to the ministers. Under Fer- 
 dinand'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 recorded : — " Given to me by the 
 King of Naples at Belvedere or S. Leucio the 16th 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." 
 
 1 " True virtue, and the birth of virtue true, 
 True courage." 
 
108 EMMA, LADY 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. Darner, 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 
 armaments and an English alliance, financial talent 
 of a high order was needful; taxation had to be broad- 
 ened, and it could not be enlarged without pressing 
 heavily on the professional classes, for the Lazzaroni 
 were always privileged 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 mani- 
 fest 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 consigned to England as ambassador; while his 
 young and romantic son Joseph was reputed the 
 Queen's lover, and forbidden the court. The cox- 
 comb and procrastinator, Gallo, who afterwards ratted 
 to Napoleon, was already mismanaging foreign af- 
 fairs. The old and respectable Caracciolo, father of 
 that rebel admiral whom Nelson was to execute, was 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 109 
 
 for the moment Minister of Finance, but approaching 
 his end. That Admirable Crichton, Prince Belmonte, 
 afterwards as " Galatone " ambassador at the crucial 
 post of the Madrid Embassy, now preferred the of- 
 fice 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 con- 
 cerns, nor had he disastrously earned his inquisitorial 
 spurs of 1793. Sicigniano, who was to commit suicide 
 when ambassador in London in the same year, be- 
 longed to the same category; the young and accom- 
 plished 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 1 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 un- 
 known 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 Alden- 
 ham Hall, Shropshire, to whose baronetcy and estates 
 he most unexpectedly succeeded in 1791, was the son 
 of a physician, Catholic and Jacobite, settled at Besan- 
 gon. He was born in 1736, and may have first entered 
 the French Navy, which he quitted probably as a cadet 
 1 Prince Ettore Carafa. 
 
no EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 in search of advancement, 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 impediments 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 train- 
 ing 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 de- 
 tested his introduction. A smooth-tongued adven- 
 turer, though good looks were not on his side, he 
 speedily won the favour of a Queen inclined 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 recom- 
 mended 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 provided for her. Little else 
 than a stroke of destiny, under the conjunctures of the 
 near future, brought the new foreigner into close al- 
 liance 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 differ- 
 ent natures of the two perhaps cemented their friend- 
 ship. Hamilton for all his natural indolence could 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON in 
 
 rise to emergency; Acton, on the contrary, was all com- 
 promise 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 the bully, 
 and he could be very unjust if his authority was im- 
 pugned. He was a born bureaucrat, and it was his 
 love of bureaucracy, as will appear, that ruined the 
 Queen. 
 
 Acton's only marriage occurred in his old age with 
 his young niece, by papal dispensation in 1805, as Pet- 
 tigrew has recorded. His brother Joseph's descend- 
 ants are still at Naples. But none of his family play 
 any part in the drama before us. Starting as an Ad- 
 miral of the Neapolitan Fleet, he soon became Min- 
 ister both of Marine and War. Caracciolo the elder's 
 opportune transference to diplomacy in Paris and Lon- 
 don, 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 ad- 
 vised 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 Lieuten- 
 ant-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 abhorrence 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, hczc, hoc " 
 meant Acton, the Queen, and the King thus derided 
 
ii2 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 as neuter ; indeed some added that Acton was " hie, 
 hcec, hoc" in one. In a brief space Acton had con- 
 solidated 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 ren- 
 dered him all the more indispensable to Maria Caro- 
 lina, whose ears were terrified by the first rumblings 
 of an earthquake so soon to engulf her sister's fam- 
 ily. The Bastille was taken, the Assembly held, and 
 fawning false-loyalty loomed fully as dangerous as up- 
 roarious Jacobinism. In the same year America estab- 
 lished her " Constitution." Already the aunts of 
 Louis XVI., the two old " demoiselles de France," 
 were on the verge of abandoning Paris for Rome; 
 already the charged air tingled with Liberty, Equal- 
 ity, Fraternity; already Carolina, masking hysterical 
 restiveness by imperious composure, was debating if 
 armed help were possible from Austria as well as 
 from Naples. But the irritated barons were unwar- 
 like, 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 romp- 
 ing 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 113, 
 
 ogling and dangling consort was often a prime mo- 
 tive 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 birthright of 
 her house. Masterful as her mother, light-living as 
 her eldest brother, she was neither hard nor frivolous. 
 She could be both ice and fire. Her strange tem- 
 perament 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 Gun- 
 ning, 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 public 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 fol- 
 low 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, ac- 
 cepted. 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 fam- 
 ily lavished kindness on the extraordinary girl whom 
 
114 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 they must have 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 por- 
 traits. 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 sec- 
 ond, and during her sittings she was accompanied 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 
 her self-assertiveness could always combat jealous or 
 freezing condescension. Her improvement both in 
 knowledge and behaviour had from other accounts 
 enhanced her accomplishments. No breath of scan- 
 dal had touched her; she was Hamilton's unwedded 
 wife, and her looks had kept even pace with her for- 
 ward 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 re- 
 ceived fifty of the elite at the Embassy, till in Janu- 
 ary, 1 79 1, 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 Neapolitans, thronged every room; there 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 115 
 
 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. She would 
 be the " horridest wretch " else. They had already 
 passed nearly five years together, " with all the do- 
 mestick 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 the means of me knowing him," and 
 added " next year you may pay ous a visit." That 
 Sir William should marry her quite passed the bounds 
 of his philosophy; there would be an eclat, and eclats 
 he detested ; his uncle would make himself ridiculous. 
 It seems likely, from an allusion in a letter from Ham- 
 ilton of a full year earlier, that the nephew had al- 
 ready thrown out hints of suitable provision should 
 chance or necessity ever separate the couple. Sir Will- 
 iam, however, had been deaf to such suggestions, al- 
 though, "thinking aloud," he did mention £150 a 
 year to Emma, and £50 to her mother, " who is a very 
 worthy woman." Such contingencies, however, could 
 not apply to their present " footing," for " her con- 
 duct was such as to gain her universal esteem." The 
 only chance for such a scheme hinged on her per- 
 tinacity 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 un- 
 happy." But he recoiled from the thought; despite 
 the difference in their ages and antecedents, " hitherto 
 
n6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 her conduct is irreproachable, but her temper, as you 
 must know, unequal." 
 
 And now all these obstacles had melted under the 
 enchanter's wand, it would seem, of the charming 
 Duchess, who may well have urged him to defy con- 
 vention 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 how 
 they might eventually 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 re- 
 fused to receive Lady Hamilton, yet Sir William's 
 imminent return was in fact signalised by the honour 
 of a privy councillorship. Long afterwards, he as- 
 sured Greville that his treatment when he was eventu- 
 ally replaced, and subsequently when he was denied 
 reimbursement for his losses and his services (both 
 to go fully 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 ap- 
 proval. The latter in his peregrinations had already 
 worshipped at Emma's Neapolitan shrine — a devotee at 
 once generous and money-grubbing, cynical and in- 
 genuous, constant and capricious, who (in Lady Ham- 
 ilton's words) " dashed at everything," and who was 
 so eccentric as to roam Caserta in a gay silk robe 
 and a white hat. This original — a miniature mix- 
 ture of Peterborough, Hume, and, one might add, 
 Thackeray's Charles Honeyman — had braced Hamil- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 117 
 
 ton's resolution by telling him it was " fortitude " and 
 a " manly part " 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 must have been furthered by the 
 Duchess of Argyll. 
 
 No wonder that her sad death at the close of 1790, 
 far away from the climate which had proved power- 
 less to save her, desolated Emma. " I never," she as- 
 sured 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 I see you, and re- 
 count ... 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 and sensi- 
 bility what it must suffer. Ma passiensa: to ha 
 molto." 
 
 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, in- 
 cluding the Counts of Artois and Vaudreuil, the Poli- 
 gnacs, 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 im- 
 plored Emma not to live in London as she had done in 
 Naples; he pressed the propriety of separate establish- 
 
n8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 merits. 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 ac- 
 quaintance, 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 unsuspect- 
 ing Hamilton called on Legge immediately to proffer 
 him every friendly service. Mrs. Legge was in del- 
 icate health, and Emma, too, kindly offered to act 
 as her companion, or even nurse. Legge was embar- 
 rassed; his wife civilly declined Emma's attentions, 
 " kindly intended," but owing to Emma's " former 
 line of life " impossible 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 applied fully as much 
 to a woman as a man. The other felt herself morti- 
 fied 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 
 determined 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 un- 
 derstand that he is now going to England to solicit 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 119 
 
 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 his mind as much as 
 possible; and she will be satisfied with no argument 
 but the King's absolute refusal of his approbation. 
 Her talents and powers of amusing are very wonder- 
 full. Her voice is very fine, but she does not sing 
 with great taste, and Aprili [sic] says she has not a 
 good ear; her Attitudes are beyond description beau- 
 tifull and striking, and I think you will find her figure 
 much improved since you last saw her. They say they 
 shall be in London by the latter end of May, that 
 their stay 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 diploma- 
 tique; does the honours of his house with great atten- 
 tion and desire to please, but wants a little refinement 
 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 amuse- 
 ments." x 
 
 Sound sense enough, but most unlikely to convince 
 Emma's self-confidence. Mrs. Legge, too, and after- 
 wards Queen Charlotte, were justified in excom- 
 municating Emma before her marriage; such decencies 
 are concerns of precedent, 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 de- 
 barred from the possibility of legitimate retrieval. 
 Such standards savour far more of the world than of 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 190; Legge to Greville, Naples, March 8, 1791. 
 
120 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 in- 
 jured 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 re- 
 luctant sanction obtained. They were feted and en- 
 tertained 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 friendship 
 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 be- 
 sides his many other studies 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 com- 
 missioned 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 " Con- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 121 
 
 stance," he commenced a fresh " Bacchante." He 
 dined with her and Sir William, and they both dined 
 thrice with him, first in July 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 im- 
 minent wedding. Her acting and singing so trans- 
 ported 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 admira- 
 tion : but her ' Nina ' " — a part two years later the 
 especial delight of Maria Carolina — " surpasses every- 
 thing 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 repeated 
 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 im- 
 presario, 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 the cloud was soon dispelled. Meanwhile 
 Hayley, who was to compose a fresh poem on her just 
 before her wedding, indited the following: 
 
122 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 " 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 ad- 
 mired of all beholders. 
 
 All this must have nettled Greville, of whose feel- 
 ings at this time there is no record. But his opposi- 
 tion does not seem to have been serious, for Sir Will- 
 iam 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 personality had " made it 
 impossible " for him " to see or hear without making 
 comparisons "; and from this time forward Lord Will- 
 iam 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 ter- 
 races, the fairy gardens, and all the bizarre splendours, 
 including its owner, of Fonthill Abbey. 
 
 On the whole, this delicate experiment had sue- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 123 
 
 ceeded, although Queen Charlotte's ban doubtless 
 rankled in Emma's breast. 1 The King himself was 
 more pained than offended, and had confirmed Ham- 
 ilton 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 subsequent letters that both she and her mother 
 visited that " poor little Emma " who had re-awakened 
 the longings of motherhood in the old but unforgot- 
 ten days of Parkgate. 
 
 On September 6th Sir William and " Emy," or 
 " Emily," Lyon were duly wedded at Marylebone 
 Church, long associated with the Hamilton family. 
 The marriage was solemnised by the Rev. Doctor Ed- 
 ward Barry, rector of Elsdon, Northumberland. The 
 witnesses were Lord Abercorn and L. Dutens, sec- 
 retary to the English Minister at Turin, with whom 
 Emma long maintained a faithful friendship. Her 
 heart was overflowing. She felt, as she told Rom- 
 ney, 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. 
 Henceforward the name of " Hart " is heard no 
 more. Henceforward Emma is no longer obscure, 
 but, as Lady Hamilton, passes into history. 
 
 1 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. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 TILL THE FIRST MEETING 
 I79I-I793 
 
 1ADY 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 after- 
 wards 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 pur- 
 pose 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 be- 
 comes prominent in the labyrinth of Neapolitan in- 
 trigue; her role as patriot begins to be foreshadowed. 
 
 Throughout these three critical years of stress and 
 shock momentous issues were brewing, destined to 
 
 124 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 125 
 
 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 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 — soon rudely shat- 
 tered — lay in Austria's power to effect a coalition of 
 great powers and strong armies. She had just quit- 
 ted 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 sus- 
 pend 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 
 
126 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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. Hith- 
 erto she had been reckoned an enlightened patroness, 
 compassing the equality and fraternity of subjects who 
 had never required political liberty. She had stub- 
 bornly resisted the Spanish Machiavellianism which 
 had manoeuvred to undermine those very f reemasonries 
 which Maria Carolina 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 de- 
 fend it by conscientious crimes. In the refrain of her 
 own subsequent letters, "II faut faire son devoir 
 jusqu'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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 127 
 
 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 Span- 
 ish 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. 
 
 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 mar- 
 ket for dogs and horses, the Queen, only as an enemy 
 of Spain. That the attitude of both was shortly 
 to be transformed was partly due to Emma's enthusi- 
 asm as spokeswoman for her husband. Even in 
 February, 1796, Emma wrote to Lord Macartney, who 
 had just arrived at Naples, that " the Queen has much 
 to do to persuade " Ferdinand, that " she is wore out 
 with fatigue," and that " he approves of all our pros- 
 pects." She refers, I think, to his Spanish bias. 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 Caro- 
 lina 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 imperative. 
 Hamilton, however, was slower to discern the neces- 
 sity which Emma realised by instinct. Writing in 
 
i28 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 Acton. 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 license, 
 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 in- 
 stitutions. She was a great maritime and a Mediter- 
 ranean 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 Eng- 
 land's sworn enemy. Spain was France's natural ally, 
 nor would the revolutionary burst long deter the Span- 
 ish 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 129 
 
 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 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 destruc- 
 tion." 
 
 In England the remonstrant Burke forsook the 
 pseudo-Jacobin Whigs. It was hoped, and not with- 
 out reason, that Pitt as a great statesman might fore- 
 see the situation. But the difficulty all along in the 
 British cabinet, and sometimes the obstacle, was to 
 prove Lord Grenville, cold, stiff, timid, official to a 
 fault; so cautious that he twice counselled the two 
 Sicilies to make the best peace they could with Buona- 
 parte, since they must go under; 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 dis- 
 content in public with what had just been privately 
 arranged. 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 Con- 
 dorcet's opinion that under a peace we should have 
 been relieved of Jamaica, Bengal, and our Indian pos- 
 sessions; by bemoaning England's vanished "power 
 to control the Continent," by proclaiming that she was 
 " at her lowest ebb," and by complaining that Austria 
 
i 3 o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 had deserted the Alliance. Commenting on his at- 
 titude, 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 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 fa- 
 voured, one of secret inquisition, turned political of- 
 fences into heresies, and Jacobins into martyrs. Bu- 
 reaucracies may check, but have never stemmed, 
 revolutions which are calmed — when they can be 
 calmed — by commanding personality alone. A bu- 
 reaucrat 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 per- 
 severed, the Lazzaroni, who execrated it as a foreign 
 innovation, cheered their careless King, but they came 
 to hiss the Queen for her countenance 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, Dan- 
 ton and Petion bribed, the National Convention, the 
 cosmopolitan cries of "Let us sow the ideas of 1789 
 throughout the world. . . . We all belong to our 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 131 
 
 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 
 leaven had already touched the offended nobles and 
 the ungrateful students. From the moment of Louis' 
 imprisonment in the Temple, his sister-in-law changed 
 her tack and resolved to go " Thorough." The pul- 
 pits were pressed into an anti-Jacobin crusade. The 
 administration of the twelve city wards, hitherto su- 
 pervised 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 precaution 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 dis- 
 loyalty thrown off the mask, and appeared as a bribed 
 hireling of the National Convention. The grisly hor- 
 rors at Paris of 1792, preluding only too distinctly 
 the crowning executions of 1793, called also for sterner 
 measures. By July, Beckford, an eye-witness, re- 
 marks that even Savoy was " bejacobinised, and plun- 
 dering, 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, hero of 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14—5 
 
132 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 deliberations resulted in the detestable Star Cham- 
 ber 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 Lon- 
 don 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," was made 
 its head inquisitor. But mercy was still shown. She 
 does not indeed appear at this period to have enter- 
 tained any 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 happened in 1791 
 and 1792. 
 
 The interview of the Hamiltons with Marie An- 
 toinette on their homeward journey has been already 
 noticed. Nearly twenty-four years afterwards Lady 
 Hamilton, never accurate, and constitutionally exag- 
 gerative, 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 small 
 disproof that substantially she told the truth. She 
 may well have carried a missive, for Marie Antoinette 
 neglected none of her now rare chances of communica- 
 tion. About the same time, however, the Marchioness 
 of Solari also repaired from Paris to Naples with 
 another communication, which was probably verbal, 
 and may possibly have preceded Lady Hamilton's al- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 133 
 
 leged message. In the autumn of 1793, however, the 
 Marchioness again visited Naples and brought with 
 her what undoubtedly seems the last letter received 
 by Maria from Marie. Emma's statement has been 
 questioned on the ground that hers was not the last 
 message. It is perhaps hardly worth while debating 
 whether all credence should be denied to the bearer of 
 an important letter simply on the ground of priority. 
 Any such letter whatever would have recommended its 
 bearer to the Queen of Naples. 
 
 Whether or no this incident fastened afresh the 
 Queen's regard, certain it is that Maria Carolina gave 
 the mot d'ordre 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 acceding to his earldom, that the 
 Queen had been very kind, and treated his wife " like 
 any other travelling lady of distinction." " Emma," 
 he adds, " has had a difficult part to act, and has suc- 
 ceeded wonderfully, having gained by having no pre- 
 tensions the thorough approbation of all the English 
 ladies. . . . You cannot imagine how delighted Lady 
 H. was in having gained your approbation in England. 
 . . . 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 
 
i 3 4 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the happiest woman in the world. Sir William is 
 fonder of me every day, and I hope I [he?] will have 
 no corse to 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. 1 . . . 
 How grateful 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 mo- 
 ment 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 Tem- 
 per; 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 ex- 
 ample 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 Septem- 
 ber. God bless you." 
 
 Romney, whose friend Flaxman, now in Rome, 
 
 1 Here follows the passage about her " sense of virtue " not 
 being overcome in her earliest distresses, quoted ante in chap. ii. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 135 
 
 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 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 affection, 
 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, de- 
 lighted to honour one so different from themselves. 
 
 While all this underground disturbance proceeded, 
 the outward aspect of court and city was serenity it- 
 self. 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 Ambassa- 
 dor's dismay. The distinguished English visitors of 
 1792 included the sickly young Prince Augustus, after- 
 wards Duke of Sussex, whose delicate health and mor- 
 ganatic marriage 1 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 
 
 1 With Lady Augusta Murray, to whom he was a devoted hus- 
 band in the teeth of his father's and brother's opposition. Lady 
 Hamilton continued to enjoy his friendship long afterwards. 
 
136 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 com- 
 posed of half the emigres, musicians, and cooks — chefs 
 d'orchestre et de cuisine — of Versailles; and Emma's 
 old friend Gavin Hamilton was also among the throng. 
 A correspondence between husband and wife dur- 
 ing 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 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." " Be- 
 lieve 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 circumstance 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 watch- 
 ful 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 un- 
 attackable. . . . Twenty-seven years' service, having 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 137 
 
 spent all the King's money, and all my own, besides 
 running in debts, deserves something better than a dis- 
 mission. ... 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 you 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. Hfatton] to dine with the prince, and still 
 better in telling her honestly the reason. I have al- 
 ways found that going straight is the best method, 
 though not the way of the world. You 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 Douglas'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 recep- 
 tions. But Emma, throughout her career, disdained 
 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 may be added that from stray allusions in this 
 series it is evident that even thus early Lady Hamil- 
 ton could translate letters and transact business. Sir 
 William was naturally torpid, and his enthusiasm cen- 
 
138 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 tred 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 in- 
 timate, Lord Pembroke, in 1794, was to evoke a char- 
 acteristic 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 ill- 
 nesses 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 con- 
 stantly to inquire. Although Naples was distant six- 
 teen miles, Ladies Plymouth, Dunmore, and Webster, 
 with others of the 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 hap- 
 piness 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." x This is the letter con- 
 cerning her grandmother to which reference has al- 
 ready 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, un- 
 mercenary, 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 
 1 Morrison MS. 215; Caserta, December 4, 1792. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 139 
 
 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 be- 
 lieve me I felt unhappy all the while I had it on. Ex- 
 cuse the trouble I give you." 
 
 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 Eu- 
 rope 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 Treville'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 hab- 
 
140 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 its of principle were now to be added the goads of re- 
 venge. 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 awak- 
 ening 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 conceal it. Such was now the Queen's. The over- 
 ture to this drama of 1793 was her formal dismissal of 
 Citizen Mackau, for a few months past the unwelcome 
 Jacobin representative of France at the Neapolitan 
 court ; at the same time, the Queen's influence procured 
 the dismissal of Semouville, another " citizen " am- 
 bassador at Constantinople. Treville'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 sub- 
 mit, and receive the minister back again. But this 
 was not all. No sooner had Treville departed than a 
 convenient storm shattered his fleet, and he returned to 
 refit. His sailors hobnobbed with the secret societies, 
 and a definite revolution began. France had hoped 
 for attack; open war being refused, she renewed her 
 designs by stealth. The Queen, incensed beyond meas- 
 ure, redoubled her suspicions and her precautions. To 
 the secret tribunal she added a closed " Junta," and the 
 grim work of deportation 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 reneAved her desperate attempts to save her sis- 
 ter; the jailor's wife was interviewed. Archduchess 
 Christine contrived to send the Marquis Burlot and 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 141 
 
 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 vis- 
 itors, among them, as Mackau's friend, Mr. Hodges, 
 who pestered Emma by his attentions, were implicated. 
 The Queen, mistrustful 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 Mar- 
 chioness of Solari that Emma's paramount in- 
 fluence was due to spying on them and the libertine 
 King. 1 This may at first have been so (though envy 
 supplies a likelier reason), but the real cause lies deeper. 
 The Queen's correspondence commences in the winter 
 of 1793, and it is quite clear that its mainspring was 
 sympathy. 
 
 " Par le sort de la naissance 
 
 L'un est roi, l'autre est berger. 
 Le hasard fit leur distance; 
 
 L'esprit seul peut tout changer." 2 
 
 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 
 
 1 Abominable rumours, as to her and the Queen, passed cur- 
 rent 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 from policy. 
 
 2 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." 
 
142 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 at will. The more her pent-up hatred fastened on her 
 courtiers, the more she spited them by petting her new 
 favourite. The friendship 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 win- 
 ter." (Sir William naturally sighed over the ex- 
 pense.) ". . . We had the Duchess of Ancaster sev- 
 eral days. It is but 3 days since the Devonshire fam- 
 ily has left; and we had fifty in our family for four 
 days at Caserta. 'Tis true we dined every day at 
 court, or at some casino of the King; for you cannot 
 immagine how good our King and Queen as been to 
 the principal English who have been here — particularly 
 to Lord and Lady Palmerston, Cholmondely, Devon- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 143 
 
 shire, Lady Spencer, Lady Bessborough, Lady Plym- 
 outh, Sir George and Lady Webster. And I 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 tete-a-tete 
 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 very much with us. 
 The other ministers' wives 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 very 
 fond of me, as the[y] see I have no pretentions; nor 
 do I abuse of Her Majesty's goodness, and she ob- 
 served 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 famille 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 very much. But she 
 shewed me great distinction 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 allways be simple and natural. You 
 may immagine how happy my dear, dear Sir William 
 is. . . . We live more like lovers than husband and 
 wife, as husbands and wives go nowadays. Lord de- 
 liver me! and the English are as bad as the Italians, 
 some few excepted. 
 
 " I study very hard, . . . and I have had all my 
 
144 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 songs set for the viola, so that Sir William may ac- 
 company me, which as pleased him very much, so 
 that we study together. The English garden is going 
 on very fast. The 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 x 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 Empress's, was receiving, com- 
 municating, intensifying 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 
 
 1 Grafer — a trusted agent of Hamilton's. He afterwards be- 
 came 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. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 145 
 
 down the gauntlet in earnest. The 10th of Septem- 
 ber, 1793, brought Nelson's first entry both into Naples 
 and into the Ambassador's house. 
 
 He had been despatched by Lord Hood on a spe- 
 cial mission to procure ten thousand troops from Turin 
 and Naples after that wonderful surrender of starved- 
 out Toulon : — " The strongest in Europe, and twenty- 
 two sail of the line . . . without firing a shot." x 
 
 The previous year had called forth two ruling strains 
 in his nature : the one of irritable embitterment at 
 his unrecognised solicitations for a command; 
 the other of patriotic exultation when Chatham 
 and Hood suddenly " smiled " upon him, thanks, it 
 would seem, to the importunity of his early admirer 
 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 
 only a " sixty-four " and the fate of drifting aim- 
 lessly 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 un- 
 arisen 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 
 sensitive, companionable and lonely, athirst for glory 
 rather than for fame, simple as a child yet brave as a 
 lion, he had experienced 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 difficulty withheld from 
 1 Nelson to his wife, nth September. 
 
146 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 leaving the service. After a short interval, Miss An- 
 drews in France had rekindled the flame. His in- 
 tensest feeling in the Leeward Islands had been for 
 Mrs. Moutray, his " dear, sweet friend." His en- 
 gagement to her associate, Frances Nisbet, had been 
 sudden — some suspected from pique. The young 
 widow of the Nevis doctor attracted him less by her 
 heart than what he called her " mental accomplish- 
 ments, . . . superior to most people's of either sex." 
 These were rather of a second-rate boarding-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 himself. His wife's virtues were sterling, but 
 her power of appreciation very limited. She was 
 perhaps more dutiful than gentle, less loving than 
 jealous; her self-complacent coldness 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 un- 
 imaginative 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 out- 
 side 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 
 ridiculously pretentious. This it was that seems to 
 have disgusted Nelson's sisters in later years, though 
 they were certainly prejudiced against her. Some dis- 
 illusionment 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 tempta- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 147 
 
 tion, 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 in- 
 tellect ; the other creates and enkindles its fuel by ideal- 
 ism. The former in England is signally illustrated in 
 differing spheres by Walpole and Wellington; the lat- 
 ter 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 frequently 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 at- 
 titude with affectation. And the visionary with a 
 purpose is always dramatic. He lives' on dreams of 
 forecast, and his forecast visualises combinations, 
 scenes of development, characters, climaxes. 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 situa- 
 tions in a flash, and, from first to last, his courage took 
 
148 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the risk not only of action, but of prophecy. Indeed, 
 his own motto may be said to have been that fine 
 phrase of the other which he quoted to Lady Hamil- 
 ton 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 
 ambition, 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 him- 
 self go; he delighted in fun and playful sallies. He 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 149 
 
 formed a band of firm believers, and he believed in 
 them with enthusiasm — an enthusiasm which accentu- 
 ated his bitterness whenever it was damped or disap- 
 pointed. 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 repug- 
 nant 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 ap- 
 proach 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 com- 
 plete 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. 
 
150 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 ad- 
 venturess. 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 word covers 
 every deep and lasting passion in idealising natures. It 
 seems equally idle, even in the face of some uncer- 
 tainty, to say that Nelson was a " dupe " in any por- 
 tion of his claims for her " services " which lay within 
 his own experience. With regard to these he was ab- 
 solutely 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 cun- 
 ning, 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 let- 
 ters she is always the same receptive creature of sin- 
 cere volitions and attitudes; and these letters, when 
 they describe actions, are most strikingly confirmed 
 by independent accounts. They are genuine. Her 
 spirit went out to his magnetically; each was to hyp- 
 notise 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 at- 
 tracted her, and in her greatest dependence she had 
 never been a parasite. It was talent and kindness that 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 151 
 
 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 false- 
 hood, 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 wel- 
 come in every sense of the word. The King sailed, 
 out to greet him, called on and invited him thrice 
 within four days. He was hailed as the " Saviour of 
 Italy," and while he was feted, his crew, who from 
 the home Government had obtained 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 hesitation; a 
 squadron was despatched. The atmosphere of 
 despairing indecision was dispersed by his unresting 
 alertness, 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 arrange- 
 ments, 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 " Ad- 
 ■miral," 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 pre- 
 
152 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 pared 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 con- 
 ceived 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 qualities of a gen- 
 eral besides; one, too, who, although a stern discipli- 
 narian, could romp and sing with his midshipmen, 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 
 prepossessing 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 sel- 
 dom 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 Jacobin 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 Sir W. 
 Hamilton were in constant and most sympathetic cor- 
 respondence 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 hand- 
 somely rewarded.*' And her first letter of our new 
 series in 1798, written hurriedly on June 17th while 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 153 
 
 Nelson, anchored off Capri, remained on the Van- 
 guard, 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 com- 
 pany had produced a deep effect. Every concern of 
 his already enlisted her eagerness. His stepson, 
 Josiah, then a young midshipman, was driven about by 
 her and caressed. She laughingly called him her 
 cavali'ere 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 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 Eng- 
 land as European deliverer, urged by her native am- 
 bition 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. 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 
 
154 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 allowed of it," but " her ship's crew are 
 so totally worn out, that we were glad to get into the 
 first port, . . . therefore for the present I am de- 
 prived 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 
 Diana had commended to Emma's charge. All was 
 joy, excitement, preparation. " I believe," wrote Nel- 
 son, " that the world is now convinced that no con- 
 quests of importance can be made without us." Nel- 
 son had aroused Naples from a long siesta, and hence- 
 forward Emma sings " God save the King " and calls 
 for " Hip, hip, hurrah ! " 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 patri- 
 otism and a rallying-ground for action. Within a few 
 years Maria Carolina could write to Emma of singing 
 the national anthem, and in the year of the Nile battle, 
 of the " brave, loyal nation," and of the " mag- 
 nanimous " English, whom she loves and for whose 
 glory she has vowed to act. As for Nelson, he was 
 in that year to be called her deliverer, her preserver, 
 and her " hero." 
 
 On September 24th Nelson purposed a slight mark 
 of gratitude for the hospitality and the substantial 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 155 
 
 reinforcements so liberally proffered. The Agamem- 
 non was all flowers and festivity. He had invited the 
 King, the Queen, the Hamiltons, Acton, and the Min- 
 isters to luncheon. The guests were awaiting the ar- 
 rival 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 cap- 
 tain. He was summoned to weigh anchor and pursue 
 a French man-of-war with three vessels stationed off 
 Sardinia. Not an instant was lost. The guests dis- 
 persed in excitement. When Ferdinand 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 afterwards. 
 
 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 officer " — 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 Caracciolo the 
 elder were arrested. The whole political landscape 
 was overcast. Next year was to be one of " public 
 mourning and prayer," of plague, famine, and 
 pestilence. The ragged remnant of the squadron, for- 
 warded 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 hun- 
 dred victims had been slaughtered, four hundred lan- 
 guished in French prisons. These fresh disasters were 
 
156 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 heightened and shadowed by the terrible earthquake 
 of June 1 2- 1 6, when the sun was blotted out; and while 
 the Archbishop, grasping the gilt image of St. Janu- 
 arius, groped his way in solemn procession to the 
 cathedral, the darkened sky bombarded the interceding 
 city with emblematic bolts of relentless artillery. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 " STATESWOMAN " 
 
 1 794- 1 797 
 
 STATESWOMAN " is Swift's term for Stella. 
 It fits better the Trilby of the political studio. 
 The muse as medium was already being trans- 
 ferred 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, hcec, 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 consoler not only responsive and di- 
 verting, 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 pres- 
 ence must arouse. But the bond of policy was mutual. 
 Hamilton encouraged his wife to glean secret in- 
 
 157 
 
158 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 formation 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 Hayley, comforting her after 
 Nelson's death, recalled as one of her earliest char- 
 acteristics; and for the work of life, as has been truly 
 said, inborn vigour is apter than cultivated refine- 
 ment. 
 
 Emma now definitely emerges as patriot and poli- 
 tician. Did she aspire thus early to help her country ? 
 The field of controversy begins to open, and con- 
 troversy is always irksome. It is necessary, however, 
 at this juncture, to consider 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 re- 
 duction 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 substantial 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 evi- 
 dence 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 
 immaterial 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 159 
 
 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 pos- 
 session of Toulon, and Sir John Jervis was employ'd 
 upon the reduction of Corsica, the latter kept writing 
 to me for everything he wanted which I procured to be 
 promptly provided him; 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 in- 
 fluence with the Queen to become so zealous in the 
 good cause, that both would often say I had de-Bour- 
 boniz'd them and made them English." 
 
 In the same " memorial " she mentions a side-cir- 
 cumstance 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 pen- 
 sion would be continued to me for my zeal and service." 
 Greville's letter of 1803 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 circumstances peculiarly dis- 
 tinguished 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 al- 
 most 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." 
 
160 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 Cor- 
 sican 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 interesting cor- 
 respondence, he thanks her for services as " patroness 
 of the navy," protests his " unfeigned affectionate re- 
 gard," and signs himself her " faithful and devoted 
 knight." But none the less he was (and this has 
 eluded notice) in close correspondence with Acton 
 throughout the early portion of 1796. 
 
 Such, then, in this instance, are the material dis- 
 crepancies. In dwelling long afterwards on her first 
 endeavours for her country, she transposed the 
 sequence of two successive years, while she confounded 
 Lord Hood and the future Lord St. Vincent together. 
 Little sagacity, however, is needed to perceive that 
 these very confusions point to her sincerity. Had she 
 been forging claims, imperatively raised in the ex- 
 tremities of her fate, nothing would have been easier 
 than to have verified these trifles, especially as many 
 of Nelson's friends remained staunch to her till the 
 close. Wilful liars do not concoct and elaborate evi- 
 dence manifestly against themselves. For the truth of 
 this, the least important and most general of her 
 services, Acton's manuscript 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 be- 
 yond what her treaty with Sicily enabled her, as a fact, 
 to receive, and it was just these extras that Emma's 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 161 
 
 rising ascendency with the Queen and her own am- 
 bition may have prompted her to procure. 
 
 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 pique, and 
 party interest. Canning thought her " richly entitled " 
 to compensation. Grenville himself did not deny the 
 performance of her services. Addington grounded 
 his refusal mainly on the multiplicity of other claims 
 on the Government. 
 
 The year 1794 at Naples was one of continuous 
 calamity; while successive catastrophes were height- 
 ened by the undoubted 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 Neapol- 
 itan republicans. Hitherto, in the main, her old clem- 
 ency 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 madness. She treated affairs 
 of State just as if they had been affairs of the heart. 
 Her mistrust both of the conspiring nobles and the 
 thankless students, now, from changed incentives, in 
 attempted combination, showed signs of yielding to a 
 paroxysm of revenge disguised by an inscrutable 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 
 confronting her would have justified a moderate sever- 
 ity. 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 
 
162 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 and manipulated by France. The rest of Europe 
 recognised the real significance of these insurrections. 
 " God knows," wrote Nelson to the Hamiltons in 1796, 
 " I only feel for the King of Naples, as I am con- 
 fident the change in his Government would be sub- 
 versive 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, afterwards, at the worst, diffused as a leaven, 
 was by this time hydra-headed. Its disorders had 
 spread to Sicily, where their suppression had been sig- 
 nalised by the execution of the ringleaders and the im- 
 prisonment of three hundred. By the spring of 1795 
 the French had divulged their determination of at- 
 tacking the British squadron in the Mediterranean. 
 The receivers of her most generous bounty 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 nov- 
 elty in tribunals, an invention of Acton. Besides ouier 
 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 mem- 
 bers of the disaffected " professionals " were admitted 
 into the bureaucracy. 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 — 
 
Lady Hamilton as Circe. 
 From the original fainting by George Romney. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 163 
 
 which for a long time simmered in the political caldron. 
 He was imprisoned in the fortress of Gaeta, to re- 
 appear, however, a few years later as a pardoned 
 protege. Prince Caramanico, despatched after Sici- 
 gniano's sad suicide to the Embassy in London, died be- 
 fore 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 license. The judges, it is true, were bidden 
 to be " conscientious in equity and justice," but three 
 witnesses sufficed for the 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 counter- 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 6 
 
164 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 blast 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 con- 
 tented indolence. 
 
 While, as queen, Maria Carolina cowed the city, as 
 woman she was demented by Buonaparte's Italian vic- 
 tories. 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 ecclesi- 
 astics to emulate their public spirit, and thereby uncon- 
 sciously did much to hasten the " patriot " insurrection. 
 One hundred and three thousand ducats were de- 
 manded from the town, one hundred and twenty thou- 
 sand 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 Neapol- 
 itan 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 as day by day she sat down to pen her French 
 missives to Emma, and what were the feelings natur- 
 ally 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 con- 
 victions were as binding as articles of faith. Emma's 
 own heart was tender to a fault. She detested blood- 
 shed and liked to use her influence for mercy, as, to 
 do her bare justice, was then the Queen's instinct, after 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 165 
 
 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, contrast- 
 ing with her present domesticity, seemed to her, even 
 if she believed them, merely a royal prerogative. She 
 was — as Emma assured Greville in a letter congratulat- 
 ing him on his new vice-chamberlainship, " Every- 
 thing 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 be- 
 lieve one word." Hours passed with her were " en- 
 chantment." " 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 influential on the stirring scene she 
 caught and exaggerated her royal friend's effusiveness. 
 " Oh that everyone," is her endorsement on a letter, 
 " could know her as I do, they would esteem her as I 
 do from my soul. May every good attend her and 
 hers." Thus Ruth, of Naomi. From such a friend 
 impartiality was no more to be expected than from 
 such enemies as the " vile French dogs." 
 
 The Queen's correspondence x with Emma opens 
 earlier with a touching note about the fate of the poor 
 Dauphin; a sweet little portrait still remains under its 
 cover. This innocent child, she wrote, implores a sig- 
 
 1 Most of her letters of this and the next five years are 
 transcribed from the various Egerton MS. by R. Palumbo in 
 his Maria Carolina and Emma Hamilton, which to much valuable 
 material adds some of the old rumours about her earlier and 
 later life. 
 
166 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 nal 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 loyalist ranks. 
 The Queen's letter of that afternoon begged 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 following June she exulted over George's speech 
 to Parliament renewing the war. She longed for 
 English news from Toulon. At his fete two years 
 later, she was to protest that she loved the British 
 prince as a son. She was perpetually 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 for- 
 sakes those who trust in Him," and count on the 
 " sincere friendship " of her " attached friend." 
 Emma's performances she applauded to the skies, espe- 
 cially that of " Nina," which had been Romney's 
 favourite. 
 
 In one of her constant billets she tenderly inquired 
 after " ce cher aimable bienfaisant eveque " — the flip- 
 pant but kindly worldling and " Right Reverend Father 
 in God " (as Beckford terms him) Lord Bristol, Bishop 
 of Derry. Of this odd wit, erratic vagrant and senti- 
 mental scapegrace, so typical of a century that in- 
 cluded both Horace Walpole and Laurence Sterne — a 
 veritable Gallio-in-gaiters, with his whimsical projects 
 for endless improvements, his connoisseurship, his rest- 
 lessness, his real pluck and independence, we have al- 
 ready caught glimpses in eccentric attire at Caserta. 
 One of his queerest features was the blended care 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 167 
 
 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 entertaining 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 18 14, were to add one more 
 drop to her cup of bitterness. They all show that he 
 purveyed information, both serious and scandalous, 
 through Emma to the Queen. They stamp the in- 
 triguer, the patriot, and the friend. The first seems 
 written among the embroilments 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 disposed 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 communicated " a la premiere 
 des femmes, cette mmtresse 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 1795 again the nomad was at Berlin 
 routing out State-secrets. The date of the following 
 
168 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 must be that of the shameful Austrian treaties in 
 1797 which succeeded the galling peace of Brescia. 
 
 " My ever dearest Lady Hamilton, — I should 
 certainly 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 im- 
 mediate 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 ob- 
 struct my pleasure. . . . You see, I am but the sec- 
 ond letter of your alphabet, though you are the first of 
 mine." 
 
 A last extract, penned a few months after his libera- 
 tion, must complete this vignette : — " I know not, dear- 
 est 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, with- 
 out 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 re- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 169 
 
 quires 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 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 Dal- 
 matia " ; 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 debut 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 rapture with the anti- 
 French alliance during 1795 and 1796. But before 
 dealing with that crisis, I may be pardoned for glanc- 
 ing at one more picturesque figure among Emma's sur- 
 roundings — that of Wilhelmina, Countess of Lich- 
 tenau. 
 
 She was nobly born and bred ; but in girlhood, under 
 a broken promise, it would seem, of morganatic mar- 
 riage, 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 afterwards involved her in despair and 
 ruin. She was cultivated, artistic, sensitive, and un- 
 happy. 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 Memoires she 
 frankly admits that she (like Emma) was vain; but 
 maintains that all women are so by birthright. Lovel, 
 
170 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the parson friend of the Bishop of Deny, 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. SabofL A letter from him towards the close of 
 this year of Neapolitan enthusiasm for the English, 
 when the Elliots among others were praising and ap- 
 plauding Emma to the skies, describes the great ball 
 given by Lady Plymouth in celebration of Prince 
 Augustus's birthday. The supper was one of enthusi- 
 asm and " God save the King." " They drank," he 
 chronicles, "a VAnglaise: 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 cap- 
 ital; nor was tea, now fashionable at court, the least 
 agent for English interests. Emma herself had be- 
 come 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, and one of her letters of this 
 period, not here transcribed, supplies evidence of what 
 kind of French she had learned to write by a period 
 when she had mastered not only Neapolitan patois but 
 Spanish and Italian. At the troublous outset of 1796 
 Wilhelmina quitted Italy never to return. 
 
 These characters are scarcely edifying. The scoff- 
 ing Bishop, the frail Countess, however, were a typ- 
 ical outcome of sincere reaction against hollow and 
 hypocritical observance. 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 contem- 
 poraries. It is surely remarkable that these, and such 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 171 
 
 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 al- 
 ways wielded some power in the world. Far more 
 was it a force when the French Revolution threatened 
 the very foundations of society, and opened up ave- 
 nues to every sort of adventure and adventurer. 
 
 Emma has already been found twice acquainting 
 Greville of her new metier as politician. Her present 
 circumstances and influence over the Queen may be 
 gauged independently 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 dis- 
 pleased 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 notes. [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 en- 
 abled 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 J 796, 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. 
 
172 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 In touching the effects and causes of an event so 
 critical, Emma's pretensions to a part in its discovery- 
 must be discussed also. Their consideration, inter- 
 rupting 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 tot- 
 tered before him, was faced by rising republics and 
 defecting 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 about this period complain of the Austrian delays 
 and suspicions. Prussia estranged herself from the 
 banded powers. England herself was, for a moment, 
 ready to throw up the sponge. In 1795, so great was 
 the popular fear of conflict, that prints in every Lon- 
 don shop window 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 Mediterranean, which plunged the 
 Queen in despair. " Till this time," commented the 
 true patriot, " it has been usual for the allies of Eng- 
 land 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 
 discontent had been appeased; but the frauds of the 
 corn-contractor, Mackinnon, added knavery to increas- 
 ing fiscal embarrassments. And Naples was soon to 
 become involved in a mesh of degrading treaties. The 
 Peace of Brescia, enforcing her neutrality and mulcting 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 173 
 
 her of eight million francs, sounded the first note of 
 Austrian retreat. It culminated by 1797 in the shame- 
 ful treaties of Campoformio and Tolentino, which 
 eventually bound Austria to cry off. By the close of 
 1796 the distraught Queen raved over a separate and 
 partly secret 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 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 bat- 
 tles 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 coali- 
 tion 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 sendee has been more questioned by Professor 
 Laughton than by Mr. Jeaffreson, who, however, 
 
174 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 doubts some particulars in her account of this obscure 
 matter, and her direct initiative in it. Whatever its 
 subsequent embroidery, Emma's contention, certified by 
 Nelson, nor ever denied by the truthful Hamilton, is 
 favoured by its likelihood. At the very outset, any 
 subsidiary objection raised as to the improbability that 
 an important despatch in cipher would have been en- 
 trusted to her keeping, 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 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 declar- 
 ing war against England." Such pains perhaps need 
 hardly have been bestowed to identify the document 
 meant, with the celebrated cipher of Galatone, which 
 the Queen handed to Emma in the spring of 1795. 
 Some circumstantial evidence may favour the view 
 that the substance of her claim relates to information 
 sent home in autumn 1796, the year specified by Nel- 
 son'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 com- 
 munication, both open and secret, with the King, 
 Queen, and Gallo, then foreign minister; and in such 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 259. Transcript (in Italian) in Lady Hamil- 
 ton's handwriting of a letter (in cipher) to the Foreign Minister 
 of Naples. Dated Aranjuez, March 31, 1796. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 175 
 
 cases official letters, which are naturally guarded, 
 should be carefully distinguished from private in- 
 formation surreptitiously conveyed. From the mo- 
 ment that the French Directory replaced the Reign of 
 Terror in Thermidor, 1794, and represented itself un- 
 der the dazzling triumphs of Napoleon as a stable, if 
 epicier, Government, Spain had been steadily smooth- 
 ing the way for wriggling out of the Anti-Gallic Coali- 
 tion, the more so as she longed to try conclusions with 
 Great Britain in partnership with France, whom she 
 had hitherto been bound to attack. For this purpose — 
 as 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 through- 
 out 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 pride, and inclination 
 all united in her effort gradually and insidiously to pre- 
 pare a breach with the allied powers and a rapproche- 
 ment with France. 
 
 During these long negotiations both Acton and Ham- 
 ilton 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, out- 
 witting and emancipated from his thwarted Queen. 
 Maria Carolina, however, had provided her own chan- 
 nels 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 be- 
 tween Hamilton and Acton and Acton and Hamilton — 
 
176 EMMA, LADY 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 possibility of her having been twice in- 
 strumental in procuring documents weighty for both 
 these emergencies; but her main exertion, as Nelson 
 averred, was bound up with the last. Professor 
 Laughton's acumen bears most strongly upon the let- 
 ters of 1795, though at the same time he supplies and 
 discusses the data for 1796. To his article the stu- 
 dent is referred. Both he and Mr. Jeaffreson fasten 
 upon her statement in the " Prince Regent " memorial 
 alone, 1 and have not considered her undecorated and 
 
 1 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 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 withdraw from the Coalition, and join the French 
 against England. My husband at that time lay dangerously ill. 
 I prevailed on the Queen to allow my taking a copy, with which 
 I immediately despatched a messenger to Lord Grenville, taking 
 all the necessary precautions ; for his safe arrival then became 
 very difficult, and altogether cost me about £400 paid out of my 
 privy purse." — Cf. Morrison MS. 1046, where the date con- 
 jectured "March, 1813 " tallies with her letter in the Rose diaries 
 inclosing it. 
 
 Her memorial to the King contains a simpler statement 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 177 
 
 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 admit- 
 tedly obtained from the Queen and delivered to Ham- 
 ilton for transmission both in April and June, 1795, 
 with one of several that she obtained in 1796. No 
 single " letter " could have comprised both the rupture 
 with the alliance and the compact with France, be- 
 longing respectively to two successive years. On April 
 28, 1795, the Queen sent her a ciphered letter from 
 Galatone, demanding its return " before midnight." 
 Next day she sent her " the promised cipher," " too 
 glad in being able to render a service." Emma re- 
 corded on her copy of the first that her husband for- 
 warded it with the cipher to England. 
 
 It is open, however, to argument that Emma's chief 
 aid in unravelling a long and tangled skein of matur- 
 ing crisis may have been rendered about September, 
 1796. Its history will resume our thread; and, since 
 the next chapter's evidence is to support not only her 
 crowning service with regard to the Mediterranean 
 
 "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 memorial- 
 ist, among many inferior services, had an opportunity of ob- 
 taining, 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 im- 
 mediately transmitted it to your Majesty's Ministers." This as- 
 sertion tallies with Nelson's. There is no proof of the date of 
 this paper, which in the Morrison MS. (1045) is guessed to be 
 identical with that of the " Prince Regent " memorial above 
 transcribed. 
 
178 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 Nel- 
 son a dupe. 
 
 Two Acton manuscripts towards the end of August, 
 1796, cast a sidelight on the numerous letters of that 
 year from the Spanish court, culminating in some kind 
 of announcement by the Spanish King to his brother 
 of Naples of his final decision to join the French. 
 
 Acton vied amicably with Hamilton in obtaining 
 the first advices for transmission to London; and 
 indeed to Acton's penchant (like our own Harley's un- 
 der Queen Anne) for engrossing business and favour 
 Nelson afterwards referred in a letter to Lady Ham- 
 ilton, where he declares that he will no longer " get 
 everything done " through Acton, as was his " old 
 way." Both Acton and Wyndham, England's envoy 
 at Leghorn, were already aware of Spain's tentatives 
 with France ; but neither they nor the English Ambas- 
 sador at Madrid could have discovered till later the 
 precise terms of a coming alliance, vital to Europe. It 
 would press the more on Naples, in view of that un- 
 dignified and stringent accommodation with the French 
 Directory, into which the Franco-Hispanian con- 
 spiracy, 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 a dethronement of the Neapolitan Bour- 
 bons, kept even pace with Maria Carolina's hatred of 
 a sister-in-law caballing for her son. Ferdinand him- 
 self still clung to the Spanish raft; Charles of Spain 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 179 
 
 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 vic- 
 tories swelled the republicanisation of Italy, the Span- 
 ish plot also for sapping Great Britain's Mediterranean 
 power, and overthrowing the dynasty of the Two 
 Sicilies, increased in strength. Yet the King of Na- 
 ples still temporised. For a space even Acton veered ; 
 he listened to Gallo and the King, the more readily be- 
 cause his own post was endangered 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 Wurm- 
 ser, 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 re- 
 verses to the allied arms, he changed his ply. He 
 avowed himself ready "to break the peace"; he re- 
 joined and rejoiced the Queen; he again looked to 
 England. As Grenville waxed colder, the more 
 warmly did Acton compete 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 been in frequent 
 confabulation, while the Hamiltons were also in close 
 correspondence with Nelson. But it was Emma, not 
 her husband, that was daily closeted with Carolina, 
 
180 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 communication from Spain as to 
 King Charles's probable defection from the alliance. 
 She now definitely advances towards the political foot- 
 lights. 
 
 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 hus- 
 band. 1 So far the chief of these had been the " Chiffre 
 de Galatone " transmitted to England at the close of 
 April, 1795. 2 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 representative at the Spanish 
 court. That even this, however, was not quite a 
 
 1 On April 21, 179S, for example, the Queen sends three papers 
 " confidentially," " which may be useful to your husband." Cf. 
 Professor Laughton's article in Colburn's United Service Maga- 
 zine, April, 1889, and for the famous letter of April 28, cf. also 
 Eg. MS. 1615, f. 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 docu- 
 ments being " communicated " to him " as usual." 
 
 2 Cf. Emma's copy of 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. 263. 
 On June 9 she copied another despatch from presumably Gala- 
 tone (Prince Belmonte), ibid. 265. Later in the year the Queen 
 communicated information about Spain and, in another letter, 
 rumours about Hood having got out of Toulon, Eg. MS. 1617, 
 ff. 3, 4- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 181 
 
 secret de P olichinelle , is likely from the scarcity of 
 references to it in the Acton correspondence with Ham- 
 ilton about this time. 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 Ham- 
 ilton apart, while in return Emma doubtless com- 
 municated also Nelson's Mediterranean information 
 to Maria Carolina. She had suddenly become a safe 
 and trusted go-between, and none other at this junc- 
 ture 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, 1795, 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 confidence 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 — Tria juncta in- 
 line 
 
 But the position in the later 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 seems to have been 
 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 no- 
 body, either at Naples or in England, could ascertain 
 its exact conditions revealed to Ferdinand alone. If 
 it was to be (as it was) an alliance of offence, the is- 
 
182 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 sues must prove momentous for Great Britain. All 
 was kept a profound secret. 
 
 About September, 1796, apparently, Charles the 
 Fourth's final letter reached the hands of his Neapol- 
 itan brother. But his coming alliance with France 
 had already been notified by Acton to Hamilton. 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 uncertainty, England might be fore- 
 armed against the veiled sequel of that long train of 
 hidden pourparlers which she had been able to dis- 
 cover and announce during the previous year; and in 
 such a case she counted with assurance on her coun- 
 try'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 his Life of Nelson; 
 or whether, according to the posthumous Memoirs of 
 Lady Hamilton, through a bribed page, does not con- 
 cern us. Such strokes of the theatre are, at any rate, 
 quite consonant with the atmosphere of the court. 
 The sole question is : Did she manage to receive and 
 transmit it? 
 
 The letter to which I apply her pretensions was in 
 Spanish — a " private letter " or a " letter," as Emma 
 and Nelson respectively describe it, and not a " letter 
 in cipher " like the one received from Galatone in the 
 year preceding. The problem's intricacy defies a real 
 solution. In the main, habit and motive only can be 
 urged for Emma's use of the Queen's friendship in 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 183 
 
 this instance also. What she had done in the one year, 
 she may well have done in the other. On the other 
 hand, there is no definite document that she can be 
 proved to have procured. 
 
 Is there any distinct circumstance in her favour to 
 counterweigh the hypotheses against her? One such 
 exists of some weight. It relates to her statement that 
 a messenger of her own was despatched with the docu- 
 ment to London. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton gave wind of the critical news 
 in a " secret " despatch to Lord Grenville. It is dated 
 September 21, 1796; and the bearer of it seems to have 
 started on the 23rd. It should be observed that this 
 official missive appears exceptional in only trans- 
 mitting the purport of the letter, and not, as repeatedly 
 before and afterwards, either copies of hazardous 
 documents, or, in earlier cases, the originals them- 
 selves. 
 
 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 misfortune. 
 She says that she and the General will profit by the 
 opportunity, and that Emma shall receive " our 
 packet" the day after to-morrow (mid-day, Friday). 
 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 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 Will- 
 
184 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 iam and myself in particular, as my situation in this 
 Court is very extraordinary, and what no person [h]as 
 yet arrived at." She adds, " He is our Courrier." 
 
 The coincidence of these combined statements of two 
 successive days suggests the " poor Count of Mini- 
 ster's " courier as the possible bearer both of official 
 despatches and of any copy of the King of Spain's most 
 crucial declaration, that Emma may have made. 
 
 It is only fair to state that another contingency pre- 
 sents itself. Emma's service may really have amounted 
 to little more than having been the means of procur- 
 ing a prompt courier for this urgent despatch. If, 
 however, she also got the original document, or even 
 a copy, forwarded, Hamilton's omission to include it 
 in his despatch Is explained. In any case it is material. 
 He may have feared to do so, or she may not have 
 been allowed to retain it long enough, in which case 
 Emma could truthfully describe his brief summary of 
 its pith as the King of Spain's letter. 
 
 Professor Laughton has urged with force that no 
 Treasury minute relating to Emma's service is to be 
 found. But must it be assumed that the bare absence 
 of such record is fatal to her case? It might further 
 be urged that no copy of this particular King of Spain's 
 letter exists in our archives. But has every important 
 document mentioned in the despatches of this period 
 invariably come to light? 
 
 That the Spanish letter may have arrived about a 
 month earlier than the date of the despatch, and that 
 Acton also may have gleaned its contents, appears from 
 the close similarity between Acton's two letters to 
 Hamilton of August 18 and 21, and the spirit of Ham- 
 ilton's short summary in his communication of Sep- 
 tember 21 to Lord Grenville. Hamilton wrote that the 
 King of Naples was " bitterly reproached for acting 
 constantly in opposition to his brother's advice," and 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 185 
 
 was warned that Charles would " soon be obliged to 
 take another course with him." Acton wrote of the 
 King's '- odd and open threatenings to his brother," 
 and in his first letter that Spain had " certainly signed a 
 treaty of alliance with the French," and was to " join 
 with them even against us. We are assured of this 
 by threatenings even not equivocal." 
 
 Mr. Jeaffreson has further dwelt on the unlikelihood 
 of such a sum as Emma names being spent on retain- 
 ing the messenger out of her private purse, when her 
 allowance was limited to £200 a year. But this al- 
 lowance seems to have been only nominal. From the 
 Morrison Collection it would appear that for some time 
 she had been authorised by her husband to overdraw 
 her account in view of increasing requirements. Then 
 there are the minutiae about their health in 1795 and 
 1796 to show that the former year better fits her claim. 
 These would seem indecisive, considering his constant 
 ailments. But a strange confirmation of her story re- 
 mains in the fact of a locket given by Nelson to Emma 
 in 1796, and recording the date. Such a present from 
 one who had never seen her since 1793 may well be- 
 token a real service. Everything, it must be conceded, 
 remains inconclusive. All rests on circumstantial evi- 
 dence merely, but apart from the problems of 1796, it 
 will be owned that she succeeded in serving England 
 during 1795. 
 
 During the following month of October, Emma is 
 still to be found transcribing documents and endorsing 
 effusive gratitude on one of the Queen's letters. She 
 had exerted herself, even if she exaggerates her exer- 
 tions. It is perfectly possible, of course, that her 
 memory, in confusing the events of these two years, 
 may have also confused the date of her husband's ill- 
 ness. But that her story, stripped of accidentals, is a 
 myth, I cannot bring myself to believe. Even Lord 
 
186 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Grenville, thirteen years later, did not apparently 
 specify fabrication as his reason for rejecting her 
 claims. That during her future she proved often and 
 otherwise blameworthy, that her distant past had been 
 soiled, are scarcely reasons for discrediting the sub- 
 stance of her story, though her efforts passed unheeded 
 by the Government ; nor should Greville's repeated ac- 
 knowledgments 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 ad- 
 vantage. 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-Span- 
 ish 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 Buonaparte. 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 Ham- 
 ilton from relaxing his efforts, and kept him at his 
 post of honour. She was already ambitious for Nel- 
 son. Maria Carolina at last divined that Buonaparte's 
 objective was the Mediterranean. But Nelson had di- 
 vined the aims of France earlier, when he wrote in Oc- 
 tober, 1796, "We are all preparing to leave the 
 Mediterranean, a measure which I cannot approve. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 187 
 
 They at home do not know what this fleet is capable 
 of performing; anything and everything." 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 repub- 
 licans organised an uprising, and were driven for shel- 
 ter into Joseph Buonaparte's Palazzo Corsini. He 
 himself was threatened, and Duphot was killed, by the 
 Papal guard. Eugene Beauharnais made a sortie of 
 vengeance. Napoleon utilised the manceuvre to 
 despatch General Berthier against the Pope's domin- 
 ions. 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 Sienna by earthquake, he retired to the Florentine 
 Certosa, where his rooms fronting that beautiful pros- 
 pect may still be viewed. Hounded out once more, he 
 was harried from pillar to post — from Tortona to 
 Turin, from Briancon to Valence — in the citadel of 
 which, old and distressed, 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 Eng- 
 land at Naples, the tone of his correspondence at this 
 date should be compared with his indifference during 
 
1 88 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 Neapol- 
 itan 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 El- 
 liot, who happened to be visiting Naples, to meet him 
 and the Hamiltons. He again murmured against Lord 
 Grenville's finesse. He assured Sir Gilbert that his 
 country had strained every sinew " to move and en- 
 gage 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 suffi- 
 cient Mediterranean squadron. " Any English man- 
 of-war, to the number of four at a time," could still be 
 provisioned in Sicilian or 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 else- 
 where, 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 of- 
 fered 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 189 
 
 and urgent necessities to Lord St. Vincent. — " Their 
 Majesties observe the critical moment for all Europe, 
 and the threatens of an invasion even in England. 
 They are perfectly convinced of the generous and ex- 
 tensive exertions of the British nation at this moment, 
 but a diversion in these points might operate ad- 
 vantage for the common war. Will England 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, 
 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 reply must have been bitterly cautious, 
 for Acton in his answer observes, " We cannot 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 Caro- 
 lina'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 etes le maitre de mon cceur, ma 
 chere 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, al- 
 
190 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ways her mislikers, visited each national calamity on 
 her head. Gallo, Acton, Belmonte, Castelcicala, 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 
 successively on false supports, to fly by turns from 
 betrayed trust to treachery once more trusted. 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, 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. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 TRIUMPH 
 1798 
 
 NELSON was in chase of Buonaparte's fleet. 
 Napoleon's Egyptian expedition was, per- 
 haps, the greatest 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 jealousy 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 crushing 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 re- 
 casting sheikhdoms in the dominion of the Pharaohs, 
 possibly after subduing India, to dash back and con- 
 quer England. Italy was honeycombed with his repub- 
 lics. 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 Bour- 
 bon 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 encyclo- 
 paedist in action — to have remembered science in this 
 enterprise against science's home of origin. That vast 
 
 191 
 
192 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Armada of ships and frigates, that huge 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 to no less than two thousand, ac- 
 companied 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 16, that Hamilton first 
 sighted Nelson's approach. The van of the small 
 squadron of fourteen 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 ar- 
 rival spread like wildfire. The French residents 
 mocked and scowled. The people cheered. The sol- 
 emn ministers smiled. The royal family, in the depths 
 of dejection, plucked up heart; the Queen was in 
 ecstasy. But Gallo and the anti-English group were 
 suspicious 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 enter- 
 prise 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 cer- 
 tainty that, apart from the delays that force must en- 
 tail, all his requirements, perhaps for two months^ 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 193 
 
 would be granted on mere demand. Even so early as 
 June 12 he had requested definite answers from Ham- 
 ilton 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 some days before, Hamilton received from Eden 
 at Vienna a despatch from Grenville emphasising the 
 " necessity/' as it was now regarded at home, for en- 
 suring 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 im- 
 portant alike to France, to the King, and to Austria. 
 Nelson also knew too well the barrier set against com- 
 pliance 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 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 nego- 
 tiating, 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 Napo- 
 leon 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 10th of June he 
 had invested (and whose plunder he had promised to 
 his troops), he pacified the Sicilians with unlimited re- 
 assurances of good-will. And Nelson knew well also 
 that Maria Carolina and Emma chafed under the fet- 
 
194 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ters of diplomacy and of treaty that shackled action. 
 If only he could obtain some royal 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. 
 
 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, 
 on which was Captain T. Carrol, lay anchored in the 
 bay, leaving Nelson in the Vanguard with his fleet off 
 Capri. Troubridge, charged with important requests 
 by Nelson, at once proceeded to the Embassy. 
 
 Lady Hamilton's after-allegations have been much 
 criticised, and, step by step, stubbornly disputed, while 
 even these, as will be urged, have perhaps been mis- 
 read ; nor has her simpler account in her " King's 
 Memorial " been taken, still less Nelson's repeated as- 
 surances about her " exclusive interposition " to Rose, 
 Pitt's favourable consideration, Canning's own ac- 
 knowledgment, the neutrality at any rate of Grenville, 
 and a statement by Lord Melville, afterwards to be 
 mentioned. 
 
 Emma and her husband were awakened by their 
 early visitors, who included Hardy and, perhaps, 
 Bowen. Hamilton arose hurriedly, and took the of- 
 ficers off to Acton's neighbouring house. Some kind 
 of council was held, probably at the palace. In that 
 case Gallo, as foreign minister, may well have been 
 present. Troubridge, as Nelson's mouthpiece, stated 
 his requirements. Gallo, we know, was hesitating and 
 hostile. The whole arrangement with the court of 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 195 
 
 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 afforded at the 
 Sicilian ports in contravention of the burdensome en- 
 gagement with the French Directory; while it would 
 further be implied that the British fleet was at the 
 Neapolitan service. Recourse to the King would not 
 only be dangerous, but probably futile ; the more so, 
 since the French minister at Naples was now citizen 
 Garat, a pedant, pamphleteer, and lecturer of the strait- 
 est sect among busybodying theorists. Such a man, 
 Gallo would urge, must be the loudest in umbrage at 
 even the appearance of pro-British zeal. Acton could 
 have 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 gov- 
 ernors 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 (and was) represented as no more than a common 
 civility which Acton paid not only to English visitors, 
 but even to French officers. 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 could be the only answer. Pending these 
 delicate Austrian negotiations, and until an open rup- 
 ture with France was possible with safety, Naples was 
 in urgent need of a permanent fleet in the Mediter- 
 ranean, and this, quid pro quo, Nelson naturally would 
 
 Memoirs — VoL 14 — 7 
 
196 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 not bind himself to concede, though, so far as his in- 
 structions 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. One of its 
 interlineations is perhaps significant. He first omitted, 
 and afterwards added that the order was in Acton's 
 handwriting as well as in the King's name. Nelson 
 had wanted a quick royal mandate. He received a 
 ministerial order involving further instructions and 
 diplomatic delays. Moreover, five days after Trou- 
 bridge's visit, Acton thanked Hamilton for his " del- 
 icate and kind part " " under all the circumstances." 
 It may not have been quite such a plain-sailing affair 
 as it has 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 Brit- 
 ish 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 Nel- 
 son's officers departed, they received also from Hamil- 
 ton's hands Gallo's fatuous replies to their Admiral's 
 questions of five days before. 
 
 Troubridge was " perfectly satisfied," he could even 
 be called perfectly happy. But meanwhile that may 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 197 
 
 have passed which Emma afterwards maintained. Fate 
 was at stake. She may have rushed to the Queen, for 
 they both knew how little such a conclave would prob- 
 ably achieve; and Gallo's attitude might well 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 
 doubtful. In the result, it would hardly seem to have 
 acted with speed or unaided. Emma's owa after- 
 story is that she besought Maria Carolina, with tears 
 and on bended knees, to exercise her prerogative and 
 supplement the mandate b} the promise of direct in- 
 structions. From after events and from inveterate 
 habit the dramatic scene is probable. According to 
 Emma (and Pettigrew), Hamilton wrote forthwith to 
 Nelson, " You will receive from Emma herself what 
 will do the business and procure all your wants." One 
 can see this impulsive woman clapping her hands for 
 joy, and singing aloud with exultation. In some two 
 hours Troubridge and Hardy had rowed back to the 
 Mutine and set sail towards Capri. 
 
 Within a few hours at any rate Emma, throbbing 
 with excitement, penned two hasty notes to Nelson him- 
 self, both included in her newly found correspondence 
 of this year. Each — and they are brief — must be re- 
 peated here, for the second of them disposes of the 
 version, hitherto 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. 
 
 \_ijth June, 1798.] 
 " My dear Admiral, — I write in a hurry as Captain 
 
i 9 8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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. — Evej, Ever, dear Sir, Your affte. and grate- 
 full 
 
 " Emma Hamilton." 
 
 But now comes a decisive epistle, the missing link, 
 bearing in mind Nelson's disputed answer to it, the date 
 of which has been most ingeniously transferred to the 
 following May — a date not perhaps wholly appropriate. 
 Theory, however, must here yield to this piece of reality 
 on a scrap of notepaper. 
 
 The letter, written very hurriedly, is on similar paper 
 and presumably 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 
 Bo wen, as I am bound not to give any of her letters. — ■ 
 Ever vour 
 
 " Emma." 
 
 Captain Bowen of the Transfer had brought Ham- 
 ilton despatches from Lord St. Vincent just a week 
 before, and was his guest until the 2nd of August sub- 
 sequent. 
 
 The fact that Emma begs for the letter's return in- 
 dicates that it was one of importance, and might com- 
 promise the Queen. After the battle of the Nile Emma 
 sent Nelson tzvo of the Queen's ordinary letters about 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 199 
 
 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 
 instructions to the governors of ports in event of future 
 urgency. It is right, however, to state that during 
 revision I have lit on a Queen's letter of about this 
 date telling Emma that " circumstances ... do not 
 permit of opening our ports and arms entirely to our 
 brave defenders " ; " our gratitude is none the less " ; 
 she hopes for victory, and wanted to have seen Trou- 
 bridge had prudence allowed. The Queen's anxiety, 
 however, to aid is again manifest from this new let- 
 ter, which shows, too, how keenly she realised the 
 diplomatic situation on which such stress has been laid. 
 In the absence of other evidence it need not be unduly 
 pressed against my theory about her letter of mere 
 promise to Nelson on June 17. 
 
 The immediate reply and pendant to that cheering 
 communication was Nelson's familiar and much- 
 debated letter written an hour before he weighed an- 
 chor : — 
 
 " My 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." 1 
 
 a This letter is misdated in the hurry (as was sometimes the 
 way with Nelson), 17th May, 6 p.m. It is admitted, of course, 
 that on that day he was off Cape Sicie, so that if applicable to 
 1798, it must be a slip of the pen for June 17. With regard to 
 
200 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 Gibral- 
 tar 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. Her statements have been 
 construed as 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 words, " this awful period," tally with the 
 general impression given by some of Acton's letters and 
 
 "my dear," etc., cf. Morrison MS. 317, where on the preceding 
 day Hamilton mentions her as " Emma " to his " dear Nelson " 
 and " brave friend," and says she wishes him victory " heart 
 and soul." In her " Addington " memorial of 1803 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 ob- 
 tained." 
 
 The material wording of the familiar " Prince Regent's " 
 memorial runs : " It was at this awful period in June 1798, about 
 three days after the French fleet passed by for Malta, Sir 
 William and myself were awakened at six o'clock in the morn- 
 ing by Captain Trowbridge with a letter from Sir Horatio 
 Nelson, then with his fleet off the bay near to Caprea, request- 
 ing that the Ambassador would procure him permission to enter 
 with his fleet into Naples or any of the Sicilian ports, to pro- 
 vision, water, etc., as otherwise he must run for Gibraltar, 
 being in urgent want, and that, consequently, he would be 
 obliged to give over all further pursuit of the French fleet, 
 which he missed at Egypt, on account of their having put in to 
 Malta." 
 
 The wording of her King's memorial, which seems never to 
 have been presented, is more clearly expressed and more ex- 
 plicit: — "That Your Majesty's Memorialist on a subsequent oc- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 201 
 
 the Queen's as to the present crisis. Hamilton himself 
 in a draft for his known despatch of this date to Gren- 
 ville adds the significant postscript — " This Court, as 
 you may perceive, is in great distiess." A note has al- 
 ready sought to show that Nelson must surely have 
 been aware of the court's suffering condition. There 
 seems, therefore, nothing improbable in his use of the 
 phrase, " the sufferings of her family." 
 
 I hope now to have proved 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 re- 
 united, and at least a new complexion is placed on the 
 received account. Emma assuredlv sent Nelson a let- 
 ter covering one from the Queen, and so far her claim 
 is supported. In this respect, therefore, modern scep- 
 ticism has proved mistaken. I cannot but hope that 
 such as have doubted may now find reason to modify 
 their verdict, and will honour Nelson, whose love for 
 Emma has been begrudged as debasement, by admit- 
 
 casion, by means of the same confidential communication with 
 that great and good woman, the Queen of Naples, had the un- 
 speakable 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 
 with a promptitude and celerity which certainly hastened the 
 glorious battle of the Nile, and occasioned his good and grate- 
 ful 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." 
 
202 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ting 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 diffi- 
 culties." He confides to Lady Hamilton his hope 
 to be " presented " to her " crowned with laurels 
 or cypress." He presses them to exert themselves in 
 procuring for him masts and stores. He deprecates 
 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 summer. The Queen was distracted 
 at the royal and ministerial delays and punctilios. La 
 Valette was in French hands " without a blow," the 
 Maltese knights were dastards, and she could not pity 
 them. " Ces coquins de Francais " pretended to have 
 grenades to burn the fleet of her hopes. She dis- 
 parages Garat. She sends her " dear, faithful " Emma 
 the Austrian ciphers to copy under vows of secrecy : 
 Emma will see how little sincerity exists in Vienna. 
 Emma is indispensable. Emma has infused her whole 
 being with Nelson. The Queen bids her shout and 
 sing once more before the assembled throng, " Hip, 
 hip, hip! " " God save the King! " and " God save Nel- 
 son ! " She harps on Malta, " an irreparable loss," and 
 " gallant Nelson, with his British fleet," which she 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 203 
 
 strained her mind's eye to follow past Cape Passaro. 
 She owns Emma's initiative. In some matter seem- 
 ingly relative to British ships, she writes that Emma's 
 wishes are assured by a reputation (was it Maltese?) ; 
 the " brave English " are now assured of the national 
 sympathy. 
 
 Nor was Hamilton behindhand. He furnished Nel- 
 son with advices. He informed him how Napoleon 
 had quitted Malta; how Garat's insolent demand that 
 the French should usurp the Maltese privilege of buy- 
 ing Sicilian corn had eventually succeeded ; " shock- 
 ing," he comments, that neither King nor Emperor 
 will " abandon half measures." 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 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 at- 
 tached 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 
 
204 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 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 Mediter- 
 ranean 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 Ham- 
 ilton 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 Syracuse 
 and 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 dis- 
 tressed for the kingdom of the Two Sicilies ; and hav- 
 ing gone a round of six hundred leagues, at this season 
 of the year (with a single ship, with an expedition in- 
 credible), here I am, as ignorant of the situation of the 
 enemy as I was twenty-seven days ago ! " 
 
 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 205 
 
 a letter was probably in Nelson's pocket may be in- 
 ferred from the subsequent narrative. 
 
 While Nelson nears the Syracusan harbour bar, mod- 
 ern criticism once more intercepts our view, and must 
 for a moment delay our story. It will not do so long, 
 because one of the documents on which its controversy 
 relies will enable us to resume our thread. But three 
 preliminaries must first be mentioned. 
 
 It is 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, beween these two 
 distinct classes of correspondence, and those other half- 
 private letters intended for Hamilton to show Acton in 
 confidence, and yet hinting or suggesting more than 
 the General was meant to gather from them. 
 
 It has also escaped full notice that for some time 
 past a private correspondence had regularly passed be- 
 tween Nelson and the Hamiltons. This is clear from 
 a letter (soon to be quoted) of July 22 from Nelson to 
 Lady Hamilton in the Morrison Collection, where he 
 inquires after her plans for " coming down the Medi- 
 terranean " with her husband, presumably to help him. 
 Thirdly, so late as the first week in August, after Nel- 
 son's battle had been won, Acton was still ignorant that 
 his ships had been adequately provisioned, and was ar- 
 ranging further measures for the purpose; aware on 
 August 15 of the Sicilian provisions, he planned 
 more. 
 
 Let us glance at a little farce enacted with exquisite 
 gravity by the Governor of Syracuse. 
 
 It emerges from a document addressed by him to 
 General Sir John Acton. A key to this is supplied 
 by the fact that General Acton, days after handing the 
 informal " order," had expressly cautioned Hamilton 
 that, pending the as yet unsigned articles with Austria, 
 
206 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 all the governors of all Sicilian ports had been specially 
 directed to make an " ostensible opposition," lest the 
 French might be incensed into attack by any open 
 breach of the stipulated Neapolitan neutrality. Above 
 all, it should be noted that this Governor's letter at 
 Naples seems to distinguish between a royal despatch 
 signed by Acton, and a royal letter in Nelson's pos- 
 session. On the other hand, the other construction is 
 open. When the " Vice-Admiral " declared that the 
 letter entitled the whole fleet to be watered, he may 
 only have been making the best of the despatch. 
 
 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. Gradu- 
 ally 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 har- 
 bour." The pompous Governor, shocked at such haste, 
 forwarded a second boat with two military function- 
 aries 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. A shore-boat promptly met the 
 Governor's with " a royal letter " purporting to con- 
 tain royal instructions for the admission of the whole 
 squadron. This I take to have been the Queen's pri- 
 vate letter, forwarded in pursuance of her promise to 
 Emma, and holding the Governor harmless in disobey- 
 ing the strict letter of the law. While, therefore, in 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 207 
 
 pursuance of certainty, the entire squadron advanced 
 to cross the bar, the British " Vice-Admiral " proceeded 
 with the officers, and was received by the Governor 
 at his house. There he delivered a further (and sep- 
 arate?) missive, "a royal despatch" written in the 
 King's name, and signed by Acton — in fact, the ir- 
 regular " order " obtained on that memorable morning 
 of June 17, and by no means expressly empowering the 
 reception of the whole fleet. The Governor, conform- 
 ing to the prescribed comedy, feigned hesitation; there- 
 upon a letter from Nelson himself was shown — " dif- 
 ficult to read," and justifying the entire squadron's en- 
 trance. Hereupon the Governor, " struck " by what 
 he must have known, and also by other reflections [The 
 Queen's private order?], reminds one of Byron's " and 
 whispering I will ne'er consent, consented." He af- 
 fected to raise " friendly protests," while he enforced 
 the King's directions to save appearances by spreading 
 the ships over different regions and at various distances. 
 He even hinted in confidence the " propriety " of quit- 
 ting 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 were closed at sunset. 
 On the following afternoon Nelson and his " staff " 
 paid their respects. The Governor grasped him 
 warmly by the hand, but still maintained 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 Sir John 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 anything that 
 the Queen might have dared through Emma's request. 
 He was to believe that the stretch of international ci- 
 
208 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 vility 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. 
 
 We have reached July the 21st. 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 
 concealment, and — a real Sicilian trait — all the country- 
 folk immediately raised the price of their provisions. 
 
 On July 22nd Nelson forwarded two private let- 
 ters, one to Sir William, the other to Lady Hamilton. 
 
 They are both indignant and irritable at delay ag- 
 gravated 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 Hamil- 
 ton had been told only three weeks before by the Gen- 
 eral 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 Troubridge." 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 Gov- 
 ernors been followed by the actual " open sesame " 
 which she had promised as a last resort. For disap- 
 pointment 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 have 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 209 
 
 admit three or four of the ships . . . that I am aston- 
 ished. I understood that private orders at least would 
 have been 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 
 ironical displeasure, a coolness betokening how unex- 
 pectedly 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 Medi- 
 terranean, 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 al- 
 ways 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 ex- 
 pressly 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 
 
210 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 and annoyance gave way to delight. Something must 
 have intervened to alter the face of affairs, something 
 with which Nelson's temper accorded, and that some- 
 thing was certainly not any sight of the French fleet. 
 Delay had been removed. 
 
 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 about this period could address 
 his friend as " My dear Nelson." He is mistaken. 
 Writing to Nelson a month previously, Sir William 
 ends with " All our present dependance is in you, my 
 dear Nelson,, and I am convinced that what is in the 
 power of mortal man, you will do." 
 
 The " Arethusa " letter springs, it is true, from the 
 suspected 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 Nel- 
 son 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 in- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 211 
 
 disputable " private " letter to Hamilton already no- 
 ticed, and following immediately on his authentic an- 
 swer 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 re- 
 turn either crowned with laurel, or covered with 
 cypress." 
 
 The " first breeze " did not apparently 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 about 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 im- 
 plying that the long-deferred " private orders " had 
 arrived, though the evidently guarded wording pro- 
 vides, as so often, against its being shown to General 
 Acton. This letter's authenticity can hardly be 
 doubted. 
 
 " The fleet is unmoored, and the moment the wind 
 comes off the land shall go out of this delightful har- 
 bour, where our present wants have been amply sup- 
 plied, 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 I shall still find the French fleet, and be 
 able to get at them. . . . No frigates! " Even a fort- 
 night later Acton still excuses himself to Hamilton. 
 
 Assuredly throughout these quick transitions the un- 
 dertone of Emma and the Oueen is audible. Nelson 
 
212 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 knew what had really happened ; his commentators are 
 left to guess the truth from disputed shreds of cor- 
 respondence. 
 
 Refitted and reheartened, Nelson, who, as ever, had 
 long been rehearsing his plans to his officers, hastened 
 with his fleet to Aboukir Bay. There is no need to re- 
 count that memorable struggle of the ist of August, 
 which lasted over twenty-four hours — the daring 
 strategy of a master-pilot, the giant L'Ofient blazing 
 with colours already struck, and exploded under a sul- 
 len sky torn with livid lightning, the terrific thunder- 
 storm interrupting the death-throes of the battle, the 
 complete triumph of an encounter which delivered 
 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 tur- 
 moil, 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 anticipation. 
 He was acclaimed the " saviour " both of Britain and 
 the Continent. 
 
 And his trust in the Hamiltons, his unshakable be- 
 lief 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 213 
 
 " 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 
 Hoste with a diamond ring, 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 vic- 
 tory to the Queen. So early as September the 1st 
 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 Sieve 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 im- 
 possible 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 pro- 
 totype, whose giftedness and " chiselled " beauty Lu- 
 cian 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 
 
214 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 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 transformed 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 devo- 
 tion 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 215 
 
 world. Sir William was now sixty-eight, Nelson just 
 on forty — " I'dgc critique/' as the French term it. 
 She firmly believed that she had helped his heroism to 
 triumph ; he as firmly, that his battle 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 themselves. 
 
 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 Em- 
 peror 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 in excehis, 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 
 
216 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 round her forehead with the words " Nelson and Vic- 
 tory." 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 con- 
 veyed 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 navy 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 con- 
 valescence 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 sul- 
 tan's aigrette and pelisse, which she " tastes " and 
 " touches." She resents the inadequacy of his Gov- 
 ernment'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." 
 
 But now she is '• preparing his apartments against 
 he comes." On September 22 the Vanguard anchored 
 in the bay, and he came. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 217 
 
 The King and Queen had prepared a gorgeous ova- 
 tion. 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 repub- 
 lican 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 Ham- 
 iltons, 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 Ladyship, 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 interest- 
 ing. He took me by the hand, calling me his ' Deliv- 
 erer and Preserver,' with every other expression of 
 kindness. In short, all Naples calls me ' Nostro 
 Liberatore." 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 very best women in this world, she is an honour 
 
218 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 ex- 
 pressions 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, be- 
 sides 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 con- 
 stantly happened with him, the protracted strain of 
 nervous effort was followed by a severe fever. Lady 
 Hamilton and her mother tended him; a brief visit 
 with the Hamiltons to Castellamare, where Troubridge 
 was refitting the maimed vessels, and a diet of " asses' 
 milk " did much to mend his general health. Nor was 
 it to him alone that Emma, herself 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 let- 
 ter of thanks to " the best friend and patroness of the 
 British Navy " ; Troubridge, too, was far from well at 
 Castellamare ; many were in hospital. But Lady Ham- 
 ilton 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, among many 
 more remaining for subsequent mention, because, in the 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 219 
 
 future, after the fatal dividing line of her triumphal 
 progress to Vienna with the Queen, her husband, and 
 Nelson, they were all 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 unkindly critical on her second visit to 
 Fonthill in 1801 ; Miss Knight, her firm ally at this 
 moment, turned the reverse of friendly. Troubridge 
 (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 con- 
 venances. Even the Queen's ardour cooled; and the 
 English official world began to look askance at the 
 trio, and to make merry over Samson and Delilah. 
 
 Nelson's birthday gave full scope for a colossal 
 demonstration at the English Embassy. Emma's huge 
 assembly, where royalty and all the cream of society 
 presided, was hardly an enjoyment for the worn con- 
 queror. A " rostral column " of the classical pattern, 
 with inscriptions celebrating 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 festiv- 
 ity was chequered by Josiah Nisbet, Nelson's scape- 
 grace but petted stepson, who brawled with him in his 
 cups, until Troubridge parted them, and ended the in- 
 decent scuffle. That this arose from his habits, and 
 not of design, is shown by Emma's affectionate refer- 
 ences to him in her letter to his mother only four days 
 afterwards. 
 
 Nelson was dispirited, and disgusted not only with 
 the " fiddlers " and loose dames of the court, but with 
 
220 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 its finicking petit mditre, Gallo, the foreign minister, all 
 airs and pouncet; so afraid lest the wind should step 
 between him and his nobility, that, solemn over trifles, 
 he persistently dallied with the grave issues now at 
 stake. The halting Acton himself proved energetic 
 mainly in professions, 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, shown the white feather at Valetta, and 
 left the French practically masters of the field, but in 
 the Romagna and in Tuscany the enemy was daily gain- 
 ing ground. Moreover, while the Queen was reassured 
 as to the goodwill of the middle class and the Laz- 
 zaroni, 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 hus- 
 band trounced her as the cause of his woes, and despite 
 his enthusiasm for the " hero," he remained in the 
 Anglophobe party's clutches. The delaying Gallo was 
 averse to open 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 de- 
 clared, the Porte was on the verge of declaring, war 
 against the French Republic. The preceding 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, much more 
 concerned with the impending birth of a grandchild 
 who might inherit the throne, than with the portents of 
 affairs. His disposition shunned reality, notwithstand- 
 ing the fact, however, that he had sanctioned the sum- 
 mons of General Mack from Vienna to command his 
 forces. And, added to all these manifold preoccupa- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 221 
 
 tions, Lady Spencer, who had acclaimed Nelson's tri- 
 umph 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 attempting in Ireland what they had succeeded in 
 doing at Naples : their complots with rebellion threat- 
 ened 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, interpretative. 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 standing — above all, in 
 things of the spirit, in passionate energy, in courage, in 
 romance, in " sensibility " and enthusiasm they were 
 affinities. 
 
 The result of these consultations is shown by the 
 long draft of a letter outlining a policy, which Nelson 
 drew up as a lever for Emma herself 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 pro- 
 crastination." He dwelt on Garat's insolence, and 
 
222 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 bold- 
 est measures are the safest." He presented his mani- 
 festo as a " preparitive " and as " the unalterable 
 opinion of a British Admiral anxious to approve him- 
 self a faithful servant to his sovereign by doing - 
 everything in his power for the happiness and dignity 
 of their Sicilian Majesties." To Sir William he 
 would write separately. He recognised the signs of 
 revolution, and already he sounded the note of warn- 
 ing. He recommended that their " persons and prop- 
 erty " should be ready in case of need for embarkation 
 at the shortest notice. If " the present ruinous sys- 
 tem of procrastination " persevered, it would be his 
 " duty " to provide for the safety not only of the Ham- 
 iltons, 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 one to 
 Hamilton, show that the document was intended for 
 the Queen's eye alone, and point to the suggestion of 
 it by Emma herself. We shall see that while Sir 
 William was pushing affairs with the English Gov- 
 ernment, Emma, during Nelson's absence in the Adri- 
 atic and the Mediterranean, was practically to be Am- 
 bassador 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 annoyed was he at the 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 223 
 
 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," " calls for our 
 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 Gren- 
 ville's former attitude reversed. 
 
 The very day of Nelson's departure drew from him 
 the tribute to Lady Hamilton which was in Pettigrew's 
 possession, 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 affections, had been gained into grateful at- 
 tachment by Hamilton, with the covert resolve of be- 
 coming 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 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 
 
224 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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. 
 Disloyalty 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 ville ggiatura for Naples. 
 
 It was, in her own words, with Nelson's " spirit " 
 that Emma inflamed the Queen, from whom she was 
 now inseparable. 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 promptness of Nelson's policy. Gen- 
 eral 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 
 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 225 
 
 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 com- 
 fort 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 yester- 
 day. How she hates him. He won't reign long — 
 so much the better. . . . You are wanted at Caserta. 
 AH 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 per- 
 haps Nelson's steward provided him u 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 ac- 
 knowledgments 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 des- 
 perate 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 Lon- 
 don, 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. 
 T'other from their dear son and daughter, cold, un- 
 
226 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 immedi- 
 ately." 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 unconscionable 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 150,000 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 yes- 
 terday, 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 " put- 
 ting Virtue out of countenance by their . . . libertin- 
 age. . . . 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 de- 
 claring that she had " spurred them on " ? The Queen 
 had been actually heartened into resolving on a 
 regency, a new fact which reveals the political di- 
 vergences 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 thou- 
 sand. I have a pain in my head, . . . and must go 
 take an airing. . . . May you live long, long, long 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 227 
 
 for the sake of your country, your King, your family, 
 all Europe, 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 mid- 
 dle 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 speaking of you. 
 ... I would not be a lukewarm friend for the world. 
 I . . . cannot make friendships 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 overtures, that he would certainly dis- 
 regard any capitulation into which the Maltese General 
 might afterwards be forced to enter. He learned the 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 8 
 
228 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 decision for definite war, and the King's reluctant con- 
 sent at length to accompany the army to Rome. No 
 sooner had Garat been dismissed, than the French de- 
 clared 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 De- 
 cember. At first Mack and the Neapolitan troops pre- 
 vailed, and Prince Moliterno's valour covered the 
 cowardice of his troops. The King entered Rome; 
 the Queen's mercurial hopes ran high. But her ex- 
 ultation 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 re- 
 serve. 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 rea- 
 son 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 com- 
 mand; his officers were bribed and their men deserted. 
 Rome was retaken; a retreat became unavoidable, and 
 by the second week in December that retreat had al- 
 ready 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 retire- 
 ment of the Republicans from Frosinone had cheered 
 her. She was very ill, and fresh home conspiracies 
 were in course of discovery. 
 
 Emma still lingered in her neighbourhood at Caserta. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 229 
 
 Beseeching Nelson not to go ashore at Leghorn, and 
 rejoicing at the unfounded rumour that his " dear, ven- 
 erable father " had been made a bishop, she informed 
 him that the King had at length issued a clear mani- 
 festo. The army had marched, the Queen had just 
 gone to pray for them in the cathedral. She announced 
 the King's triumphal 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 corre- 
 spondence that Emma's interjectional letters, which 
 
230 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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." 
 
 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. Gathering reverses incensed 
 a populace that was only too likely to be frenzied 
 should their King prefer escape Sicilyward 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 when the dreaded moment arrived, would rather 
 have welcomed death 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 sub- 
 jects ! " had been Sir Joseph Banks's exclamation to Sir 
 William Hamilton in 1795. At this present end of 
 1798 the devil (or Buonaparte) proved especially busy 
 in this particular branch of his business. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 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 plan- 
 ning, 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 indefatigable 
 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 de- 
 clared that he saw it again before Copenhagen, though 
 it was missed at Trafalgar. It was his herald of vic- 
 tory. 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 Cap- 
 tain, the coffin made from a mast of the ruined 
 L' 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 be- 
 
 231 
 
232 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 fore, " and the Queen dies at her post, I will remain 
 with her. If she goes, I follow her." 
 
 The second week of December proved to the Queen 
 that events were inexorable, and her selfish son-in-law 
 cold and unmoved : he shifted with the political 
 barometer. She had despatched her courier, Rosen- 
 heim, to Vienna, but he only returned with ill tidings. 
 Vienna would " give no orders." In vain she sup- 
 plicated her daughter, " may your dear husband be our 
 saviour." The Emperor flatly refused his aid. His 
 subjects now desired peace, and the Neapolitans 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 al- 
 leged breach of their treaty by the watering of the 
 British fleet. A threatening army of invaders was al- 
 ready 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 dis- 
 aster. 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 crown- 
 ing blow as a help to their cause, heightened the humil- 
 iation. The Queen, slighted and indignant, betook 
 herself to Nelson and to Emma. They both pressed 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 233 
 
 anew the urgent necessity of flight; she disdained it. 
 It was a " fresh blow to her soul and spirit " ; h^ orig- 
 inal plan had been to have gone with her children else- 
 where. 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 the King returned, and, faltering, showed him- 
 self 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 ap- 
 prised 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 outside, 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 cer- 
 tainty of Buonaparte's designs against the Two Sicilies. 
 The General had at first written to Sir William with 
 
234 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 some sang-froid of the " troublesome and dangerous 
 circumstances " of the " crisis," but within a few days 
 he was a zealous co-operator. Nelson, 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 
 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 license and anarchy. He had sum- 
 moned ships to protect the Vanguard: the Cnlloden 
 with Troubridge from the north and west coasts of 
 Italy, the Goliath from off Malta, the Alcmene under 
 Captain Hope from Egypt. After ordering the block- 
 ade of Genoa, he had ironically asked if the King was 
 at war with its flag. 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 process occupied her night and day for 
 nearly a week, and required the strictest secrecy and 
 caution. Some she may have fetched, some she re- 
 ceived, many she stowed. 
 
 Criticism, biassed, may be, by anxiety to impugn 
 Emma's latest memorial, makes much of evidence in a 
 few isolated letters, indicating that the Queen for- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 235 
 
 warded some of her effects by trusted messengers, and 
 omitting that Emma caused any herself to be carried 
 from the palace to the Embassy. The detail is not 
 very material, since her assistance is evident, even if 
 her memory enlarged it. The very bulk of the many 
 chests and boxes to be removed was to cause a danger- 
 ous delay in the eventual voyage. They were con- 
 veyed 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 her almost hourly notes, expressly hoped that 
 she was not " indiscreet in sending these," thereby sug- 
 gesting that various means of conveyance had been used 
 for some of the rest. In another, too, she excused her- 
 self for her " abuse of your kindnesses and that of our 
 brave Admiral." Nelson's official account to Lord St. 
 Vincent stated that " Lady Hamilton " from Decem- 
 ber 14 to 21 " received the jewels, etc." Emma's own 
 recital to Greville, less than a fortnight after the ter- 
 rors of the journey were past, included as the least of 
 her long fatigues that " for six nights before the em- 
 barkation " 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 Van- 
 guard, 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 Oueen of 
 Naples." 
 
 In the pathos of the Queen's letters to Emma resides 
 their true interest. Maria Carolina's anguish in- 
 creased as the plot for her preservation thickened; she 
 
236 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 clung piteously to the strong arms of Emma and Nel- 
 son, 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 " habitually " 
 that she " 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 the Queen 
 to her friend encloses a little blue-printed picture. It 
 is an elegiac. A wreathed Amorino pipes mournfully 
 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 mel- 
 ancholy refrain to the would-be martyr. 
 
 Prince Belmonte, now chamberlain, acted as the 
 King's agent with Caracciolo in effecting a scheme full 
 of difficulty, 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 bag- 
 gage, the avowed designs of the French Directory, the 
 covert conspiracies of false courtiers in which the War 
 Minister himself was implicated, the fierceness of pop- 
 ular tumult, and the Jacobin spies who kept a sharp 
 lookout on Nelson, but were foiled by Emma's and the 
 Queen's adroitness. 
 
 The plan originally concerted was as follows. The 
 escape was to happen on the night of the 20th. After 
 the last instalments of treasure and detachments of 
 foreigners had been safely and ceremoniously depos- 
 ited on board their several vessels, Count Thurn (an 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 237 
 
 Austrian admiral of the Neapolitan navy) would at- 
 tend outside the secret passage leading from the royal 
 rooms to the " Molesiglio," or little quay, to receive 
 Nelson or his nominees. It is said that Brigadier Ca- 
 racciolo had begged to convoy the royal party and 
 float the royal standard on his frigate, 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 death. 
 
 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, one possibly referring to the royalties, evi- 
 dently mistrusted. 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 these few hours will not exasperate more 
 than at present our position." Nelson remained po- 
 lite, but decided. The fact was that both King and 
 Queen 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, dissension, wavering perplexity, confusion, a 
 spectral misery. In its purlieus, treason. Outside, a 
 seditious loyalty withholding the King from the Queen. 
 In the council-chamber, Belmonte, serene and punc- 
 tilious; Gallo, dainty in danger; Caracciolo, jealous 
 and sullen; Acton, slow, doubtful, and stolid. At the 
 
238 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 English Embassy alone reigned vigilance, resolve, and 
 resourcefulness. Every English merchant (and there 
 Were many both here and at Leghorn) looked to Nel- 
 son and Hamilton and Emma. Among phantoms 
 these were realities. On them alone counted those 
 poor " old demoiselles 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 21st. 
 
 All that day General Acton pelted Nelson and Ham- 
 ilton with contradictory announcements, of which no 
 fewer than seven remain. At first he agrees that the 
 moment has come when " no time should be lost," but 
 the inevitable proviso follows — " If the wind does not 
 blow too hard." He next writes that, in such a case, all 
 had best be deferred afresh. The Alcmene, 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 prom- 
 ises 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 spec- 
 tacle to the eyes of the servant women and in the 
 rest of the family." Nelson, pressing for expedition, 
 must have been beside himself over the precious mo- 
 ments thus being squandered. What Acton remarks 
 in one of these letters, once more in his peculiar Eng- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 239 
 
 lish, applies also to his own communications, " Heav- 
 ings from every side . . . contradictions from every 
 corner." 
 
 Nelson, however, would brook no more trifling. 
 Everything should be settled by about seven. Count 
 Thurn should be at the appointed rendezvous, the 
 Molesiglio. His password, unless some unexpected 
 force intervened, was to be the English, " All goes 
 right and well"; otherwise, "All is wrong, you may 
 go back. 3 ' 
 
 One can imagine the unfortunate Count rehearsing 
 his provoking part that afternoon with an Austrian ac- 
 cent : " Al goes raight " — " Al ccs vrong." 
 
 Acton and Caracciolo drew up the order of em- 
 barkation. 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 in- 
 fant (whose " zafatta," or nurse, was no less a per- 
 sonage than the Duchess of Gravina), the little Prince 
 Albert, to whom Emma was devoted (with his "za- 
 fatta" 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 Men- 
 delssohn-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 Joseph Acton's family 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 
 
240 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 that from these exact lists, detailing the names of every 
 passenger, the Hamiltons are absent. They were un- 
 der Nelson's care, and of his party — a point most ma- 
 terial to the future narrative substantiating Lady Ham- 
 ilton's own subsequent story. And it must further be 
 emphasised that these Acton letters, as well as a refer- 
 ence in one of the Queen's, go far to establish the plan 
 of the secret passage as an historical fact, instead 
 of as any figment or after-inlay of Emma's imagi- 
 nation. 
 
 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 in- 
 quisition — had shot himself dead, and she loads herself 
 with reproaches. Massacre continued ; the very French 
 emigres were not spared by the Italian Jacobins. 
 Everywhere tumult, disgrace, bloodshed. The crowd, 
 calmed for a moment, still howled at intervals for 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 " license grows 
 hourly. Their " concert 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. Her torn heart bleeds. Mack 
 despairs also, for Aquila is taken, " to the eternal 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 241 
 
 shame of our country." She trembles for the horrors 
 that a cowardly people may commit. 
 
 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 Mole- 
 siglio, and at his station near the Arsenal, stood Thurn, 
 muffled and ill at ease. It was the night of a recep- 
 tion 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. Vin- 
 cent, accentuating, 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. 
 
 Let us try to ascertain the truth by collation. Nel- 
 son's account is brief and doubtless accurate : — 
 
 "On the 2 1 st, at 8.30 p.m., three barges with my- 
 self and Captain Hope landed at a corner of the Ar- 
 senal. I went into the palace and brought out the 
 whole royal family, put them into the boats, and at 
 9.30 they were all safely on board." 
 
 It is an official statement, which naturally omits the 
 Count in waiting, the password, the mysteries of the 
 secret corridor, 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 
 
242 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 — all our family, ten in number, with 
 the utmost secrecy, in the dark, without our women 
 or any one, and in two boats. 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 occur- 
 rences, 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 vivid words bear a construction dif- 
 ferent 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 2 ist 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 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 at twelve o'clock. If we had remained 
 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 243 
 
 for the royal fugitives. But the reverse of this ad- 
 mits 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 Van- 
 guard. Nelson saved the royalties, who were not on 
 board till " twelve." It is obvious, therefore, that 
 (whatever the precise hour) the Hamiltons and Mrs. 
 Cadogan arrived on the Vanguard at the selfsame mo- 
 ment as the King, the Queen, their children, and grand- 
 child. The misimpression arises from the phrasing 
 " Lord Nelson then went with armed boats," etc., fol- 
 lowing the previous statement of their being at their 
 destination " after two hours." But this " then" as 
 so often in Emma's thinking-aloud letters, seems an 
 enclitic merely carrying on disjointed sentences. It 
 may be no mark of time at all, but a mere reference to 
 what happened after they hastened from the enter- 
 tainment, having ordered everything as if they intended 
 to remain 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, be- 
 fore 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 ? 
 
 Here Emma's own account in her " Prince Regent's 
 
244 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Memorial," more than fourteen years afterwards, per- 
 haps comes to our aid. It has been discredited even as 
 regards the " secret passage " incident which Acton's 
 letters reveal by distinct allusion. This is what Emma 
 says : — 
 
 " To shew the caution and secrecy that was neces- 
 sarily 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 Tri- 
 umph. I had to steal from the party, leaving our car- 
 riages 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 ex- 
 tremely hazardous, and our miraculous preservation is 
 recorded by the Admiral upon our arrival at Palermo." 
 
 I venture, therefore, to suggest the following prob- 
 ability.' Count Thurn is keeping watch, in accordance 
 with the preconcerted plan. Captain Hope and Nel- 
 son 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. Cado- 
 gan. Within a quarter of an hour they all sally 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 ac- 
 companies 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 245 
 
 Hamiltons re-enter their own private boat. In another 
 hour they again meet on board the Vanguard. 
 
 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 melo- 
 drama of the moment, the danger, the descent down 
 the cavernous passage, the lanterns, pistols, and cut- 
 lasses, 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 re- 
 port 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 
 commendation in his despatches, what was published 
 both at home and abroad, and universally acknowl- 
 edged, 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, car- 
 ing 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 
 
246 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 23rd that the Vanguard could weigh anchor. Fresh 
 consignments of things left behind were awaited. It 
 was still hoped that riot might be pacified and disaf- 
 fection subdued. Prince Francesco Pignatelli had 
 been commissioned to reign at Naples during the 
 King's absence, and was nominated Deputy-Captain- 
 General — of anarchy. During this interval of sus- 
 pense, 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 ex- 
 ecrated 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 fastening 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 her sad letter to her daughter. The 
 " cruel resolution had to be taken." Her " one con- 
 solation " 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 247 
 
 shadow." The next morning 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 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 neg- 
 lected. 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 as- 
 sisted 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 hav- 
 ing 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 at- 
 tend 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 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 chil- 
 dren. 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 
 
248 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 shou'd not have had 
 this Island but for his glorious victory. He is called 
 here Nostro Liberatore, nostro Salvatore. We have 
 left everything at Naples but the vases and best pic- 
 tures. 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 profnt 
 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. Vin- 
 cent 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 Will- 
 iam [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 sensi- 
 bility. God bless you, my dear Sir. Excuse this 
 scrawl." 
 
 At three in the afternoon of that sad Christmas Day, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 249 
 
 the royal standard was hoisted at the head of the Van- 
 guard in face of Palermo. The tempest-tossed Queen, 
 prostrate with grief at the death of her little son, re- 
 fused to go on shore. The King entered his barge 
 and was received with loyal acclamations. The Van- 
 guard 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 surrounded 
 by half-enemies. Caracciolo had not yet evinced his 
 Jacobin sympathies and was already sailing under du- 
 bious colours. The Neapolitan Captain Bausan, whose 
 skill contributed to the safety of the ships, and who 
 was again to pilot the King next year into port, be- 
 came, in that very year, himself a suspect and an 
 exile. 
 
 Among the furniture abandoned at the English Em- 
 bassy may have been 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. Sanderson, the 
 eminent Edinburgh collector, to whose kindness the 
 writer is indebted for a photograph. Was it to these, 
 perhaps, that Nelson alluded when he mentioned the 
 " Amorins " to Emma in 1804? 
 
 The Queen secluded herself in the old palace of 
 Colli. It seemed ages, she soon wrote, since she had 
 seen one to whom she repeated her eternal gratitude 
 and perpetual concern. 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, disgraced by defeats, and stung by 
 treacheries, but her husband now began to make her a 
 scapegoat. This, forsooth, was the fruit of her Anglo- 
 
250 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 mania — a revolted kingdom, a maddened though ador- 
 ing populace, an advancing and arrogant enemy. 
 Every day the Queen frequented the churches for 
 prayer and the convents for meditation. Each even- 
 ing she poured out her heart to the helpful friend of 
 her choice, whose sympathy lightened a load else in- 
 supportable. 
 
 With some difficulty the Hamiltons, whose perma- 
 nent 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 treas- 
 ures home. Homeward he himself yearned to retire, 
 leaving the Consul Lock as his charge d'affaires. " I 
 have been driven," he told Greville, " from my com- 
 fortable house at Naples to a house here without chim- 
 neys, 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 
 wonderful, and he loves us sincerely." He consoled 
 himself 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 populace, to a French General. The Tree of 
 Liberty had been planted; the wooden image of the 
 giant, crowned with the red cap of Revolution, had 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 251 
 
 been set up in full sight 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 Roy- 
 alists 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 popula- 
 tion 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 col- 
 lusion ; it was the Lazzaroni alone who had the real 
 right of denouncement. No sooner had Pignatelli 
 published the absconded King's proclamation, and 
 placarded the edict appointing him as temporary 
 viceroy, than " chaos was come again." Their rough- 
 and-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 de- 
 clared 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 en- 
 wrap the stricken city, were those of Mephistopheles. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 TRIUMPH ONCE MORE 
 
 To August, 1799 
 
 uS ^CONSPIRACIES are for aristocrats, not for 
 i nations," is a pregnant apophthegm of Dis- 
 
 ^-"' raeli. Viewed at its full length and from its 
 inner side, the great Jacobin outburst at Naples was 
 more a conspiracy than a revolution, or even an insur- 
 rection. 
 
 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 in- 
 quiry; 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 themselves the doom that they had planned for 
 others. They proved fully as much tyrants and tor- 
 mentors as their sovereign; and the whole conflict was 
 really one between two absolutisms, democratic and 
 bureaucratic — a struggle between extreme systems 
 
 252 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 253 
 
 exhibiting equal symptoms of the same evil. The 
 " Civic Guard," to be erected by the " Deputies," per- 
 secuted just as Maria Carolina's secret police had per- 
 secuted before. Acton's exactions were to be out- 
 done by the French Commissary Faypoult's pillage, 
 and the French General Championnet's " indemnities." 
 As for brutality, it was tripled by the new reign of 
 terror, and when Championnet compassed the concili- 
 ation 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 father- 
 land 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 in- 
 spired by noble motives and proved conscientious vic- 
 tims. Such children of light as these redeem the 
 movement as a real step in the progress of law to lib- 
 erty. Some were lofty idealists, while others, how- 
 ever, dreamed of realising theories impossible even in 
 Cloud-Cuckoo-land. Savants and ignoramuses, phi- 
 lanthropists and cosmopolitans abounded. But the 
 majority were actuated by very personal motives, and 
 inspired by overweening ambitions. None of them, 
 not the noblest, were orginative. All were under the 
 spell of France; the worst, under that of French gold; 
 the best, under that of French sentiment. And, be- 
 fore the close, there were very few even among the 
 least practical who did not rue the day when they in- 
 vited self-interest masquerading as friendship, and 
 opened their gates and their hearts to the busybodying 
 emissaries of the Directory. The very name of Fay- 
 poult soon became more odious than the fact of Fer- 
 dinand. 
 
254 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Once more, just as the contemporary Jacobins con- 
 founded license with freedom, and ascribed to paper 
 constitutions 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, William Tell is made by Schil- 
 ler the prophet of United Germany. Yet, in the main, 
 a legend it remains. The " Parthenopean Republic " 
 was a venture purely local, unillumined by any vision 
 of broadened or strengthened nationality. What was 
 not French in its fantasies, was derived from the mod- 
 els 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 confed- 
 erated 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. 
 
 " U 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 en- 
 lightened schemes by which in her prime Maria Caro- 
 lina 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 255 
 
 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 pauper- 
 isation. 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 cos- 
 mopolitans. They tried to transfigure Naples into 
 Utopia, and for that purpose invited a foe that for- 
 sook them. Denationalism (or a-nationalism) failed; 
 Naples remained Naples still. But the miserable al- 
 ternative proved the grinding sway of an avenging 
 tyrant, bereft by rebellion of his old jollity, and un- 
 tempered by the earlier intellectualism of his now 
 fanatical wife. 
 
 The Revolution presents the spectacle of character- 
 istic class-instincts in orgy. It was a protest far more 
 against Acton's bureaucratic routine than against mon- 
 archy. Its eruptions were those of its physical sur- 
 roundings. It was a Vesuvius, with all its attendants 
 of whirlwind, earthquake, 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 
 pleasing none; the " Eletti " nullified his office, of 
 which the King said they deprived him. He opened 
 with the usual paper-constitution. A " civic guard " 
 was formed, the military and civil functions were di- 
 vided, 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 
 
256 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 ex- 
 cluded, and the real power became vested in a " Vene- 
 tian 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. Pignatelli 
 at once burned one hundred and twenty bombardier 
 boats — a work of needless destruction completed by 
 Commodore Campbell, to Nelson's disgust, some few 
 months later; Count Thurn — our watchman of a fort- 
 night ago — blew up two vessels and three frigates. 
 Amid this flare and detonation were born the calam- 
 ity and carnage that succeeded. Alarm was the pre- 
 lude to violence, and violence to panic. Ere long, the 
 powerless Pignatelli offered the French a truce in his 
 alarm, 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. The recital (though there are many Italian 
 authorities for the whole history) is most vividly given 
 by a contemporary who cannot be accused of partiality 
 to the Lazzaroni. The future General Pepe 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 257 
 
 have been viewed in the cathedral. The proud and 
 brave Prince Moliterno, among the few distinguished 
 in the late humiliating 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 gen- 
 eral 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 
 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. Dur- 
 ing the morning he had addressed the assembled peo- 
 ple in the stately hall of San Lorenzo. His speech had 
 been a string of fair-weather promises, not one of 
 which was kept. In the evening he steps cathedralward 
 on one side of the archbishop, the clever general Mac- 
 donald 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 be- 
 lievers 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. 
 
258 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Januarius, then, is a democrat. The Lazzaroni shout 
 in their thousands, " Long live St. Januarius ! long live 
 his republic ! " The trick is palmed off successfully 
 on the credulous populace, and Championnet with Mac- 
 donald returns chuckling to St. Elmo. But miracle or 
 no miracle, the end of this coarse jugglery was civil 
 war. 
 
 The two intervals must now be briefly supplied. 
 
 On January 12 Pignatelli, from the first hampered 
 by the Deputies, negotiated secretly and in panic with 
 the enemy, by this time possessed of the chief provin- 
 cial fortresses, as the " patriots " were of the Neapol- 
 itan. The Lazzaroni, however, were staunch, so that 
 the French commissaries despatched next day by Cham- 
 pionnet to receive their first payment were forced to 
 return. The whole first episode is the triumph of the 
 Lazzaroni. Reinforcements, under General Naselli, 
 reached them from Palermo, and they attacked the 
 quailing " civic guard," composed mainly of " intel- 
 lectuals " and professionals. They seized the " patri- 
 ots' " 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 license of their patrols. On the whole, how- 
 ever, their moderation at first was extraordinary. Pepe, 
 himself their captive, bears it especial witness in re- 
 counting how they disdained the money offered by his 
 relations and released him unharmed. The Lazzaroni 
 adored Prince Moliterno and his colleague in leader- 
 ship, the Duke of Roccaromana. They would gladly 
 have died for these, as for the Duke della Torre and 
 Clemente Filomarino, their associate. But when they 
 discovered that the leading magnates were already 
 treating with the national foe and combining to yield 
 General Championnet and his French troops admit- 
 tance, their wrath knew no bounds. It was fanned by 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 259 
 
 the priests, who vociferated against the Neapolitan foes 
 of Naples from their pulpits. Even Moliterno and 
 Roccaromana were now suspected by their mob-fol- 
 lowers 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 Roccaromana him- 
 self betrayed them. By complot with the " patriots " 
 he entered the fort of St. Elmo, and won over its com- 
 mandant to his stratagem. The Lazzaroni garrison 
 were sent out of their quarters, ostensibly to buy provi- 
 sions 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 Pepe's own 
 confession, the Lazzaroni, deserted and defrauded, 
 evinced a " marvellous intrepidity." Against desperate 
 odds they stood their ground. Only a fortnight be- 
 fore, they had seen of what poor stuff the " civic 
 guard " had been made. But sturdier " patriots " than 
 weak-kneed students now garrisoned St. Elmo. Over- 
 whelming numbers soon closed the conflict. 
 
 Meanwhile Championnet had waved his flag of truce 
 in response to the three-coloured ensign, and while the 
 Lazzaroni 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 eman- 
 cipate them all; a golden age was at hand. His army 
 
 was not French but Neapolitan. 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 9 
 
2 6o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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. 
 Before 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 Direc- 
 tory, and for a moment those who had panted to ex- 
 terminate the French welcomed them as brothers under 
 the celestial portent. The " Parthenopean Republic " 
 was proclaimed. The poets burst into song, the pam- 
 phleteers into doctrine, the journalists into execration 
 of monarchy and eulogies of Reason and the Millen- 
 nium. 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 republicanise unmolested, and was now 
 editress of the new and ebullient Monitore. Its amen- 
 ities 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 sover- 
 eign. "Duke" was derived from coachman ("a 
 ducendo "), " Count " from lackey ("a comitando ") ; 
 epithets were actually changing the nature of 
 things. 
 
 But Championnet's deeds were to refute his words. 
 A few days of paper systems were the parenthesis be- 
 tween 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 in- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 261 
 
 surrection ensued in the provinces, repressed by a fresh 
 " National Guard " wearing the cockade and com- 
 manded by the once loyalist Count Ruvo. The cloven 
 hoof of French " emancipation " soon discovered itself. 
 The Directory acquainted Championnet that, since 
 " right of conquest " had prevailed, the vanquished 
 must pay for the luxury of defeat. Commissary-Gen- 
 eral 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 him- 
 self kicked at such exactions. He protested — and was 
 recalled to Paris. General Macdonald, who, as creature 
 of the Directory, had perhaps anticipated his own ad- 
 vantage, promptly stepped into his shoes. The Direc- 
 tory forwarded more " commissaries," with orders 
 from the " patriotic associations " to pillage the prov- 
 inces and to " dictate Republican laws." The French 
 troops dared not linger too long at Naples, and eventu- 
 ally their whole garrison only amounted to two thou- 
 sand 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 dam- 
 age 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 or- 
 ganised 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. 
 
 It was at this juncture that the King designated 
 Cardinal Ruffo his Vicar-General in place of Pigna- 
 telli, the absconder, and invested him with supreme 
 military command, although, at the same time, he em- 
 
262 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 phatically bound him not to do more than suppress 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 noted at this his first introduction on to 
 our scene, that so early as June 17, Hamilton and Nel- 
 son seem to have lost all confidence in him; and his 
 behaviour a week later was to justify their discern- 
 ment. 
 
 This singular priest-militant, whose rugged hardi- 
 hood 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 insurgents; for they could 
 never forget how the Queen had once withstood the 
 Pope. The raising of his standard, and the co-opera- 
 tion 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 mal- 
 treatment 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 vic- 
 tim from their brutality. A long sequel of sickening 
 butcheries on both sides followed. The French and 
 the " patriots " shot down even old women. Ruffo and 
 his savage bandits gave no quarter ; yet they were wel- 
 comed 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 263 
 
 " commissary " Abrial, who now reigned in Macdon- 
 ald's shoes, and chastised them with scorpions where 
 the others had chastised them with whips. 
 
 The Royalist counter-stroke of April, with Ruffo for 
 instrument, and subsequently a new " extraordinary " 
 tribunal as executive, was long kept a secret, but it was 
 divulged to the Jacobins through a remarkable woman 
 — Luisa Molines Sanfelice. She and her cousin-hus- 
 band had long before been banished for extravagance, 
 but they had both been able to return in safety when 
 the Revolution began. Her passion for a loyalist 
 member of an Italianised Swiss family, Baccher, in- 
 volved the wife in sedition. To her Baccher confided 
 the King's commission, and the secret thus became dis- 
 closed to Vincenzo Coco, the Jacobin historian and ren- 
 egade, who afterwards attached himself to the Bour- 
 bons. " Cherchez la femme," indeed, is an adage ex- 
 emplified 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 thoughts were for the hard-beset Malta, the 
 Neapolitan succours for which continued most unsatis- 
 factory. Now, as a few months later, his endeavour 
 was " so to divide " his " forces, that all " might " have 
 security." To Ball, with characteristic generosity, he 
 entrusted the Maltese opportunities of distinction. He 
 
264 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 was still uneasy and unwell; and he was deeply dis- 
 pirited, after his recent strain, at the home-slight of- 
 fered him by the appointment 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 annoy- 
 ance. His Fanny, too, began to wonder at his neglect 
 of home affairs. " If I have the happiness," he an- 
 swered, " 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 my- 
 self 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 wonder- 
 ing 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 establish- 
 ment 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, in- 
 censed him as much as it did the royal family. Sicily, 
 he thought, would soon be endangered. The French 
 successes at Capua, their installation at Naples, so af- 
 fected him, that he inclined 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 ter- 
 rorism. 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 265 
 
 wishes ever fathered his thoughts — that these might ex- 
 pel 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 mo- 
 ment 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 sometimes ferocious Troubridge to Pro- 
 cida 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 pre- 
 paredness 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 pro- 
 tect Naples and Sicily against France had been the de- 
 clared policy of his Government; to exterminate French 
 predominance was his own chief ambition; he chafed 
 against the survival of a single ship. " I knozv," 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 care." Every pub- 
 lic motive riveted him to the spot where fascination 
 lured and tempted. It is a mistake to imagine that 
 Emma held him from duty; all his duties were per- 
 formed, 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 
 
266 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 was duty that actuated him — a 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 forget fulness. In the 
 very centre of the seaboard that embodied the true in- 
 terests 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 re- 
 doubled it. Her courage spoke to his ; so did her com- 
 passion and energy. Together they received the 
 Maltese deputies. Together they listened, in disguise, 
 to the talk of Sicilian taverns. Together they also 
 went on errands of mercy. From the Queen she car- 
 ried 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 des- 
 patches, every friendly though foreign crew, was wel- 
 comed at the table over which Emma presided. No 
 veriest trifle that could assist them ever escaped her. 
 Indeed, her lavish hospitality and the noisy heartiness 
 of the coming and going guests oppressed the Ambas- 
 sador, 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 " guard- 
 ian 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." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 267 
 
 A great shock had been followed by a great fear. 
 The main body of the French army had gone, but the 
 Neapolitan 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 complexity 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 : — 
 
 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 follow 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 
 
268 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 whispered 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 cere- 
 monies which she had mocked as superstitions 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 
 Madonna. There was at this time at Palermo an 
 Abbe Campbell, who had followed the fugitives thither- 
 ward. 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. Fitzherbert. 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 269 
 
 gang of thieves, pickpockets, highwaymen, cut-th'roats 
 and cut-purses called the French Republic." "Oh!" 
 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 frequently " not present." He actually 
 apologised to Nelson, on the score of hot weather, for 
 not sending him a Jacobin's head ; with charming pleas- 
 antry he calls the donor " a jolly fellow." The " ras- 
 cally nobles, tired of standing as common sentinels," 
 confessed that sheer discomfort had loyalised them. 
 Even here Lady Hamilton's energy was conspicuous. 
 She exerted herself for the Queen in communicating 
 with the island, while Troubridge in his turn for- 
 warded documents to her. She had got conveyed to 
 him a letter from the Queen intended for Pignatelli. 
 The bearer, Troubridge's servant, was loaded by the 
 noble with irons. " I trust before long," Troubridge 
 exclaimed, " I shall have a pull at his nose for it. I 
 have two or three to settle with if we get in." He was 
 " mad " at the infamous conduct of the officers 
 despatched to him by the King. They had violated 
 discipline, and a promise was given that they should be 
 court-martialled. But the most important statement 
 of his despatches to Nelson relates to Caracciolo, who 
 must have been trusted, or he would not have been suf- 
 fered to return home whether his errand was his owl 
 or his master's. " I am now satisfied," declares Trou- 
 bridge, " that he is a Jacobin. He came in the gun- 
 boat to Castellamare himself and spirited up the 
 Jacobins." By April 7 Troubridge had reduced the 
 Neapolitan islands. 
 
 Prospects at last looked brighter. Ruffo had nearly 
 
270 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 subdued 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 Mediter- 
 ranean compass Nelson kept his watchful 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 Sec- 
 ond — never in and never out of the way. 
 
 Early in May, the brig UEspoir brought Nelson the 
 glad tidings that the French fleet had quitted Brest, 
 and had been seen off Oporto. He at once concerted 
 plans with Lord St. Vincent, Troubridge, and Duck- 
 worth. 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 in- 
 tended, 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 13 he was on board the 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 271 
 
 Vanguard. But contrary winds intervened, and kept 
 him waiting for Duckworth's vessels till the 20th, to his 
 keen vexation. His absence heightened the attach- 
 ment 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 oc- 
 casions Sir William writes to Nelson most intimately 
 and admiringly, dating one of his letters " near wind- 
 ing-up-watch hour." Two of his three remaining 
 letters to Emma, before he started, open a little win- 
 dow both on to the interior of the Hamiltons' menage 
 and of his own heart. On the 12th he writes : — 
 
 " My dear Lady Hamilton, — Accept my sincere 
 thanks for your kind letter. Nobody writes so well : 
 therefore pray say not you write ill; for if you do, I 
 will say what your goodness sometimes told me — ' You 
 lie ! ' I can read and 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, present 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 
 
2J2. EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 from the pleasantest 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 con- 
 ceive what I feel when I call you all to my remem- 
 brance, even to Mira, do not forget your faithful and 
 affectionate, Nelson." 
 
 Indeed, all these days he was in constant corre- 
 spondence with the Hamiltons. On May 25, so great 
 was his admiration 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 withdraw some 
 ships from Malta and concentrate his whole forces. 
 On June 8, as Rear-Admiral of the Red, he had shifted 
 from the Vanguard to the Foudroyant. By June 12 
 he heard of Lord St. Vincent's intention 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 in- 
 exhaustible pleasantry. . . . Come then to your sin- 
 cere friends." 
 
 Still not a glimpse of the French fleet. But large 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 273 
 
 issues were pending. The very day before the date 
 of this invitation 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 gratitude " of his " devoted friend." At the 
 same time — and this is the key to after events — Fer- 
 dinand himself conferred on him the fullest powers. 
 In every sense of the word he was to be his pleni- 
 potentiary. 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, di- 
 vided 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 thir- 
 teen Jacobins had been hung. The Queen poured out 
 her renewed hopes and prayers to Lady Hamilton. 
 
 Emma was all devotion and excitement, yet misgiv- 
 ings 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 
 
274 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 of the suburban " retreat " — was writing to her hus- 
 band 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 "instrumental 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 ad- 
 mire 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 ap- 
 praisement had been one of insight. 
 
 Nelson responded to the Queen with all his heart. 
 His zeal quickened with uncertainty. Lady Hamil- 
 ton 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 for- 
 sworn city. The Neapolitan Jacobins were on tenter- 
 hooks 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 as- 
 sured Lord Spencer, " was to assist in driving the 
 French to the devil, and in restoring peace and happi- 
 ness to mankind." 
 
 And still of that veiled flotilla not a token. 
 
 It was reported as bearing on the Italian coast. Nel- 
 son 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, and for such a stroke reinforcements 
 were needed. On June 12 he and Sir William were 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 275 
 
 still concerting their plans. 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. He wrote that Emma " was unwell and 
 low-spirited with phantoms in her fertile brain that 
 torment her . . . too much Sensibility " ; he hoped 
 Nelson was not " fretting " his " guts to fiddle- 
 strings." Emma shrank from the turbid scenes that 
 she would be called upon to interpret and to encounter ; 
 she also dimly dreaded the results of constant associa- 
 tion with her hero. But her knowledge of men, cir- 
 cumstances, 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 consider 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, per- 
 meate every line. Just after this manner, some thir- 
 teen years earlier, the mimic Muse had echoed Greville 
 
276 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 in her answer to the invitation that first lured her to 
 Naples. 
 
 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 justi- 
 fied to herself the chances in relation to her own hus- 
 band 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 sus- 
 picions dare their worst; Emma would brave them 
 out. And another and higher feeling mixed with her 
 agitations. She was quitting her much-loved mother, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 277 
 
 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 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 liv- 
 ing 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 example 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 tri- 
 umphing over his conscience. He had not yet per- 
 suaded himself that his love accorded with the scheme 
 divine, that his formal marriage was no longer con- 
 secrated, and that to profane it was not to profane 
 a sacrament. It was barely a year since Captain Hal- 
 lowell 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 
 
278 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 that it loved were thus pleading with its doubts 
 and anxieties, vexation also spurred him into ir- 
 retrievable decision. Lord Keith's interfering sum- 
 mons to Minorca had reached him. These orders he 
 resented and disobeyed, as he had so often disobeyed 
 unwarrantable orders before. Minorca was a baga- 
 telle 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 coun- 
 tries 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 ap- 
 pealed from Lord St. Vincent's meddlesome successor 
 to Lord St. Vincent. " I cannot think myself justi- 
 fied in exposing the world — I may almost say — to be 
 plundered by these miscreants ... I trust your lord- 
 ship will not think me wrong . . . for agonised in- 
 deed was the mind of your lordship's faithful and af- 
 fectionate servant." These were no sophistries, and 
 " wrong " St. Vincent certainly never held him. It 
 was not long before he learned that Lord Keith him- 
 self had sailed in search of the fleet which unluckily he 
 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 strength- 
 ened by the fact that at this very moment his own, 
 and Emma's, grave suspicions concerning Cardinal 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 279 
 
 Ruffo's misuse of his powers were being strikingly 
 confirmed by new and startling reports; while at the 
 same time another Austrian success at Spezzia had 
 fortified 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 remained behind. The King had 
 apparently 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 actu- 
 ally 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 sur- 
 prise, 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 Hamiltons, 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 after- 
 wards 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 re- 
 turn to Palermo was due to fear of the French fleet. 
 The policy of the Cardinal and the insolence of the 
 
280 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 rebels allowed not a moment to be lost. Forthwith 
 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 warning of his imminent approach ; the Ham- 
 iltons, 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 in- 
 famous compact. That same evening 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 " I believe the business will soon be done." 
 
 These dates and details have been minutely followed, 
 as tending to establish that what really decided Nel- 
 son's movements was the dearest wish of his heart — 
 the honour and interest of Great Britain. After sup- 
 pressing 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 touchstone 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 she must now act a minor, though by no means, 
 as will soon appear, a supernumerary part, as his col- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 281 
 
 league 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 tarnish- 
 ing his fame. 
 
 Mr. Gutteridge's scholarlike and impartial review of 
 all the intricate facts and documents 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, inquisitor, and 
 hangman, if Cardinal Ruffo had not favoured the 
 nobles and wished to restore the feudal system. 
 
 Before the Foudroyant proceeds further, let us 
 glance at the intervening events in Naples. 
 
 In that citadel of turbulence much had again hap- 
 pened, and was happening to the court's knowledge, 
 ere Nelson weighed anchor at Palermo. Before May 
 even, the successful blockade of Corfu by the Russians 
 and Turks had largely cleared Ruffo's conquering 
 course. The Austrians and Russians had prepared to 
 drive the French from Upper Italy. In May, General 
 Macdonald had already beaten a skilful retreat to the 
 Po, leaving only a small detachment behind him to gar- 
 rison the Neapolitan and Capuan castles. Benvenuto 
 had welcomed the loyalists. By early June the Car- 
 dinal, close to the city, had succeeded in intercepting 
 all communications by land. Schipani, a royalist of- 
 ficer of distinction, had disembarked his troops at 
 Torre Annunziata. The Republican fleet, commanded 
 by Caracciolo, now a rebel against his sovereign, had 
 
282 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 avoided close quarters; while that traitor, by compul- 
 sion as he pleaded, who two months ago had quitted 
 Sicily in favour with his master, had even fired on the 
 flag of the frigate Minerva. 
 
 By the 13th of June — amid the solemn rites of the 
 Lazzaroni's other patron, St. Antonio — Ruffo, with 
 his miscellaneous forty thousand, gave battle on the 
 side of Ponte Delia Maddalena, and won. Duke Roc- 
 caromana, the people's old favourite, was now one 
 of his generals, and the populace, tired of bloodshed 
 and the " patriots," rejoiced at the hope of a royal 
 restoration. The young Pepe, 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 whip- 
 ping the rabble with their words, till they threw stones 
 at the miserable prisoners. Some of them Ruffo 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 " patri- 
 ots," 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, a most intriguing agent for his Russian 
 allies, were at last ready 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 " cap- 
 itulation " for the castles still in rebel occupation. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 283 
 
 Terms of any kind the Lazzaroni, on their side, ve- 
 hemently resisted ; Ruffo was even accused of caballing 
 to place his own brother on the throne. Nelson's own 
 views of such unsanctioned capitulation had already 
 been strikingly exemplified by his manifesto at Malta 
 in the previous October — a point to which special at- 
 tention should be drawn. Capitulation the French still 
 stoutly rejected. Mejean, 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, 
 Mejean's aim was to gain time by the threat that he 
 would fire on the town unless Ruffo forbore to attack 
 him. When on June 24 the first sight of Nelson's 
 ships was descried in the distance, the " patriots n 
 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 ar- 
 rival must recall us to what Captain Foote of the 
 Seahorse had been doing in the interval. He appears 
 as no diplomatist, but a most humane and 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 does not seem to have been told by 
 Ruffo — who had already received the second of several 
 warnings — that since the insurgents had rejected 
 initial offers, no armistice whatever could be enter- 
 tained. In the event, Ruffo and the Russians over- 
 bore him. 
 
 Already, on June 13 and 14, Foote had been assist- 
 ing Ruffo and his generals in a series of battles on the 
 
284 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 coast, all of which had proved decisive discomfitures 
 for the rebels. Throughout, Ruffo trembled not only 
 for the town, but lest the Franco-Hispanian fleet should 
 be on them like a thief in the night. In disorder both 
 of troops and plans, amid Jacobin advisers, he tem- 
 porised, and pressed on Foote the need of terms. He 
 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 plun- 
 der, murder, and violence, is so terrible and compli- 
 cated, that it is absolutely beyond my powers. . . . 
 If the surrender of the two castles is obtained, I hope 
 to restore complete quiet." He may have used the 
 imminence of the French fleet as a bogey to frighten 
 his coadjutors, and the imminence of his own attack 
 on St. Elmo as a lever for persuading the French com- 
 mandant into assent. Fear for the city, for the situa- 
 tion, possessed him. St. Elmo was his object, but he 
 dreaded the danger from its guns. He deemed his 
 unauthorised compact warranted. Two days before it 
 was in train Foote had offered asylum on board the 
 Seahorse to the Dell' Uovo garrison, then about to be 
 stormed. Its answer was an indignant repulse : " We 
 want the indivisible Republic ; for the Republic we will 
 die! Eloignez-vous, citoyen, vile, vile, vile I" The 
 same day Ruffo himself told Foote that St. Elmo must 
 be assailed ; it was useless now to think of capitulation. 
 He had previously hoped that both French and rebels 
 might surrender to the sailor, though they disdained 
 an ecclesiastic. And yet within the next few days he 
 was in close if unwilling league with Micheroux (the 
 King's minister attached to the Russian forces), whom 
 he feared to disoblige, and had sanctioned his arrange- 
 ment with the rebels, which was subject to Mejean's 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 285 
 
 approval. On June 21 he told Foote that the terms 
 were settled, yet he then wrote to Acton that he did 
 not know them. He kept the court in long ignorance 
 of his manoeuvres. The strain of difficulty told on 
 his nerves. Whatever his motives — and they were 
 suspected — his action, though far less than Miche- 
 roux's, was plainly equivocal, and while he mys- 
 tified Foote, he failed to give any clear lead to the 
 loyalists. 
 
 There is not much material to explain the tortuous 
 negotiations of this period. The clue to them may per- 
 haps be found in a desire to accord the patriots the 
 same honourable terms as would be due to the French. 
 If the rebels could secure these they would be more 
 than satisfied, while Mejean trusted to time and the 
 chance of the French squadron's arrival. Another 
 motive was supplied by the hostages (including 
 Micheroux's brother and cousin) and the refugees in 
 the castles, among whom was Caracciolo, who, how- 
 ever, fled. Some amount of underhand collusion 
 seems to have taken place now as afterwards. Foote 
 was perplexed both by Ruffo's contradictory letters, 
 and by Micheroux, whose authority he refused to 
 recognise. On June 19, by invitation, Micheroux at- 
 tended a conference at St. Elmo, with Mejean, Massa 
 (commanding the Nuovo Castle), and Ruffo. A draft 
 capitulation was signed with an armistice — afterwards 
 extended to the French — which was to last till the ar- 
 rival of the boats at Toulon, conveying such rebels as 
 elected to go there, was notified. The whole affair 
 was probably engineered by Micheroux in close touch 
 with Mejean. Ruffo's compliance may be attributed 
 to the necessities of his position and the importance of 
 the Russian troops. He and Micheroux alternately 
 laid the blame on each other's shoulders. By the 23rd 
 the capitulation itself reached Foote, who was the last 
 
286 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to sign, and did so under a protest as to anything which 
 might prejudice his king and country. 
 
 The document itself was most peculiar, considering 
 the conditions of hostile and insurgent garrisons in the 
 face of a successful conqueror. While it was condi- 
 tional on Mejean's approval, it contained no mention 
 of St. Elmo, and it was attended by a concurrent 
 armistice, unspecified in it but very material to two 
 of its main provisions. The truce's tenor may be gath- 
 ered both from allusions in letters and from Nelson's 
 emphatic memorandum, written before he had seen it, 
 but read to and rejected by Ruffo. One must feel 
 for the " patriots " in the mass, since they seem to 
 have been ultimately deceived, and many of them were 
 noble. One must detest the vindictiveness with which 
 the royal house pursued its triumph, though all that 
 Jacobinism meant at the time should be recalled. 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 despot- 
 isms which had so long been pitted against each other. 
 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 for- 
 bidden 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. The city's 
 horrors had been swelled by the reprisals of the 
 Jacobins. They were now, in Hamilton's words, " re- 
 duced to a shabby condition," and it was this that led 
 them to listen to the persuasions of Micheroux and the 
 dictation of Mejean. 
 
 The terms of the armistice, according to Nelson's 
 version of it, seem to have been as follows : — 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 287 
 
 It provided for ^tmce of twenty-one days, by the 
 expiry of which the^French and the patriot garrisons, 
 if unrelieved, were 3 to evacuate Naples. From Sac- 
 chinelli's account of the preliminaries, their transport 
 was to be free, i.e. at the King's expense. No won- 
 der that Foote found the terms of capitulation " very 
 favourable to the Republicans," though he based his 
 consent on the express grounds that Ruffo was Vice- 
 roy, and that St. Elmo could not " with propriety be 
 attacked " till advices were received that the Repub- 
 licans had reached Toulon. 
 
 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, how- 
 ever, 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 sup- 
 pose 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 Nel- 
 son's ships, therefore annulled this armistice. 
 
 So much for the truce. Now for the capitulation. 
 
 The troops composing the garrisons were to keep 
 possession of the forts till the boats for their safe-con- 
 duct to Toulon were ready to sail. They were then 
 to march out with all the honours of war. Should 
 they prefer it, they were granted the option of remain- 
 ing " unmolested " at Naples instead of proceeding by 
 sea. These terms were to comprise all prisoners of 
 war. All hostages were to be freed, but Micheroux's 
 brother and cousin, the Bishop of Avellino, and the 
 Archbishop of Salerno, were to remain in St. Elmo 
 and in Mejean's hands, until the arrival of those sent 
 
288 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to Toulon should be ascertained. Every condition 
 was subject to the French Me jean s 1 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 that intensified the mor- 
 bid paroxysms 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 more than one previous offer of 
 clemency, by demanding their very utmost, they for- 
 feited 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 vanquish- 
 ers maddened by the suspicion of a second betrayal 
 to the French, by his oblique manoeuvres, by his open 
 breach of the royal trust, endangered not only himself 
 but the countrymen whom he had so bravely led, and 
 whom even now he desired to benefit. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when Nelson, round- 
 ing the Posilippo point with his nineteen 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, at his post by the bridge, must have been ill 
 at ease. Nor could the Russians have been 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 Nel- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 289 
 
 son. He instantly signalled that the truce was ended. 
 To Ruffo, through Hamilton, he communicated his 
 fixed resolve " on no account to remain neutral." In 
 accord with the Queen's advice, first to require a volun- 
 tary surrender, he further proposed to him that within 
 two hours the French should be summoned to sur- 
 render, in which case they should receive a safe- 
 conduct to France, but " as for the rebels and traitors, 
 no power on earth " should " stand between their 
 gracious King and them." He sent Ball and Trou- 
 bridge with both these missives to the Cardinal, who 
 flatly refused assent or concert. Next morning he 
 sent them again, with no better result. He therefore 
 himself notified to Mejean his curt summons to sur- 
 render, and to the rebels in the two castles that they 
 must yield, and were forbidden " to embark or quit 
 those places." The supple Cardinal, in his haste, had 
 not only exceeded his commission, he had violated his 
 express directions. Next evening Ruffo and Miche- 
 roux (who was not admitted) visited the Foudroyant 
 to confer with Nelson. During the whole of this stormy 
 interview the Hamiltons were present, Emma acting 
 as interpretess. Nelson flatly repudiated all the subtle- 
 ties of one called by Hamilton the pink of Italian 
 finesse. He stood by the law that kings do not capitu- 
 late to rebels, and he dismissed Ruffo with his written 
 opinion that the treaty needed to be ratified by his 
 master. An Admiral, he added, was no match in 
 such matters for a Cardinal. 
 
 All that day of June 25, letters, conferences, in- 
 trigues, confusion proceeded. From Palermo Acton 
 wrote thrice. The foreign signatories entered a 
 formal protest, probably arranged, and certainly car- 
 ried by Micheroux to Nelson, who refused to recog- 
 nise either it or him. Ruffo threatened to withdraw 
 his riotous troops, and advised the rebels to profit by 
 
290 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 his treaty and retire by land— a course fatal for them. 
 By night a trumpeter had even announced that this 
 move had the sanction of Me jean, who had told 
 Micheroux that if war was resumed he would not be 
 answerable for consequences. Massa, who asked for 
 a conference, however, repulsed all Ruffo's overtures 
 as coercion. The whole of Naples lay between two 
 suspended fires; and yet Ruffo, afraid of St. Elmo, 
 now besought Nelson to land the troops, the offer of 
 which he had put off that very morning. By the next 
 evening the two castles had unconditionally sur- 
 rendered. The royal colours streamed from their tur- 
 rets. The loyalist nobles of the " Eletti " had started 
 to implore the King's presence, and Ruffo, leagued with 
 the feudal barons, must have trembled. 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 returned, and the city in con- 
 fusion. 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 mo- 
 ment. We gave him only one hundred of our marine 
 
Lady Hamilton at the spinning wheel. 
 From the original fainting by George Romney. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 291 
 
 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 audi- 
 ences 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 dis- 
 honour by their desolute 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 nnhappiness, 
 and will make for the future amende honorable for the 
 past. In short, if I can judge, it may turn out for- 
 tunate that the Neapolitans have had a dose of Repub- 
 licanism. . . . PS. — 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 con- 
 vulse the city on the following day was, On what terms 
 had the castles surrendered? 
 
 In trying to disentangle the difficulties of the next 
 few days, a distinction should be borne in mind be- 
 tween the armistice made by the Cardinal with the 
 rebels (and afterwards with the French), and the 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 10 
 
292 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 capitulation itself, which it was designed to further. 
 It would almost seem as if some of the rebels had al- 
 ready contrived to escape from the convent of St. 
 Martino, though not under the capitulatory clauses. 
 Nelson would be most unlikely to reconsider any of 
 these clauses, which he had peremptorily cancelled. 
 But it might be thought possible that he would respect 
 the armistice, which he had equally annulled. He 
 might forbear to attack the rebel castles and even St. 
 Elmo, with a view to their surrender. In exacting the 
 unconditional surrender of the rebels, of which he had 
 already given notice, and which he was again to notify, 
 he never wavered. But it will be found that for the 
 sake of the town's quietude, and pending some author- 
 itative announcement of the King's pleasure (possibly 
 recalling Ruffo), he did now temporarily desist from 
 a siege, and so far obliged Ruffo. Mr. Gutteridge has 
 shown by comparing and contrasting the documents, 
 that when Nelson suddenly informed the Cardinal on 
 June 26 that he would respect the armistice, he had no 
 thought of respecting the capitulation, and that in the 
 sequel he did not go back on his promise. It seems 
 likely that the two cases of armistice and capitulation 
 were so involved together by Micheroux and Ruffo as 
 to persuade the patriots that they were free to escape 
 under the terms of their convention, without submit- 
 ting themselves to the sovereign whom they had defied, 
 or abjuring the national foe. 
 
 From the confusions of many documents the situa- 
 tion can be clearly discerned. Mejean's main 
 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. Though Mejean had dictated the patriots' 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 293 
 
 capitulation, he had restricted himself to a precarious 
 armistice. Micheroux praised his nobility and mod- 
 eration, but he was not above the possibility of a bribe, 
 and he was perhaps indifferent to the fate of the rebels 
 so long as he could stave off his own surrender. They 
 on their side were willing to sacrifice the lives of the 
 hostages for the security of their compact. One is 
 driven to suspect that it was through Micheroux and 
 Ruffo that they came to believe that Nelson had sud- 
 denly and entirely changed his mind. On June 25, 
 Ruffo even in offering them the choice of departure 
 had warned them that Nelson refused to recognise 
 their compact, and was master of the sea. That the 
 next day they were misled by somebody into thinking 
 that the treaty would be respected appears from a let- 
 ter in July of ex-Commandant Aurora to Nelson, 
 where he states his belief " in common with the garri- 
 son " of being " taken to Toulon." But their mis- 
 leader was not Nelson. If they could be persuaded 
 that in yielding they were free to go, the odium of 
 consequences would be cast on the British Admiral. 
 
 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. 
 
 Awaiting the King's mandate, he now humoured the 
 Cardinal and forebore to attack the rebels, even while 
 concerting measures against the French. His letter to 
 Ruffo of June 26 breathes not a word about the cap- 
 itulation, and a day earlier, Ruffo had handed Nelson's 
 ultimatum to the castles. Nelson, it was afterwards 
 alleged, signified in writing to Micheroux that he would 
 carry out the treaty. But Micheroux owns that these 
 declarations were unused, averring that his agent took 
 over Castel Uovo, and the rebels marched out with 
 honours of war. Troubridge, an eye-witness, is silent 
 
294 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 on these points, all of which Mr. Gutteridge traverses. 
 Ruffo's own construction, however, of Nelson's prom- 
 ise was evidenced by a service of thanksgiving. That 
 evening, Troubridge and Ball with 500 marines oc- 
 cupied the castles. Next day they made short work 
 of the Jacobin insignia. They hewed down the Tree 
 of Liberty and the red-capped giant. Rejoicing per- 
 vaded the town. The castle flags were expected on 
 board the Foudroyant. 
 
 Ruffo, safe as he now felt from the King's certain 
 anger, expressed his gratitude to Emma and her hus- 
 band. Hamilton answered civilly, and his wife, who 
 had been slaving at correspondence, must have re- 
 joiced. Nelson was bound by no conditions whatever. 
 If, as seems doubtful, he authorised the notice (at- 
 tributed by Sacchinelli to Troubridge) that he would 
 not oppose the embarkation, he went no further. A 
 small quota of polaccas awaited the refugees. For the 
 present, Nelson pledged his word that he would not 
 molest them. But he promised no more. The day be- 
 fore, Acton was informing Hamilton that the King 
 might very soon come in person, and that the Cardinal 
 was probably at the end of his tether; while on the 
 next he wrote rejoicing that the " infamous capitula- 
 tion " had been rescinded. If Ruffo persisted, he 
 must be arrested and deposed, and a direct communica- 
 tion from the King must by this time have reached 
 Nelson. It reached him on June 28. 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 mis- 
 erable patriots who, under these circumstances, had 
 been caught in a death-trap. Had the King's direc- 
 tions been deferred Nelson would have stayed his hand. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 295 
 
 As it was, the rebels instead of seeing the capitulations 
 executed, were executed themselves. His warnings of 
 June 25 and 28 had been disregarded by those who 
 were somehow misled by his action next morning, which 
 was designed to keep Ruffo quiet. Years afterwards, 
 Nelson affirmed in a document dictated to Lady Ham- 
 ilton : " I put aside the dishonourable treaty, and sent 
 the rebels notice of it. Therefore, when the rebels 
 surrendered, they came out of the castles as they 
 ought, without any honours of war, and 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 proverb- 
 ial; 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 ensuing hecatomb of 
 slaughter the Queen acted from policy rather than re- 
 venge, while Emma was so compassionate that she 
 thought it necessary to reason with her. 
 
 In Hamilton's missive to Acton of the following 
 day — June 27 — occurred a significant sentence : — 
 
 " Captain Troubridge is gone to execute the busi- 
 ness, and the rebels on board of the polaccas cannot 
 stir without a passport from Lord Nelson." 
 
 The heartrending scenes that shortly ensued may be 
 inferred from the numerous documents transcribed in 
 Mr. Gutteridge's masterly volume. The few appeals 
 to Emma's intercession given in the Morrison papers 
 and by Pettigrew must stand for many more. It is 
 not a creditable contrast, that of the misery of Naples 
 
296 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 with the triumphal salvos and Te Deum at Palermo. 
 Vce Victoribus! 
 
 That very night thirteen chained rebels were brought 
 on board. The next day, the passengers awaiting de- 
 liverance in fourteen polaccas found themselves bonds- 
 men in Nelson's ships. Nelson certainly did not un- 
 derdo his part of avenging 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 inter- 
 cepted patriots. Emma must have 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 feudal prince, the commodore who had learned 
 seamanship in England, the trusted adherent who had 
 gone to Naples such a short time since apparently loyal, 
 only to become Admiral of the rebel navy? 
 
 He had fired on his King's colours. 
 
 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, Caracciolo 
 had least the excuse of oppression. Many had been 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 297 
 
 forced by the French into tempting posts on the provi- 
 sional administration. 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 purposely left Sicily. He was powerful, he was 
 trusted, and he had proved disloyal. He has figured 
 as an old man bowed with years and care. He was 
 still in the prime of life. He has been pictured as a 
 veteran Casabianca. To Nelson he was a rat who 
 left what he supposed was a sinking ship. It might be 
 pleaded as a further extenuation 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 rebel. And yet 
 despair should always command pity, and the despair 
 of treachery, perhaps, most of all, for it is the tor- 
 ment 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 scele- 
 ribus tuenda." 
 
 The imagination of cherishing Italy and of free 
 England has long enshrined him as the type of Lib- 
 erty sacrificed in cold blood to Despotism, as innocent 
 and murdered. 
 
 In England this idea mainly originated in the gen- 
 erous eloquence of Charles James Fox, who loved free- 
 dom, it is true, but loved politics also; that Fox, be it 
 remembered, who, when in power, once politely told 
 his Catholic supporters, 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 
 
5298 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 same section towards the case of Nelson and Carac- 
 ciolo. 
 
 Caracciolo had fired on his King's colours. From the 
 yard-arm of that frigate 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 sending him to be tried at Procida. 
 He was not rhadamanthine, but he was an English Ad- 
 miral ; 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. 
 
 The next day Caracciolo was " tried." Emma never 
 beheld him. The process was short and sharp. He 
 was condemned. Caracciolo was guilty before trial, 
 but this summary trial was a farce. It would have 
 been far juster — though the issue was undoubted — 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 the Hamiltons supplicated Nelson 
 for these fitting mercies. Naturally humane, he was 
 here relentless. He was neither lawyer nor priest. 
 l He had not been his judge. Caracciolo's own peers 
 had pronounced him guilty of death, and Nelson sen- 
 tenced him. 
 
 Caracciolo had fired at the Minerva, now com- 
 manded by our old friend Count Thurn, the sentinel 
 of last December. 
 
 On June the 28th, at about five of the afternoon, 
 the scarecrow of sedition swung, lashed to the 
 Minerva's gallows. Though imprisonment, as was 
 first suggested, would have been far humaner and 
 wiser, Nelson might have echoed Homer's line: 
 " So perish all who do the like again." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 299 
 
 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, gesticulat- 
 ing, applauding, pointing at the mast where Carac- 
 ciolo had expiated his treason. 
 
 Mejean had himself broken the truce by assailing 
 the city with his fusillade. Nelson now attacked St. 
 Elmo, while Troubridge, with his troops, invested it 
 by land. Its fall was timed to greet the King's ar- 
 rival. 
 
 The Seahorse brought him, together with Acton 
 and Castelcicala, on the night of the 9th to the chan- 
 nel 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[ne] 
 d'etre chez le roi, mais mieux d'etre chez soi[t]." 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 ex- 
 
i 3 oo EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 cuses 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 tri- 
 umphs 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 Dep- 
 uty; for I am very popular, speak the Neapolitan lan- 
 guage, 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 happiness of re- 
 storing the King to his throne, to the Neapolitans their 
 much-loved King, and been the instrument of giving 
 a future good and just government to the Neapol- 
 itans! . . . 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, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 301 
 
 return to Palermo, and bring back the royal family; 
 for I foresee not any permanent government till that 
 event takes place. Nor wou'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 feil 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 x with me, who is of use to me, in writ- 
 ing, and helping to keep papers and things in order. 
 We have given the King all the upper cabin, all but 
 one room that we write in and receive the ladies who 
 come to the King. Sir William and I have an apart- 
 ment 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 devo- 
 tion, 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 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 
 
 1 Miss Cornelia Knight. 
 
3 02 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Naples. The Morrison Collection gives but three of 
 the appeals to Lady Hamilton's kind heart. Of one 
 the ring is tragic. A snatch of humour is welcome. 
 A certain Englishman, Matthew Wade, was a loyalist 
 in Naples. He it was who had begged Ruffo to grant 
 him troops for the occupation of the castles. 
 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 
 Governour's finances is become very low, and I sup- 
 pose in a short time I will lose my credit, as my house 
 was plundered when I was in prison, under a pretext of 
 finding papers and being a Royalist ; and after, by the 
 Calabrace 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 increased. 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 com- 
 mand) 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 303 
 
 woman of the country — that cou'd resist the temptation 
 of gold." Thus Matthew Wade, humourist and phi- 
 losopher. 
 
 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 presented him with the broad, red pen- 
 nant. Nelson himself was soon to be elevated for a 
 time to the chief Mediterranean command. The 1st 
 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 mag- 
 nificent 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 un- 
 nerved 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 
 
304 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 phan- 
 tom 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. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 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 fete champetre at Palermo in Nelson's 
 honour eclipsed each previous pageant. No splendour 
 seemed adequate to the national gratitude. The Tem- 
 ple of Fame in the palace gardens, its exquisitely mod- 
 elled group of Nelson led by Sir William to receive his 
 wreath from the hands of Emma as Victory; the royal 
 reception and embrace 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 mid- 
 shipman'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 fireworks; the new cantata of the "Happy Con- 
 cord," and the whole Opera band, with the younger 
 Senesino at their head, bursting at the close into " Rule 
 
 305 
 
306 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Britannia " and " God save the King " ; the weather- 
 beaten Nelson himself moved to tears — all these 
 formed picturesque features of a memorable 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 con- 
 comitants, pride, envy, and jealousy, would never dwell 
 - — I mean Emma, Lady Hamilton. . . . The scene [of 
 the young Prince crowning Nelson] was deeply affect- 
 ing, and many a countenance that had looked with un- 
 concern 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 tor- 
 rent of stanzas gushed from the Sicilian improvisatori ; 
 even surgeons burst into song. 
 
 But there were more substantial favours. Nelson 
 received 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 mis- 
 management first of Grafer and afterwards of Gibbs, 
 yielded a poor and most precarious revenue for him, 
 and, as will be seen hereafter, a fluctuating one for 
 Emma, whose annuity was to be charged upon it. The 
 title " Bronte," with its Greek derivation 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. Pres- 
 ents poured in upon him : the Crescent from the Grand 
 Signior, the sword and cane from Zante, commemorat- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 307 
 
 ing the deliverance of Greece, the grants from English 
 companies. Nor was Emma without royal recogni- 
 tion. 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 admiration, for her husband's 
 benefit. " Nestor," indeed, was becoming more and 
 more involved in debt, and about this period he bor- 
 rowed 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 multifarious correspondence — he sent 
 Duckworth to protect the British trade, on the main- 
 tenance 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 he re- 
 ceived this most cheering intelligence, he himself 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 magnani- 
 mously helped, praised, and counselled by him through- 
 out) 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 
 
308 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the same this was ill news, and Nelson was furious also 
 at not receiving troops from Minorca, and at the frauds 
 of the victualling department. He kept a sharp look- 
 out 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 pres- 
 ence elsewhere ; his representations caused a " cool re- 
 ception " 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 starv- 
 ing Malta from the King and Queen of Naples chican- 
 ing with Acton to retain every bushel for their own 
 necessities. Until, after " infamous " delays and falsi- 
 fied 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 Na- 
 ples." " Such," he wrote to Troubridge, " is the fever 
 of my brain this minute, that I assure you, on my hon- 
 our, if the Palermo traitors were here, I 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 occa- 
 sion, as she was ever proud to relate, that it had ever 
 been conferred upon an Englishwoman. 1 This order 
 
 1 Cf. Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 271. The vexed question of 
 whether she spent as much as £5000 on this matter scarcely re- 
 pays investigation. The fact remains that her services were 
 sufficient for imperial recognition, and that the King of England 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 309 
 
 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 Jeru- 
 salem," and from this time forward Ball always ad- 
 dressed her as " sister." 
 
 But the Maltese embroilments were by no means 
 the sole annoyances that distracted Nelson's sensitive 
 nature. 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, 1798, 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 Com- 
 missioner Inglefield, " You must make allowances for 
 a worn-out, blind, left-handed man." 
 
 Nor was he least tormented by the growing passion 
 
 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 despatches, 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 purchased 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 £5000." — Morrison MS. 1046. 
 
3 io EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 contractor 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 Com- 
 pany 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 approach- 
 ing." 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 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 dur^ 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 311 
 
 ing 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 accom- 
 panying 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 be- 
 side her on the green baize. Troubridge bluntly re- 
 monstrated. 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 construction put on things which 
 may appear to your Ladyship innocent, and I make no 
 doubt done with the best intention. Still, your enemies 
 will, and do, give things a different colouring." To 
 his delight, she promised him to play no more. That 
 promise was shortlived; it was not likely to last. 
 Women of Emma's buoyancy and volatile salt are not 
 easily weaned from the false flutter of such a game. 
 All along her vein had been one of thrill under un- 
 certainty, and her whole course a cast for high stakes. 
 " I wish not to trust to Dame Fortune too long," wrote 
 Nelson to her in possible allusion ; " she is a fickle dame, 
 and I am no courtier." And reports — some of them 
 untrue and most, exaggerated — were beginning to filter 
 into England and affront the regularities of red-tape. 
 Nelson was depicted as Rinaldo in Armida's bower. 
 
312 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 He is not shown to have himself gambled, but it was 
 rumoured that he assisted, half asleep, at these revels, 
 till the small hours of the morning, and this though 
 his father appears to have been unwell at the time. 
 That she played with Nelson's money to the tune of 
 £500 a night — a rumour hardly confirmed by his bank- 
 book. That Sir William and he had nearly settled dif- 
 ferences by duel — a preposterous idea. That the royal 
 bounty to her amounted to a value some five times 
 greater than it seemingly 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 con- 
 dones in a parvenue what it can patronise. It now re- 
 sented her intrusion, while it resented more, and with 
 better reason, her perpetual association with Nelson, 
 who owned himself happy with the Hamiltons alone, 
 and suspicious of letters being opened. The Govern- 
 ment too had now decided to recall Hamilton. '' You 
 may not know," Troubridge told her, " that you have 
 many enemies. I therefore risk your displeasure by 
 telling you. I am much gratified you have taken it, as 
 / meant it — purely 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 anything but 
 for their service, and the just demands I have on them." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 313 
 
 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 serve 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 oc- 
 curs in a letter to Greville, hitherto unnoticed, is per- 
 fectly truthful, and seeks to protect 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 Will- 
 iam'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 sacri- 
 ficing every comfort in the cause of loyalty, our pri- 
 vate 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." l 
 
 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 
 female politician, the less so as Hamilton had now set- 
 tled to return home on the first opportunity, and the 
 Queen was desolated at the mere thought of separa- 
 tion. 2 The Duchess of Sorrentino besought her good 
 
 1 Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 269, Lady Hamilton to Greville, 
 February 25, 1800. 
 
 'Morrison MS. 444, 484. In the first Hamilton tells Greville 
 " the Queen is really so fond of Emma that the parting will be 
 
3 I4 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 de- 
 manded Emma's death and threatened to throw her out 
 of the window for her contempt of court. 1 
 
 Nelson's acting chief command expired on January 
 6, 1800. Ill, and with a fresh murmur of " unkind- 
 ness," 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 determined to run 
 the risk of independent action. To Malta he pro- 
 ceeded instantly, and he was transported with joy when 
 he captured Le Genereux, 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 correspond- 
 ence 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 — but I trust to Providence 
 I shall have them. Eighteenth, in the evening, I have 
 got her — Le Genereux — thank God! twelve out of 
 
 a serious business." In the second, " Emma is in despair at the 
 thought of parting from the Queen." Emma herself says, 
 " . . .1 am miserable to leave my dearest friend. She cannot 
 be consoled." — Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 272. 
 
 1 He became excellent friends, however, with her afterwards, 
 and joined in pleasant messages to her so late as 1803. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON '315 
 
 thirteen, only the Guillaume Telle remaining; I am 
 after the others, I have not suffered the French Ad- 
 miral to contaminate the Foudroyant by setting his foot 
 in her." 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 cap- 
 ture of the Guillaume Telle through Long and Black- 
 wood, 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 determination." Ball had not long to 
 wait. Nelson was anxious to settle affairs finally for 
 Great Britain at Malta, — a settlement that eventually 
 transferred it to Britain and greatly exasperated Maria 
 Carolina. Sir William had now been definitely super- 
 seded by his unwelcome successor Paget, although he 
 allowed himself the fond hope of a future return. He 
 resolved to sail on the Foudroyant, accompanied 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 Are- 
 thusa. 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. 
 
 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 edi- 
 tion of Romeo and Juliet — just a silly pair of senti- 
 
316 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 mental fools. And at this time Sir William seems to 
 have thought the same; it was all Emma's " Sensibil- 
 ity," 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 pas- 
 sion, 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 un- 
 severed. 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 ven- 
 tured 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. 1 
 
 It has been well said that apologies only try to ex- 
 cuse 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 them- 
 selves felt eternally binding ; no passing whim had fast- 
 ened 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 in- 
 stincts; 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 
 
 1 From a passage, however, in a letter from Nelson of 
 February 17, 1801, it would seem to have happened earlier. 
 Cf. Morrison MS. 516: "Ah! my dear friend, I did remember 
 well the 12th February, and also the two months afterwards. 
 I never shall forget them, and never be sorry for the con- 
 sequences." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 317 
 
 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 Nel- 
 son, and rankling words may already have been ex- 
 changed; Lady Nelson's jealousy was justified, al- 
 though as yet Nelson never meditated 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 en- 
 chanted 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 un- 
 worthy persecutress and termagant; she who had suc- 
 ceeded, 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. Unregenerateness ap- 
 peared grace to his warped vision. Nothing but sin- 
 cerity can extenuate, nothing but sheer human nature 
 can explain these deplorable transposals. The reality 
 for him of this marriage of the spirit without the let- 
 ter, 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 vol- 
 umes: "I worship, nay, adore you, and if you was 
 single, and I found you under a hedge, I would in- 
 stantly marry you." 1 
 
 1 Morrison MS. 539, Nelson to Lady H., March 6, 1801. 
 
318 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 win- 
 dows must have opened his eyes, he deliberately shut 
 them. He never ceased his attachment to Emma or 
 abated his chivalrous fealty to Nelson. Those feelings, 
 incredible as it may sound, were genuinely recipro- 
 cated 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 devotion 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 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 melan- 
 choly. 1 Such dispiritment hardly betokens the mood of 
 an adventuress intriguing to secure a successor to the 
 fading Hamilton. Yet such was Lord Minto's con- 
 viction two years later. It is curious that the im- 
 puters of craft always deny her a spark of cleverness, 
 and they must certainly have thought Nelson much 
 
 1 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. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 319 
 
 stupider than themselves. Worldlings do not always 
 know the world, still less the world of such a com- 
 plex heart as Emma's. Her feelings may perhaps be 
 best imagined by her little poem sent to Nelson at the 
 opening 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." l 
 
 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. Nel- 
 son 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 sus- 
 picious answer. Nelson desired to recruit his health 
 at home. He bemoaned the supineness of those who 
 
 1 Nelson Letters, vol. ii. p. 127. 
 
3 20 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 might have prevented the fresh invasion of Italy. Al- 
 ready 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 hinted. The Hamiltons were to be his 
 companions, and the Queen had for the last three 
 months been preparing a plan for their joint con- 
 venience. Now wholly bereft of her power over 
 and the affection of her husband, vainly exerting her- 
 self to induce Lord Grenville 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 rela- 
 tiyes 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 per- 
 plexing 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 321 
 
 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 dread- 
 fully depressed. ... I send you the substance of my 
 letter from Circello. The official one seems to con- 
 tain no more, but as this fatal packet from Paget ap- 
 pears to hinge upon our not being left here without 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 op- 
 posed it, and if you, my good, honest, true friends, quit 
 us, let 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 Eng- 
 land; for a young man [Paget?] 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 bit- 
 terly felt. I send you, my good friend, the original 
 letter from Circello. Do not let Campbell see it, or 
 know that you have seen it, and return it to-morrow 
 morning. . . . Suggest to me what should be done to 
 prevent this misfortune . . . both for the State and 
 for my feelings. . . . I 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 ad- 
 
$22 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 dressed separate letters of compliment to Lady Ham- 
 ilton. Their Anglomania still prevailed. 
 
 Among these valedictions is a letter of less formal 
 interest. Lady Betty Foster had commended a 
 protegee — 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 English 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 unaccountable is missing. Prince Belmonte's, 
 however, is not, though it was addressed from Peters- 
 burg to Vienna. " I am so indebted 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 must 
 often hereafter have haunted her dreams. 
 
 She, with her husband, mother, and Miss Knight, 
 accompanied 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 his- 
 tory and of romance. Nelson had pressed the Govern- 
 ment to put it at the Queen's disposal as far as Trieste, 
 but it was promptly requisitioned for repairs; Mrs. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON '323 
 
 Grundy, in the person of Queen Charlotte, may have 
 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 11 Nel- 
 son 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, as- 
 sured 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 as- 
 surance 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. She had armed the 
 Lazzaroni at Naples, she harangued and pacified the 
 insurgents during their stay 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 Ham- 
 iltons could have taken. Had they proceeded, accord- 
 ing to their original plan, by sea, they would never 
 have so irritated the motherland which, after long ab- 
 sence, they were all revisiting. They were, indeed, 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 11 
 
324 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 quite ignorant of the prejudices which they would be 
 called upon to combat. They deemed themselves chil- 
 dren 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. 1 Even now 
 Sir William gave out that he would shortly return, a 
 more youthful Ambassador than ever, though he was 
 even 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 
 
 1 Lord Minto, writing from Vienna in March, 1800, and hoping 
 that Nelson, who was worn to a shadow, would take Malta 
 before returning home, says : " He does not seem at all con- 
 scious 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 ill 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 
 Maltese service]. All this is against them, but they do not seem 
 conscious." — Minto Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 114. On p. 139 
 Lady Minto writes, " His zeal for the public service seems 
 entirely lost in his love and vanity, and they sit and flatter 
 each other all day long." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 325 
 
 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 endur- 
 ing, her strength and courage could achieve. At 
 Vienna the Empress loaded Maria Carolina's intimate 
 with attentions; with the Esterhazys she was the ob- 
 served of all observers. The bitter parting with her 
 Queen but nerved her to greater and louder demon- 
 strations. When hushed diplomacy sneered and snig- 
 gered in pointedly remote corners, she raised her fine 
 voice higher than ever to teach John Bull on the Con- 
 tinent 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 cap- 
 ital she braced herself to perform her Attitudes to per- 
 fection; 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 Minto 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. 
 Emma was constantly with Maria Carolina at Schon- 
 brunn as the tearful hour of separation approached. 
 
£26 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 independ- 
 ence, which characterised her from her girlhood to 
 her grave, it is improbable that either Hamilton or 
 Nelson would have permitted her to be the pensioner 
 of a foreign court. 
 
 Banquets and functions abounded, and they were not 
 restricted to the court. Banker Arnstein — " the Gold- 
 smid," as Lady Hamilton afterwards called him, " of 
 Germany " — showered his splendours upon them. 
 There were endless concerts, operas, entertainments, 
 excursions, visits of ceremony and of pleasure, shoot- 
 ing 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 Lord Fitzharris, natu- 
 rally annoyed to see her with Nelson, and he may have 
 lost his money in this encounter, and, possibly, his 
 temper. 
 
 " Sunday, grand fireworks. Monday (the jour de 
 fete), 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 327 
 
 persons, in a fine hall superbly illuminated; in short, 
 the whole in a most princely style. Nelson's health 
 was drunk with flourish of trumpets and firing of 
 cannon. Lady Hamilton is, without exception, the 
 most coarse, ill-mannered, disagreeable woman we met 
 with. The Princess with great kindness 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 so- 
 lemnity, they embarked on the Elbe for Hamburg, a 
 stock passage in the diaries of a charming woman re- 
 lates 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 all ; 
 how Sir William, to prove his nimbleness, " hopped " 
 on " his backbone," his legs, star and ribbon " all flying 
 about in the air " ; how he and his friends withdrew 
 shuddering at the shock of such 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's French 
 maid bawled out coarse abuse about forgotten provi- 
 sions. Most of this is probably true, but here again 
 the point of view needs adjusting. .Fastidiousness is 
 as movable, and sometimes as unbearable, a term as 
 vulgarity, and no doubt the stiff Elliot would have been 
 equally troubled at a violent sneeze, at any undue 
 
328 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 an unconventional footfall on 
 the pile carpets of " culture." At any rate, till now 
 nobody had ever reproached Sir William, a paragon of 
 " taste," with violating the semblances of decorum. 
 However we may regret Emma's unpolished " coarse- 
 ness," 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. The daughter of the 
 servants' hall had braved crisis without blenching. 
 The son of the Foreign Office had of necessity per- 
 formed its function of words, and had naturally sacri- 
 ficed himself to the comme il faut. 
 
 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 Will- 
 iam. 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 gour- 
 mand, who added the sentimental selfishness of Har- 
 old 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 329 
 
 navy, and long afterwards designated by Nelson to 
 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 " de- 
 portment " and fashion; of Davison, the hero's fickle 
 factotum, whom Nelson had already requested to find 
 inexpensive lodgings in London. Beckford, the mag- 
 nificent, had put his house in Grosvenor 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 pro- 
 curing him a peerage, and the astute Greville suspected 
 his generosity from the first. Indeed he wrote to Sir 
 Joseph Banks that he had warned his uncle of " conse- 
 quences," 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." 
 
 At Vienna Emma had found Nelson yet another fac- 
 totum in the person of the interpreter Oliver, who dur- 
 ing the next five years was so often to be the de- 
 positary 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 unfortunate 
 General Dumouriez. There the Lutheran pastor hast- 
 ened many miles to implore the signature of the great 
 man for the flyleaf of his Bible. Hamburg was en- 
 
330 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 raptured over Emma's " Attitudes " and her person- 
 ality, which called forth an interesting book by a well- 
 known author. 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 ap- 
 plied 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 re- 
 ceive 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 benefactor as he appeared. Hock one hun- 
 dred and eighty years old must have been quite un- 
 drinkable, 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, be- 
 fore which the troops paraded. The whole party 
 marched in state churchward to a service of thanks- 
 giving; 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 procession. His own 
 Ipswich rivalled Yarmouth, and Colchester, Ips- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 331 
 
 wich. 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 
 stars and the two golden medals on his breast. 1 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 pen- 
 sion. While Lady Hamilton disguised her tremor, 
 Nelson was left alone with his proud father and the in- 
 dignant wife, who had believed, and brooded over, 
 every whisper against him — even the malicious slan- 
 ders 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 recrimination 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 at- 
 tended the Lord Mayor's banquet the following night, 
 when the sword of honour was presented, after the citi- 
 zens of London, like those of Yarmouth, had un- 
 horsed 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 
 
 1 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." 
 
832 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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. 1 
 
 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 Fonthill, 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 fan- 
 tastic demesne. Nelson may well have thought, " Que 
 diable allait-il faire dans cette galere! " Beckford had 
 addressed his invitation to Emma in terms of ex- 
 travagant 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 be- 
 littled 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 
 
 1 Cf. a remarkable letter from Lady Hamilton to Lady Nelson. 
 It bears no date, but must refer to a time shortly after their 
 return. — " 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. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 333 
 
 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 wan- 
 dered about all night in his misery, and presented him- 
 self early next morning to implore the comfort and 
 the companionship of his friends. 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 Nel- 
 son 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 affectionate Nelson 
 and Bronte." On this " letter of dismissal " she en- 
 dorsed her " astonishment." That astonishment must 
 surely have been strained. 
 
 Without question, sympathy is her due. Without 
 question she had been grievously wronged. But her 
 bearing, both before she had reason to be convinced of 
 the fact and afterwards, was such perhaps as to de- 
 crease her deserts. She seems to have been more ag- 
 grieved than heart-stricken. From this time forth she 
 withdrew completely from every member of his fam- 
 ily except Maurice and the good old father. At Bath, 
 or in London, she sulked and hugged her grievance, 
 her virtue, her money, and her rank. She proceeded 
 — naturally — to babble of the woman who had injured 
 her, and the husband of whom she had been despoiled. 
 Nelson's brother and sisters, who accepted Emma, 
 always entitled her " Tom Tit," nor would they con- 
 
334 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 cede a grain of true love to her disposition. That she 
 was not the helpmeet for a hero was not her fault; 
 it was her drawback and misfortune. She failed in 
 the temperament that understands temperament, and 
 the spirit that answers and applauds. Her piety never 
 sought to win back the wanderer. She incensed him 
 by desiring even now to rent Shelburne House. She 
 caused him to feel " an outcast on shore." While she 
 could have avenged her cause by suing for a divorce, 
 she preferred to avenge herself on the culprits by their 
 punishment in being barred from wedlock. After Nel- 
 son's death she litigated with his successor. 
 
 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 poor 
 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 re- 
 fused. She only wanted to go to do mischief to all 
 the great Jove's relations. 'Tis now shown, all her ill 
 treatment and bad heart. Jove has found it out." 
 
 It is a sorry, but hardly a sordid spectacle. Rather 
 it is, in a sense, volcanic. 1 Here is no barter, no bal- 
 ance 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 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." — Morrison MS. 502. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 FROM PICCADILLY TO " PARADISE " MERTON 
 I80I 
 
 IT was not long before the Hamiltons were in- 
 stalled 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 ver- 
 sion 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 in- 
 vited. A letter from the latter to the former com- 
 memorates an interesting little scene. As they entered, 
 Nelson was just leaving the room. " Pray stop a lit- 
 tle, 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. Be- 
 lieve 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 year of Horatia's birth, of the Copenhagen 
 
 335 
 
336 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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! 
 
 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." 1 
 
 " 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 com- 
 fort of that sense of innocence which she had wel- 
 comed 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. The stricken Romney, who pined for the 
 sight of her, was now in the north, but 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 al- 
 ways loyal to them — she delighted in beholding or 
 hearing from her humble kindred again : the Connors, 
 the Reynoldses, the Moores of Liverpool; and that 
 
 1 Nelson's verses enclosed in his letter to Emma of February 
 II, 1801 ; Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 30. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 337 
 
 daughter, long ago parted 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 acquaint- 
 ance. 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 friend- 
 ship. 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 cele- 
 brated 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 ? Mis- 
 guided love lent her strength, and its misguidance 
 found out the way. She was ready to sacrifice every- 
 thing, and to forsake all for one whose absence must 
 mean her own and her country's glory. Sir William, 
 
338 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 
 Britain with a stroke more formidable than the South- 
 ern 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 expedi- 
 tions and picture hunts; he was anxious about his pen- 
 sion, 1 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 some- 
 thing like it coloured his coldness whenever chattels 
 were concerned. He was studiously respectful to Nel- 
 son. 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 gradu- 
 ally forming a little northern coalition of their own. 
 While he exerted himself in assiduously forwarding 
 Sir William's claim on the generosity of the Govern- 
 ment, 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 restored, was now beyond measure miserable. His 
 eye grew inflamed, his heart constantly palpitated, his 
 cough seemed the premonitor of consumption. And 
 
 1 He wanted a real, not a nominal, £2000 a year from Lord 
 Grenville, and £8000 compensation. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 339 
 
 vexations, public as well as private, troubled him. 
 The authorities, whether in the guise of Cato, or of 
 Paul Pry, or of Tartuffe, 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 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 re- 
 membered that Nelson had saved them and his coun- 
 try, 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 mag- 
 nanimous, 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 Portsmouth, 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 
 
340 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 his honours had not yet been gazetted. He had ac- 
 companied the Hamiltons on their Wiltshire excursion. 
 He had nominated Hardy his captain. 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 be- 
 fore 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 cov- 
 ered 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 
 steeling 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 341 
 
 would take no refuge in absence from home ; sne 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 at- 
 tacks which had been habitual at Naples, who but her 
 mother and herself need be the worse or the wiser? 
 The sudden blow of their parting under such cir- 
 cumstances had been exceptionally severe. It recalls 
 the famous line of Fenelon: 
 
 " Calypso ne pouvait se consoler du depart d'Ulysse." 
 
 In their mutual anxiety they framed a plan of cor- 
 respondence, in which Emma and Nelson were to 
 masquerade as the befrienders of a Mr. Thomson, one 
 of his officers, distracted with anxiety about the im- 
 pending confinement of his wife, who was bidden to en- 
 trust 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 
 communications were constantly opened ; and, even so, 
 Hamilton's curiosity must have been often piqued by 
 his wife's receipt of so many communications in Nel- 
 son's hand to this unknown friend. But they did man- 
 age 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 convinc- 
 ing 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. 
 
342 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Emma's agitated feelings must be guessed from Nel- 
 son'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 Nel- 
 son, 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 grate- 
 full 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 grate full 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 re- 
 spect 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 disinter- 
 ested determination to promote your felicity even at 
 the hasard of my life. Excuse this scrawl, my dear- 
 est friend, but next to talking with you is writing to 
 you. I wish this day I . . . could be near for your 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 343 
 
 sake. . . . God bless you, my ever dear Nelson. Long 
 may you live to be the admiration of Europe, the de- 
 light of your country, and the idol of your constant, at- 
 tached 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 Nel- 
 son she was always perfectly natural, using none but 
 her own voice and gestures. Had she been really the 
 conventional " serpent of old Nile " (and it is odd what 
 an historical affinity the " Nile " has had to " ser- 
 pents "), 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 in- 
 tuition of temperament for temperament. Admitting 
 idealisation, I cannot think that he was absolutely mis- 
 taken in Emma's. 
 
 " I shall write to Troubridge this day " is Nelson's 
 communication to Lady Hamilton, in the earliest let- 
 ter 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, 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 
 
344 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 poor Mrs. Thomson's note; her friend is truly thank- 
 ful 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 agitated, 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 con- 
 ferred 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 compunctions 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 
 " nonsensical reports " that Lady Nelson was instruct- 
 ing 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 com- 
 fort 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 345 
 
 that he lays her, the coming child, and himself as hum- 
 ble 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 grandmother'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 
 passionate fulness of unbounded 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 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 coming birth of the 
 second child — the little Emma who died so soon — in 
 the earlier months of 1804. It is so remarkable, and 
 probably so identical with others which he must have 
 written on this earlier occasion, that I subjoin a por- 
 tion of it here, venturing to fill in some of the ex- 
 cisions : — 
 
 " My dearest Beloved, — . . . To say that I think 
 of you by day, night, and all day, and all night, but 
 too faintly expresses my feelings of love and affection 
 towards you. [Mine is indeed an] unbounded af- 
 fection. Our dear, excellent, good [Mrs. Cadogan] 
 
346 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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. Be- 
 lieve 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, en- 
 chanting, blessed meeting. . . . The call of our coun- 
 try 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 to save my country, my wife 
 in the eye of God. . . . Only think of our happy meet- 
 ing. Ever, for ever I am your's, only your's, even 
 beyond this world. . . . For ever, for ever, your own 
 Nelson." x 
 
 Emma certainly inspired the Nelson who delivered 
 England; and for all time this surely ought to out- 
 weigh the carping diatribes of half-moralists who nar- 
 row the whole of virtue to a part. It cannot be too 
 much emphasised that Nelson loved her and not merely 
 
 1 Nelson Letters, vol. i. p. 175, "August 26 [1803]." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 347 
 
 her enhancements. " Thank God," he wrote at the be- 
 ginning 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 affec- 
 tionate Nelson." * 
 
 About January 29, in a week of storm, 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 concealment. Her 
 force of will and endurance at this juncture pass com- 
 prehension. She behaved as if nothing had happened, 
 though she must seriously have deranged her health. 
 
 " 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 can- 
 not 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 
 1 Letter of February I, 1801. 
 
348 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 " dear Mrs. Thomson's friend " accords with what was 
 evidently a trait in the Nelson family; for Sir Will- 
 iam, 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 el- 
 bow 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 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 grati- 
 tude 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 judgment and 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 349 
 
 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 " dis- 
 tribute 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 Morri- 
 son original do not comprise it. It bears date Febru- 
 ary 16. " 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 sep- 
 arated 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 bot- 
 tom 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 " con- 
 tinue to raise the glass to the toast of Emma. Letter 
 succeeds to letter, affection to impatience, and impa- 
 tience to ecstasy. He makes a new will, bequeathing 
 her, besides other jewelled presentations, the portrait 
 which Maria Carolina had given him of herself at part- 
 
350 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ing; 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 re- 
 quests 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, 
 nor hers as originally proposed. Let it be christened 
 " Horatia " and be registered, anagramatically, as 
 " daughter of Johem and Morata Etnorb." 1 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 shows how and when 
 he appeared in London. But before he hastened to 
 her side, a curious and undetailed episode, mixing a 
 drop of bitter disquiet with his draught of rapture, will 
 l i. e. Horatio and Emma Bronte. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 351 
 
 be followed with interest. It exhibits Emma's con- 
 stancy and fortitude under a temptation which sur- 
 prised 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 Febru- 
 ary 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 probably 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 even- 
 ing. It was his desire to hear Lady Hamilton sing, 
 together with La Banti, who was now in London, 
 and whose son Nelson 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 
 1 79 1, when he had commissioned portraits of the fair 
 Ambassadress ; and, though an ill-natured world might 
 put the worst construction on his presence in Picca- 
 dilly, Sir William trusted to Emma's prudence and his 
 own interest. 1 The fiery Nelson, however, infuriated, 
 
 1 Cf. his letter to Nelson of Feb. n, 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 
 
352 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 Ham- 
 ilton had " hit " the Prince's " fancy." Sir William, 
 however, was now once more under Greville's thumb, 
 and it is likely that the mild Mephistopheles of King's 
 Mews had his finger in this pie. At a moment so awk- 
 ward, Emma certainly disbelieved 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 scandal- 
 mongers. 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 Nel- 
 son's feelings to their highest pitch : better by far, if it 
 had to be, a big reception. In the end, however, no 
 party took place, still less was there any eclat. The 
 Prince was baffled, despite Sir William. Emma 
 
 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, 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." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 353 
 
 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 his trust in her 
 afterwards. 
 
 Nelson was really on the rack. His distracted let- 
 ters of more than a fortnight — until his apprehensions 
 of the main danger had been calmed — present a strik- 
 ing self -revelation, and are doubly interesting because 
 Emma's own letters to Mrs. William Nelson supple- 
 ment them. It is only through his own words that we 
 can realise his feelings. His overwrought nature mag- 
 nified every shadow, and overbore his strong common 
 sense. He was morbid, and conjured up suspicions 
 and anticipations alike unworthy of him. Through- 
 out his life his geese were too often swans, and his 
 betes noires, even oftener, demons. His Jeremiads 
 sound 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 urge " these are not times for nervous sys- 
 tems," grew unstrung and abased when his immense 
 love lost its foothold 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 se- 
 duced 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. 
 
354 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 hap- 
 pen, 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 at- 
 tachment to you. . . . May God send . . . happiness ! 
 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 con- 
 versation 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 1 
 and himself for a few days; but on February n, ad- 
 dressing 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 pretext for blaming one " who will never for- 
 get 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, 
 
 1 " 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. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 355 
 
 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 con- 
 stancy. ... 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. 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 any- 
 thing 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 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 12 
 
356 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 fel- 
 low, ' 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 flat- 
 tering 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 sense 
 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 dear friend, but alas! he has his 
 misfortunes. He has lost the best, his only friend, his 
 only love. Don't forget him, 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 vil- 
 lain's dining with you. Get rid of it as well as you 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON '357 
 
 can. Do not let him come downstairs with you or 
 
 hand you up. // 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 cer- 
 tainty he would continue 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. Tell the Duke * that 
 you will never go to his house. Mr. G. 2 must be a 
 scoundrel. He treated you once ill enough 3 and can- 
 not love you, or he would sooner die. ... I have this 
 
 1 Of Queensberry. * Greville. 
 
 "This is proof positive that Nelson was aware of Emma's past. 
 
358 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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. . . . For- 
 get every cross word: I now live." That very night he 
 received the assurance of Emma's staunch determina- 
 tion, however Sir William and Greville might remon- 
 strate, and his answer breathes a profound and rap- 
 turous 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 Nel- 
 son. You have shown that you are above all tempta- 
 tion, and not to be drawn into the paths of dishonour 
 for to gratify any prince, 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 en- 
 ter 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 
 shared his brother's 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, LADY HAMILTON 359 
 
 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. 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 : probably 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 is interesting 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 Caro- 
 lina. 
 
 Emma had welcomed Nelson's wish that his sister- 
 in-law should be with her at such a trying 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 Nel- 
 son'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 
 
360 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 other from the moment we met: our souls were con- 
 genial. Not so with Tom Tit, 1 for there was an an- 
 tipathy not to be described. ... I received yester- 
 day 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 down to 
 Spithead soon, he hopes. Troubridge comes to town 
 to-day as one of the Lords, so he is settled for the pres- 
 ent, 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. . . ." 
 
 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 unlucky you went so soon. I am in health so so, 
 
 1 Lady Nelson. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 361 
 
 but spirits today excellent. Oh, what real pleasure 
 Sir William and I 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 com- 
 fortable, 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. . . ." 
 
 On the following morning again: — 
 
 " Yesterday I cou'd not, my dearest friend, write 
 much, and Milord was not yet returned from the Ad- 
 miralty 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 pleas- 
 ant 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 be- 
 fore the King was taken so ill, so Mr. Pitt is yet first 
 Lord. . . . Our good Lord Nelson is lodged at 
 
^62 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Lothian's; Tom Tit, at the same place [Brighton]. 
 The Cub x 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 [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 All- 
 mighty 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 af- 
 flicted E. H." 
 
 From Yarmouth, after a brief spell of final prepara- 
 tion, Nelson sailed for the double feat of annihilating 
 the Northern Confederation single-handed, and nego- 
 tiating with a mastery both of men and management 
 the truce that preceded the Peace of Amiens. Copen- 
 hagen 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 glad- 
 dened Nelson, had he been alive. As victor and peace- 
 maker 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 
 1 Nelson's stepson Josiah Nisbet. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 363 
 
 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 zvooden zualls 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 vehe- 
 ment 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 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. 
 
364 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 cam- 
 paign would ensure peace, and then — who knew? — 
 they might cross the water and live in avowed part- 
 nership 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 safe- 
 guarded), there could be no open union. After en- 
 suring 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 confi- 
 dence 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 con- 
 stancy. He is hers all, only, and always. " My heart, 
 body, and mind x 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. Horatia, 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 glori- 
 
 1 It is worthy of notice that he omits " soul." In a much later 
 letter to her he says that his being is hers entirely, but that his 
 " soul " is his Creator's. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 365 
 
 ous emblem — " Honor est a Nilo." Was it now pos- 
 sible, at this longed-for moment, to reveal the dark 
 error of her day's clouded opening? She had been 
 but seventeen when that other daughter, watched, be- 
 friended, 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 
 Hamilton'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 sacrifice ! Although Sir William's own re- 
 cent weakness had endangered her, and belittled him 
 before Nelson, they still esteemed him — formed to- 
 gether, 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 van- 
 ished, and Nelson's Roman virtue might have list- 
 ened to the stern rebuke to David — " Thou art the 
 man." Yet, contrasted with the lax crew of Carlton 
 
366 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 surely 
 both seen the child, as they must have often done in 
 the two succeeding years. Their visits suggest a strik- 
 ing 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 house- 
 keeper 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 con- 
 fession 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 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 367 
 
 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 
 ne pouvait 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 husband) 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 re- 
 counted 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 de- 
 liverance. It was at this moment 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 : — 
 
368 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 "LTnfelice 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. 
 
 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." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 369 
 
 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 societe, remained real friends, as Nelson con- 
 stantly acknowledged, but the Carlton House gang still 
 seems to have pestered 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 em- 
 bitter 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 proteges 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 constantly, 
 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 assassina- 
 tors of Paul in his bedroom. The Russians feted him 
 and found him the facsimile of their " young 
 Suwaroff." Nelson's new triumph — one of naviga- 
 tion, of strategy, and of ubiquitous diplomacy as well 
 — which had again saved England and awoke the un- 
 measured gratitude of the people, met with the same 
 chill reception from the Government as of old. Nel- 
 son had always been his own Admiral. He habitu- 
 ally disobeyed orders : it was intolerable. They sus- 
 pected the armistice that he had made in the thick of 
 
37o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the battle; all along, the white flag seems to have pur- 
 sued Nelson with misconstruction. He has himself 
 recorded in two letters to Lad)'- Hamilton a telling vin- 
 dication, 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 appreciation. 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. He was a 
 bold man, Addington told him, to disregard orders : he 
 rejoined that in taking the risk he counted on Adding- 
 ton's support. 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 pros- 
 pects, 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 de- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 371 
 
 presssion. He had now done enough, wrote Sir Will- 
 iam. It was the ne plus ultra. He quoted Virgil : — 
 
 " Hie victor caestus artemque reponam." 
 
 As for Emma, let Sir William's words 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. 
 
 Nelson responded with avidity to his now " dearest, 
 amiable friend." As her birthday neared he reminded 
 her of those happy times a year gone by, and con- 
 trasted them with the present — " How different, how 
 forlorn." His body and spirit, like his ships, required 
 refitting. His " dearest wife " alone could nurse him, 
 and only her generous soul comfort the' " forlorn out- 
 cast." He half hoped 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 1st of July. He repaired 
 first to Lothian's hotel, as usual, but he was soon 
 ensconced with the Hamiltons. He was not suffered to 
 remain long. While the King and Queen of Naples 
 — still Emma's amie soeur — were besetting him with 
 lines of sympathy in the hope that he might re- 
 emancipate them from renewed distress in the Medi- 
 terranean, 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. 
 
372 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, ard 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 predica- 
 ment 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 Hamil- 
 ton, 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 Bou- 
 logne, 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 " Cleo- 
 patra " 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 " ; 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 373 
 
 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 ad- 
 jured 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 Hamil- 
 tons 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- 
 forget fulness ; 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 
 hovering round the Kentish coast until his final release 
 towards the close of October. Yet Emma spurred him 
 to his duty. " How often have I heard you say," he 
 
374 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 Piccadilly." It was the 14th be- 
 fore he could tell her with gusto " To-morrow week 
 all is over — no thanks to Sir Thomas." Just before 
 he struck his flag 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 Trou- 
 bridge may say," he wrote to his " guardian angel " in 
 August, " out of your house I have no home." Soon 
 after the Copenhagen conquest, he and his " dearest 
 friend," at this moment with poor Mrs. Maurice Nel- 
 son, 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 pre- 
 liminaries of the Peace of Amiens were yet a secret, 
 but Nelson had informed himself of the coining truce, 
 so acceptable to him. Before its ratification had been 
 divulged, Merton Place was bought — in the general de- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 375 
 
 pression — for the low sum of about six thousand 
 pounds. But even this amount of capital was not 
 easy for Nelson to raise, and the enthusiastic 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 
 desired 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 predom- 
 inates, 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 affair was left entirely to Emma's man- 
 agement. She beset Nelson's solicitor, Haslewood, 
 with letters, begging him to hurry forward the ar- 
 rangements, 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. Cado- 
 gan, now in charge of Nelson's new " Peer's robe," 
 bustled in and out, covered to the elbows with brick- 
 dust. Emma set to work with a will, organising, or- 
 dering, preparing: in rough housework she delighted. 
 She 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 Nel- 
 
376 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 son had promised she should row him on that minia- 
 ture " 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 neighbours, the musical 
 Goldsmids, the rustic Halfhides, the literary Perrys, 
 the Parratts, the Newtons, the Pattersons, and Lan- 
 caster, 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 com- 
 pass. You have nothing but to come and to enjoy im- 
 mediately. You have a good mile of pleasant dry 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 379 
 
 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 entertainments had proved a bad invest- 
 ment. One cannot help smiling when Nelson tells 
 Emma during her Merton preparations, " 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 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). 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 
 
oj78 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 role 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 Will- 
 iam were the " greatest friends in the world." (Did 
 he ever, one wonders, call him "my uncle"?) The 
 " share-and-share alike " arrangement answered ad- 
 mirably — " 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 family, 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 in- 
 deed. She sent Charlotte grapes." As for Nelson, 
 he was " very happy " : — " Indeed we all make it our 
 constant business to make him happy. He is better 
 now, but not well yet." " He has frequent sick- 
 ness, and is Low, and he throws himself on the 
 sofa tired and says, ' I 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 hob- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 379 
 
 bies; he was cataloguing his books; he still hoped 
 against hope that Addington would help him. 
 
 Eden at length without a serpent — at least so Nel- 
 son 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." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 EXIT " NESTOR " 
 
 January, 1802 — May, 1803 
 
 THE winding high-road on the right of Wimble- 
 don 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 may well be 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 churchyard still shows familiar 
 names — Thomas Bowen, and the Smiths who were to 
 be poor Emma's last befrienders. In the south aisle 
 is a picture attributed to Luca Giordano whose name 
 
 380 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 381- 
 
 must have recalled Naples to Hamilton. The very- 
 bench on which they sat is still kept in the vestry. The 
 hatchment with Nelson's bearings, which Emma pre- 
 sented after Trafalgar, still hangs in the nave. The 
 fine old house — " Church House " — which they must 
 have passed so often, still fronts the church porch. 
 Even when they were there, the famous Priory where 
 the great Becket was educated, and round which Mer- 
 ton'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, as it would seem, its contrast, 
 Greville. 
 
 Nelson's liberality was as unbounded as abused; 
 even his skin-flint brother William begged him to re- 
 frain in his own favour. Applications rained from 
 all quarters. A Yorkshireman wrote and said he 
 would be pleased to receive £300. " Are these peo- 
 ple 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 scat- 
 tered broadcast to her relations, to the poor, deserv- 
 ing 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 ef- 
 fect that her ladyship's balance was now twelve shil- 
 
382 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 lings. Greville must have shuddered when his uncle 
 forwarded it to him. " Sensibility " was always over- 
 drawing its banking account, and " Nature " continu- 
 ally forestalling expectations. Added to largesse was 
 some extravagance, but not to the degree that has 
 often been put forward : it was by no means enor- 
 mous, and in these days might be considered normal 
 for her husband's position. Emma was in a holiday 
 mood. Hamilton would not brace himself to the real 
 retrenchment of giving up the London house, nor 
 would Emma forego 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 sing- 
 ers, the theatrical and musical Mrs. Lind, Mrs. Billing- 
 ton, and Mrs. Denis; " Old Q." from Richmond, Wol- 
 cot the satirist, Hayley from Felpham, Dr. Fisher from 
 Doctors' Commons ; Admiralty big-wigs, disgusted of- 
 ficials, noisy journalists, foreign bearers of Nelson's 
 decorations, the Abbe Campbell, 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 atten- 
 tion. 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 mind," and " bless 
 dear Lady Hamilton." Benevolence, hospitality, and 
 racket each mingled in the miscellany, and all of them 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 383 
 
 tended to outrun the constable. The cellar was stocked 
 with wine, and perhaps included some of those large 
 gifts from foreign potentates to which a reference is 
 made in the Life of the Reverend Dr. Scott. How- 
 ever that may be, when Emma's affairs were liquidated 
 seven years later, 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, allowing for the 
 expenditure of both houses. The joint weekly ex- 
 penses at Merton were often no higher than some £30. 
 Hamilton, however, whose own extravagance con- 
 tributed, though he justified it by hopes from Adding- 
 ton, soon began to murmur. Greville, the monitor, 
 was at his elbow. The heir's prospects were being 
 imperilled by that very Emma whose thrift he had 
 first inculcated and extolled; it was too bad; 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 the 
 " nonsense " that invaded 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 here Greville's voice appears to recur), 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 alterca- 
 tions. 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 " 
 
384 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 continued 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 ar- 
 rived, 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 excellent qualities, but I am not 
 blind to your defects, and confess 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 
 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 Ham- 
 ilton. 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 estima- 
 tion. 
 
 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 actu- 
 ally 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 strange scheme was now to be concocted. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 385 
 
 Failing the princely aid of the previous spring-, 1 bar- 
 gain after his own heart was being revived. 
 
 It will be recollected that Beckford, wearied of soli- 
 tary magnificence, had offered Sir William a large an- 
 nuity 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 daughter, 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 £500 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 management of this affair. 
 Sir William ridiculed the mere notion of himself covet- 
 ing such empty honours. He might, however, be use- 
 ful to his friends, and no eclat need attend the transac- 
 tion. Beckford had " strong claims on Government." 
 An idea had struck Hamilton that the Marquis might 
 one day be intimately connected with the Fonthill fam- 
 ily. He did not demand definite answers; he was 
 " sensible of its being a delicate point," yet he could not 
 help flattering himself that " the good Duke of H. and 
 myself would readily undertake anything for Emma's 
 and my advantage, provided it could be done sans vous 
 compromettre trop." The Marquis promptly answered 
 his kinsman's " very kind and confidential letter from 
 Merton " by a gentle refusal. He found town very 
 
386 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 empty, but a select few, his books, papers, and pic- 
 tures, 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 re- 
 gard, and he was and ever should be his affectionate 
 friend. 
 
 Poor " Nestor " ! To this pass have art and am- 
 bassadorship 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 Eng- 
 lish 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 Christian 
 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 life. While the brother flattered for 
 gain, while every application 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 Will- 
 iam's letter has. It is characteristic of his " philos- 
 ophy " — that of " the best of all possible worlds " : — 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 387 
 
 Piccadilly, April 28, 1802. 
 ". . . Emma says I must write a letter to you of 
 condolence for the heavy loss your lordship has suf- 
 fered. 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 unparal- 
 leled 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 sad- 
 dened Merton, a dinner and musical party was given 
 at which Braham, who was afterwards to sing, amid 
 furore, the " Death of Nelson," performed. 
 
 Nelson had much 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 pre- 
 ferred even Bohemian routs to the solemnities of 
 Downing Street or the frivolities of Mayfair, though 
 he disliked all gatherings but those of intimate friends. 
 
 Among the guests of this evening was their old ac- 
 quaintance Lord Minto, formerly of Vienna. He was 
 disgusted at the interior with its trophies and por- 
 traits, but, above all, with Emma herself. Doubtless 
 
 .Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 13 
 
388 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the sight of him put her in her most self-assertive vein. 
 The reader must form his own judgment; but at any 
 rate the censor, in this record, seems mistaken in sup- 
 posing that the Hamiltons were " living on " Nelson. 
 The Merton accounts in the Morrison Collection prove 
 that all expenses were scrupulously 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 diplomats 
 are not psychologists, nor have they always 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 
 immense than ever. She goes on cramming Nelson 
 with trowel fuls 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 flag- 
 staff of L'Orient, etc., an excess of vanity which coun- 
 teracts 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, performed 
 with Lady H. She is horrid, but he entertained me 
 in spite of her. Lord Nelson explained to me a little 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 389 
 
 the sort of blame imputed to Sir Hyde Parker for Co- 
 penhagen. . . ." 
 
 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 deteri- 
 orated, and she had never fitted the formalities of 
 English drawing-rooms. Average folk, as will be 
 seen hereafter, she charmed. But the guest, though 
 naturally affronted, was likely to be prejudiced. 
 Emma was wholly offensive to him, and the patronising 
 air of one whom Braham's pathos " entertained " may, 
 after its own manner, have been irritating also. The 
 ambassador was an official type of good taste, and of 
 Emma, it must be thought, there was always overmuch 
 in a room. 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 her 
 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 stub- 
 born fact remains that Britain's deliverer loved this 
 woman's reality, and misliked the spirit of officialism; 
 that against him were arrayed the pettiest forces at 
 home and the mightiest abroad. Nelson endures in 
 history, and with him Emma, while patterns of the 
 primmest diplomacy have long faded into the vague- 
 ness of distance. To appraise Emma, not defence but 
 understanding is requisite. Antipathy, 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 
 
390 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 evidence, and was grossened in the caricatures. She 
 affected to think that fatness became her fine stature 
 and large proportions. It was due, partly, to the por- 
 ter which she drank for the sake of her voice, and 
 which, as appears in the earlier letters of the Morrison 
 Collection, had been forwarded 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. Nel- 
 son 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 mel- 
 ancholy, had resought the refuge of the Kendal roof- 
 tree and the ministering 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 correspondence between them 
 may one day be discovered. 
 
 For the summer, Hamilton had planned a driving 
 tour to the Milford property, where the nephew and 
 steward wished to show his uncle the best work of his 
 life — a flourishing settlement of labourers. Emma 
 and Nelson accompanied him 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. Greville's 
 presence may be assumed. Certainly he was at Mil- 
 ford. Before they started, William Nelson, who had 
 just returned from bowing to " Billy " Pitt at Cam- 
 bridge, his wife and their young Horatio, were added 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 391 
 
 to the group of travellers. It is strange on this occa- 
 sion to find the triple alliance of Nelson and the Ham- 
 iltons reinforced by Greville, before whom, Nelson 
 had told Emma, conversation must be restrained; in 
 his official presence they could not speak freely " of 
 kings and beggars." This journey, like its continental 
 predecessor, was certainly not calculated to allay irrita- 
 tion in high places. 
 
 They started on the 9th of July with Box Hill once 
 more — " 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 Marlbor- 
 oughs infuriated Emma by declining to receive her. 
 She was determined to appeal, for herself and her hero, 
 to the Caesar of the people. She performed her music 
 both for the select and the vulgar. Everywhere Emma 
 beat the big drum of popular enthusiasm. The long 
 highroads, the swarming streets, the eager villages 
 from Burford to Gloucester, from Gloucester to Ross, 
 from Ross to Monmouth, Caermarthen and Milford, 
 from Milford to Swansea, from Swansea to Cardiff, 
 were thronged with stentorian admirers. On the re- 
 turn journey, from Cardiff to Newport and Chepstow, 
 and so to Monmouth again, on to Hereford, Leomin- 
 ster, Tenbury, Worcester, Birmingham, Warwick, 
 Coventry, Dunstable, Watford, and Brentford, all 
 turned out like one man to cheer the postilioned car- 
 riages. Bells were rung, factories and theatres vis- 
 ited, addresses read, speeches made, the National 
 Anthem and " Rule Britannia " sung by the shouting 
 crowds. Wherever they went, the neighbouring mag- 
 nates loaded Nelson and his friends with invitations, 
 and Payne-Knight implored Emma for a visit. And 
 everywhere this exuberant daughter of democracy led 
 
392 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 ! " 
 
 It was Naples over again, and Emma was in her 
 true element. Let the whole official brotherhood look 
 to themselves and dare their worst. They were routed 
 now. The people were on the side of those who had 
 toiled hard, of those who had really borne the brunt, 
 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 birth- 
 day, 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 proteges : 
 " Anything that we can do to assist the poor widow 
 we will." How this " we " reminds us of the " we " 
 before Sir William married her, which had so an- 
 noyed 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. While Banks sympathised with Greville's 
 sigh of relief, Ball told Emma of his interest, smiled 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 393 
 
 over her huzzaings, and recalled her kindness to the 
 Maltese Deputies. Her enthusiasm was still con- 
 tagious. 
 
 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 arms 
 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 Piccadilly 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 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 satisfac- 
 tion to our best friend, our dear Lord Nelson. Sea- 
 bathing is usefull 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 
 
394 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 gradually sank. He was removed to Piccadilly, and 
 by the March of 1803 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 outpouring, occasionally speculated on 
 " my uncle's " demise; but Emma, apart from grati- 
 tude 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 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 395 
 
 had wronged him. Strange as it may sound, she was 
 stricken indeed. 
 
 And yet her attitudinising heart soon alternated be- 
 tween different moods. She cut off her flowing locks 
 and wore them a 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 in- 
 quiring 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 cmigree some of her " Atti- 
 tudes," 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 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 to- 
 gether reminded me of Poussin's ' Rape of the Sabines.' 
 She changed from grief to joy, and from joy to ter- 
 ror, so that we were all enchanted." 
 
 Such a " lime-light," perhaps revealing without be- 
 ing seen, was Emma's own organisation unconsciously 
 " lighting up " the possibilities of others. Her " At- 
 titudes " were the expression of her successive and 
 often self-deceiving emotions. In the old Indian mu- 
 sic, we are told, are certain selected notes, called 
 " ragas," that, separately and without harmonised rela- 
 tions, strike whole moods into the heart of the listener. 
 
396 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 be- 
 fore. 
 
 A month after his decease the will was read in Pic- 
 cadilly before the assembled relations — the Grevilles, 
 the Cathcarts, the Meyricks, the Abercorns, and the 
 rest. Nelson forwarded the announcement to Davison 
 by Oliver. He had suggested the advisability of read- 
 ing 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 fur- 
 niture," 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 fore- 
 stalled income, his means were ample ; even Elliot was 
 astonished at the inadequate provision for his widow. 1 
 To his " dear wife Emma " he bequeathed a sum of 
 £300, and an annuity of £800, to include provision for 
 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 £250, Greville was to pay her 
 in advance the current annuity of £800, for herself and 
 Mrs. Cadogan, while the unpaid remainder of her "debts 
 she was to recover as a charge upon the arrears of pen- 
 sion owed him by the Government. The last arrange- 
 ment was nugatory on the face of it. The Government 
 that had disregarded Sir William was unlikely to re- 
 
 1 Minto Life and Letters, 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 
 which I can believe, though I declare it is of no consequence 
 whether it is so or not." Maria Carolina also deplored her "in- 
 different provision." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 397 
 
 gard 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 Govern- 
 ment'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 Min- 
 isters of circumstances peculiarly distinguished and 
 honourable to her, and at the same time of high im- 
 portance 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 "asa 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 more than esteem? He and 
 Emma must both have felt a pang of shame and re- 
 morse. 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, it had also imposed upon 
 others. Bearing in mind every extenuation, one would 
 fain forget this unlovely spectacle; apart from extenu- 
 
398 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ation 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 her- 
 self. 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 Eng- 
 land 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 ad- 
 ministration 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 his assistance, though of Pitt, for the moment, he 
 seemed 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 mo- 
 ment for breaking it. Russia was then friendly, and 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 399 
 
 Austria hesitating. It was not till the following year, 
 when his murder of the Due d'Enghien scandalised Eu- 
 rope, that Russia contrived the third coalition, which 
 Prussia and Austria joined. Napoleon now prepared 
 to invade Naples : his troops were soon to occupy Han- 
 over. Our Ambassador, Lord Whitworth, was recalled 
 from Paris. Maria Carolina assured Emma of her 
 delight at the prospect of Nelson's renewed Medi- 
 terranean command, and Acton, who had by now as- 
 sumed the superintendence of Bronte, looked forward 
 to seeing his old associate once more. 
 
 Death, doubt, and despair confronted Emma to- 
 gether, 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, imparted. 
 
 A wedding and a christening signalised the month 
 of his departure, and showed Nelson and Emma to- 
 gether 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 afterwards to be godmother to their first- 
 born, " Emma Horatia." Sir William, for whose pro- 
 motion Nelson always exerted himself, proved some- 
 what 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 clergy- 
 men officiated at the christening of " Horatia Nelson 
 
400 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 hardly behaved well. He harshly denied 
 her a moment longer than the end of April in the Pic- 
 cadilly house. She applied to him, in the third per- 
 son, to ascertain the precise limit of her stay, as she 
 must " look out for lodgings " and " reduce her ex- 
 penses." Nelson, however, now resolved to allow her 
 £100 a month for the upkeep of Merton, but unfor- 
 tunately, though mainly residing at her " farm," she 
 could not refrain from still renting a smaller town 
 house in Clarges Stree,.. 
 
 An altercation ensued, it is said, between Nelson 
 and Greville. At any rate, Greville's continued hard- 
 ness towards Emma, soon to be accentuated by his de- 
 duction of the income-tax from her annuity, evoked 
 the following from Nelson more than two years after- 
 wards : — 
 
 " 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 in- 
 tention 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 post- 
 chaise drew up before Merton Place : only one trunk 
 was in it. Before any one was astir, Nelson had bid- 
 den his passionate 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 401 
 
 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 con- 
 trast to what I have been used to. . . . When you see 
 my Sieve, 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 ele- 
 ment. 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 as- 
 sured 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 ex- 
 istence, 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. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 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 Mer- 
 ton improvements, though he himself was now in elec- 
 tion 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 applicants. 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 affectionate and equal terms, her 
 cousin, Sarah Connor, being now governess to the Bol- 
 ton 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 
 
 402 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 403 
 
 family and his friends, whom she provided from the 
 dairy. She was the Merton economist, kept all too 
 busy checking the accounts of the rapacious Cribb. 1 
 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 possessed 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 Ambas- 
 satrice to the duties of domestic life " he has never 
 seen her equal; her "elegance, . . . accomplishments, 
 and, above all, goodness of heart," are " unparalleled," 
 
 1 He was a sort of steward at Merton, but he also supplied 
 the green-groceries. He encouraged the extravagant expense of 
 the Merton improvements. 
 
404 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 and he is devoted to her " for ever and beyond it." 
 Eagerly he treasured the slenderest tidings of her from 
 officers returning to or from England. 
 
 Each night, as Scott, his chaplain — Scott, with his 
 lightning-struck head — relates to Emma, he toasted 
 their Guardian Angel, with a tender look towards her 
 portrait, 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" Span- 
 ish 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 over- 
 powers " his feelings. He enclosed for her the new en- 
 treaties 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 grati- 
 tude. 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 £50 a year," the ac- 
 quirement of another field, the " strong netting " to 
 surround the rivulet for little Horatia's safety. Davi- 
 son had remonstrated over the expense ; Nelson directed 
 him to proceed. He expressly enjoined her — a fact 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 405 
 
 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 furni- 
 ture both at Malta and Palermo. He enclosed £100 — » 
 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 every wind, chance, and disappointment. 
 When at Southend, where she met her 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 re- 
 quests 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 
 regretted that the Abbe 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 
 fier 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 begrudg- 
 ing her an annuity, but Addington's tether was fast 
 
406 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 char- 
 acteristically 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 be- 
 longs to Nelson. Not but what I think money neces- 
 sary for comforts ; and I hope our, yours, and my Nel- 
 son will get a little, for all Master O." 1 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 got 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 Mediter- 
 ranean." " It would kill you," he repeated, " and my- 
 self 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. In- 
 deed at this very moment he had serious thoughts of re- 
 linquishing Bronte altogether. 
 
 Nelson was never self-indulgent; he was unselfish, 
 1 Sir John Orde. This letter is of January, 1805. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 407 
 
 if not selfless, in devotion, even where he went most 
 astray. Under dispiritments innumerable, and morti- 
 fications doubly galling to one of his temperament, 
 through a catalogue of hardships which rival 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 think- 
 ing 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," 
 
 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, 
 intuitively 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 Na- 
 poleon'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 al- 
 ways 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 
 
4 o8 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 certainty that sooner or later Buonaparte's Boulogne 
 flotilla would " go to old Nick." 
 
 Nelson this autumn retailed all the Neapolitan gos- 
 sip for Emma. Napoleon had dictated to Maria Caro- 
 lina the dismissal of her ex- favourite, Acton. She her- 
 self, surrounded by French minions, had relapsed into 
 the peccadillos 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 Bel- 
 monte was mischief-making in London, and Emma 
 must be careful of encountering her. All Sir Will- 
 iam's old dependants were cared for; one of his ser- 
 vitors, Gaetano, was already in Nelson's service, and 
 preferred it to home. Hugh Elliot was now ambas- 
 sador, friendly to Emma's claims. One of the Ham- 
 iltons' 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 Medi- 
 terranean 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, en- 
 deavouring 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." Impa- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 409 
 
 tient by nature, he could play the waiting game to per- 
 fection. Though his cough and swelled side continu- 
 ally 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. Treville was now the Toulon Admiral, and 
 Nelson " owed him one " for landing the Grenadiers at 
 Naples in 1792. Amid the discouragements of long 
 delays and the customary official threat to supplant 
 him, he could look forward to eating " his Christmas 
 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 reg- 
 ularly drank her health and " darling " H.oratia'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 cap- 
 ture 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 may be at the close of February. The reader will 
 
410 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 recall Nelson's torrent of passionate love and anxiety 
 in the ebullition cited 1 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. 
 
 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 counsellor, the acme of the accomplish- 
 ments that she knows how to impart to them. With 
 the William Nelsons it was the same, though here, per- 
 haps, the motives were less disinterested. 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 exag- 
 gerations of homely admirers, or to the self-interest of 
 office-seekers. These people seem, none of them, ever 
 to have relinquished their fondness. 
 
 Nothing can exceed the variety of contrasts in a na- 
 ture to which it lends fascination. Emma's tissue is 
 spangled homespun, but the spangles mainly overlie it. 
 Let us examine 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 
 *Cf. chapter xi. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 411 
 
 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 bor- 
 rows 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 generosity quite as much as 
 her waste. So far from " affecting 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. En- 
 joying 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 outspoken to a fault, she is 
 unscrupulous wherever her connection 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 man- 
 
4 i2 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 agement saves in detail. Constantly ailing, she is al- 
 ways energetic, but though never idle, she is often in- 
 dolent. Passionate and even stormy, she battles hard 
 with a temperament which repeatedly masters her. 
 She is at once home-loving and pleasure-loving, care- 
 ful and careless, sensible and silly, kind and cruel, mod- 
 est and unblushing, calm and petulant, natural and arti- 
 ficial; 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 Bol- 
 ton, often at loggerheads 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 af- 
 fectionate lines you sent me by Bowen, tho' indeed the 
 life we lead is so uniformly quiet, that tho' we are per- 
 fectly 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 instru- 
 ment, which, with books and work, form our whole 
 amusement. Sometimes, by way of variety, we have 
 the old woman come down, who behaves extremely well 
 and is become quite attached to Miss Connor. Some- 
 times 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 413 
 
 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 see- 
 ing 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. 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 Con- 
 nor arid 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 neg- 
 lect 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 
 
4 i4 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 neighbourhood to the French coast. But the ist 
 of August was always her fete. She begged her con- 
 stant 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 pre- 
 vail." Doubtless the long, thin beakers and pink cham- 
 pagne of our ancestors were brought out at Canter- 
 bury to celebrate the anniversary of the Nile, 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 festiv- 
 ity: a worse epidemic than invasion was abroad — that 
 of smallpox. Poor little Horatia caught the disease, 
 though lightly, and Emma was in great distress. Nel- 
 son's anxiety was as keen : — " My beloved," he wrote, 
 " how I feel for your situation and that of our dear 
 Horatia, our dear child. Unexampled 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 ac- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 415 
 
 counts, 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 
 intense delight, though she was not definitely installed 
 there till about May of the next year. Nelson now 
 despatched to Emma a strange announcement, evi- 
 dently designed as a circular note of explanation for 
 the enlightenment of over-curious acquaintances. It 
 bears date Victory, August 13, 1804: — " I am now go- 
 ing to state a thing to you, and to request your kind as- 
 sistance, 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 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 educa- 
 tion 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 
 as 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 
 
4i6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 to discern Emma's handiwork. As a girl she had de- 
 voured 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 ac- 
 quit 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 " un- 
 bounded 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 support 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 Mediter- 
 ranean 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 could " feel " 
 what he did; and, "to 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 
 
EMMX, LftDY HAMILTON 417 
 
 months' strenuous activity dejected but could not sub- 
 jugate 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. 
 Irritated 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 fol- 
 lowed; 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 " interminable pa- 
 pers " which engrossed him. " His own quickness," 
 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 was remark- 
 able." At the 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 
 
418 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 un- 
 fortunate 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 outnum- 
 bered him greatly in ships, and entirely in men, he 
 swore that he would track them " even to the Antip- 
 odes." 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 per- 
 ceived 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 Bar- 
 badoes — 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 de- 
 liverer, 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. 
 And Emma, meanwhile, was in an agony of sus- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 419 
 
 pense. 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 " sneaking and cut- 
 ting," 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 her- 
 self into London distractions — again she sought retire- 
 ment. 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 shil- 
 lings. 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 in- 
 vite 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 Bol- 
 ton was of the party. We left them six o'clock, horse- 
 back, 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. 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 14 
 
420 EMMS, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ... 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 Langford 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 strug- 
 gled to 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 Vin- 
 cent, the scene of his earliest triumphs. Collingwood, 
 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 16, 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 Corn- 
 wallis, lest the combined ships should approach Brest. 
 At last he heard of Sir Robert Calder's brilliant en- 
 counter, 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 
 allegations of the need of quarantine, he landed. 
 
 All his family were gathered at Merton with Emma, 
 who had sped from Southend to greet him. The next 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 421 
 
 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 the day after his arrival, " he is safe and well. 
 Cold water has been trickling down my back ever since 
 I heard he was arrived. Oh! say how he looks, and 
 talks, and eats, and sleeps. Never was there a man 
 come back so enthusiastically 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 re- 
 luctance 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. 
 Villeneuve must be found, and the sole hope of the 
 French at sea shattered. Nelson's " band of broth- 
 ers " were to welcome the last trial of the magic " Nel- 
 son 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 strik- 
 
422 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ing letter of self-vindication to Mr. A. J. Scott, Nel- 
 son'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 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. At six next morn- 
 ing he sent his " God protect you and my dear Hora- 
 tia " 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 expec- 
 tations 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, relying 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 
 valediction. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 423 
 
 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 an- 
 chor, 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 Cuffnells, 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 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 Charlotte, whose family the mother had 
 joined at Canterbury. " She is looking very well in- 
 deed, and is to me a delightful companion. We read 
 about twenty times a day, as I do not wish to confine 
 
424 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 hang- 
 ing 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. 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 al 1 the people, and I was 
 afraid.' Dearest angel she is! Oh! Nelson, how I 
 love her, but how do I idolise you, — the dearest hus- 
 band 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 affectionate 
 Emma." x 
 
 1 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 hus- 
 band come in, for . . . how ugly he is, and how he looks 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 425 
 
 It was not for that paradise that Nelson was re- 
 served. 
 
 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 ap- 
 peared without his sword. When he explained to the 
 officers " the Nelson touch/' " 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 ex- 
 claimed. In that cabin he spent his last minutes of re- 
 tirement 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 misconduct in 
 any one tarnish it, and may humanity after victory be 
 the predominant feature in the British fleet ! For my- 
 self 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 de- 
 fend. Amen. Amen. Amen." 
 
 And then he entrusted to his diary that memorable 
 last codicil, witnessed by Blackwood and Hardy, re- 
 counting his Emma's unrewarded services, and com- 
 mending her and Horatia (whom he now desired to 
 
 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 ? " 
 
426 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 bear the name of " Nelson " only x ) 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 
 'Xemeraire : — 
 
 " 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. . . ." 2 
 
 As in a vision, one seems to behold that huge Santis- 
 sima Trinidad, that mighty Bucentaur, that fatal Re- 
 doubtable, 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. 
 
 1 The King duly gave his licence to that effect. Morrison MS. 
 
 2 October 19. The original was prominent in 1905 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 ! ' " 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 427 
 
 His four stars singled him out as a target for the 
 deathblow that " broke his back " fifteen minutes after- 
 wards. 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, 1 hover but two pres- 
 ences, 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 Collingwood 
 but Hardy shall give the command; " for, if I live, I\ 
 anchor." — " Take care of my poor Lady Hamilton, 
 Hardy. Kiss me, Hardy." 2 — " 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 
 
 Scott's account (cf. App.. Part II. F. (2)) brings a striking 
 detail into prominence. " He died," he says, " as the battle 
 finished, and his last effort to speak was made at the moment of 
 joy for victory." 
 
 2 Hardy, in a letter to Scott of March 10, 1807, protesting his 
 continued esteem for Lady Hamilton, declares that Nelson's last 
 words to him were, " Do be kind to poor Lady H." Cf . Life of 
 Rev. Dr. Scott (1842), p. 212. 
 
428 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 severed, 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 pop- 
 ular. 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 vic- 
 tory 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 realised 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 removed 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 let- 
 ters — " sacred," she called them — " on her pillow." 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 429 
 
 She fingered them over and 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 Nel- 
 son'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 command- 
 ing part to prompt or act. Yet her old leaven was still 
 indomitable. She would fight and struggle for her- 
 self and her child so long as she had breath. 
 
 Messages of sympathy poured in from every quar- 
 ter, 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 
 
430 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 as ked — the Abbe Campbell, writing amid the third 
 overthrow at Naples, was more delicate and sym- 
 pathetic. His " heart was full of anguish " and com- 
 miseration. " 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 to get 
 her an allotment in the new loan. Staunch Lady Betty 
 Foster and Lady Percival were also among her con- 
 solers, and so too was 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 note- 
 books and last codicil to Rose at Cuffnells. Black- 
 wood 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 re- 
 mains 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, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 431 
 
 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. One may say, lux 
 meme fait le siecle — for where shall we see another? " 
 In all things she might command him; he only wished 
 for her approval. He 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 bit- 
 terly resented being parted from it by his place, next 
 day, in the procession. " I honour your feelings," he 
 exclaimed in the tumult of grief, " and I respect you, 
 dear Lady Hamilton, for ever." 
 
 Who can forget the scenes of that dismal triumph of 
 January the 10th? 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 liv- 
 ing as he was to them, press to figure in the pomp 
 which celebrated 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 
 
432 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 have forsworn had her wifehood ever meant real af- 
 fection, 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? 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE IMPORTUNATE WIDOW IN LIQUIDATION 
 
 February, 1806 — July, 18 14 
 
 WHILE the nation was to vote £90,000 and 
 £5000 a year for the earldom of the clergy- 
 man whose brother died only a Viscount and 
 Vice-Admiral, in receipt of an annual grant not ex- 
 ceeding £2000; while Lady Nelson, soon to wrangle 
 over the will, received that same annuity, not only were 
 Emma's claims disregarded, but the payment of Nel- 
 son's bequest to her depended on a fluctuating rental. 
 She retired for a space to Richmond, and at once 
 begged Sir R. Barclay to be one of a committee fof 
 arranging her affairs and disposing of Merton. Not 
 apparently until next November 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 strait- 
 ened than has been supposed. Her income from all 
 sources (including Horatia's £200 a year) has been 
 estimated as over some £2000. This estimate counts 
 Hamilton's and Nelson's annuities, of £800 and £500 
 respectively, as if they were paid free of property-tax, 
 her Piccadilly furniture as realised and invested intact 
 at five per cent., together with Nelson's £2000 legacy, 
 and Merton as rentable at £500 a year. The tax 
 alone, however, seems to have been some ten per cent., 
 
 433 
 
!434 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 the furniture should surely be reckoned at half-price, 
 Merton was unlet, and with difficulty sold at last, 
 while large inroads had been made by debt and inter- 
 rupted Merton improvements. Her available capital 
 must have been small. Her net income may be taken 
 as under some £1200, apart from Nelson's annuity 
 payable half-yearly in advance. Had this been so 
 paid regularly from the first, another £450, after de- 
 ducting property-tax, would have been hers. But I 
 have discovered that Earl Nelson, on the excuse that 
 the money he actually received from the Bronte estate 
 up to 1806 was for arrears of rent accrued due before 
 Nelson's death, never apparently allowed her a penny 
 until 1808, and then, after consulting counsel, haggled 
 over the payment in advance directed by the codicil, 
 and in fact never paid her annuity in advance until 
 18 14. The receipt for the first payment in advance 
 still exists. This surely puts a somewhat different 
 complexion on her " extravagance," since a year's de- 
 lay in the receipt of income by one already encumbered 
 would prove a dead weight. Imprudent and improvi- 
 dent she continued; embarrassed by anticipated ex- 
 pectations, eager, indeed, to compound with creditors 
 she became much sooner than has hitherto been 
 imagined. She remained absolutely faithful to Hora- 
 tia's trust up to the miserable end. Within three years 
 from Nelson's death Emma and Horatia were to be- 
 come wanderers from house to house; treasure after 
 treasure was afterwards to be parted with or dis- 
 trained upon; and the Earl, who had flattered and 
 courted Emma in her heyday, and still protested his 
 willingness to serve her, and his hopes that Govern- 
 ment would yield her " a comfortable pension," had 
 joined the fair-weather acquaintances who left her and 
 her daughter in the ditch. On the income, even apart 
 from her variable annuity and the furniture proceeds, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 435 
 
 she might have been comfortable, if she had been con- 
 tent to retire at once into decent obscurity. She could 
 not bring herself to forfeit the flatteries 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 be- 
 stowed on her, and that whether by her or by servants 
 who had guessed the secret of Horatia's birth, con- 
 tinual 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. 
 
 Only once do Earl Nelson's papers cast direct light 
 on its adventures, but two of them about his wishes 
 for the national vote, hint his attitude, though I think 
 that she misconstrued and 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 Somer- 
 set House, where she was led by him to believe that its 
 formal registration with Nelson's will was in favour- 
 able process. Before Pitt's death in the ensuing Janu- 
 ary it was determined that the memorandum-book 
 should be sent to the Premier. Pitt died at an un- 
 fortunate moment, and Grenville became Prime Min- 
 ister. After consultation with persons of consequence, 
 the Earl 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, 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 
 
436 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 adherents they remained, in so entitling it. Grenville 
 was the last person in the world to act favourably 
 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 
 withholding 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-ad- 
 vantage. He did not choose to risk offending Gren- 
 ville. The codicil was not proved till July 4. 
 
 Earl Nelson certainly never erred on the side of gen- 
 erosity. Despite his assiduous court to 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 enjoy; though he was probably angered 
 when the shrewd Mrs. Cadogan proved his match 
 there and worsted him. With reluctance, and " with 
 a bleeding heart," he conceded Emma's " right " to the 
 " precious possession " of the hero's coat, as the docu- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 437 
 
 ment concerning its surrender, in his wife's handwrit- 
 ing, 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 over Clarke and M'Arthur's Life of his 
 brother. And long after Emma lay mouldering in a 
 nameless grave, he declined to put down his name for 
 the book of a brother clergyman, on the ground that 
 for books he had long ceased to subscribe. If Emma 
 rasped him by overbearing defiance (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 as impediments long lapse of time and the in- 
 applicability of the Secret Service Fund, though Rose 
 and Canning afterwards acknowledged them to be just. 
 Pitt's death with the dawning year rebuffed anew, as 
 we have seen, the main hope of this unfortunate and 
 importunate 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 x caused her secret and serious uneasiness 
 
 *Ann, who, with the touch of madness peculiar to the whole 
 family, and at this time dangerous in Charles, associated herself 
 now with Emma " Carew," whose pseudonym she took, as Lady 
 
438 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 de- 
 tractors, during a visit to Nelson's relations, in a let- 
 ter 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 per- 
 secute us never had, his unbounded love and esteem, 
 his confidence and affection. ... If I had any influ- 
 ence 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 
 
 Hamilton's daughter. "How shocked and surprised I was, my 
 dear friend," writes Mrs. Bolton. " 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. 959. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 439 
 
 for my King and Country, and prettily I am re- 
 warded." For glory she had lived, for glory she had 
 been ready 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 defiance, 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 re- 
 sumed, " at Alexander Davison, courting the man he 
 despised, and neglecting now those whose feet he used 
 to lick. Dirty, vile groveler." She meets contumely 
 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 — espe- 
 cially 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 led the life 
 at home of a respected lady, befriended by Lady Eliz- 
 abeth Foster and Lady Percival. Lady Abercorn 
 begged her to bring Naldi and perform for the poor 
 Princess of Wales. But her heart stayed with Nel- 
 son's kinsfolk, with Horatia's relations. She stifled 
 her sorrow for a while with the young people, who 
 
440 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 still found Merton a home, as Mrs. Bolton tenderly ac- 
 knowledged. Charlotte Nelson was still an inmate, 
 and Anne and Eliza Bolton were repeatedly under its 
 hospitable roof. Emma's godchild and namesake, 
 Lady Bolton's daughter, was devoted tx> Mrs. Cadogan 
 — they all " loved " her, she called her " grandmama." 
 The Cranwich girls reported to " dearest Lady Ham- 
 ilton " all their tittle-tattle, the country balls, their mu- 
 sical progress, the matches, the prosperous poultry, 
 their dishes and gardens. They awaited her Sunday 
 letters — their " chief pleasure " — with impatience. 
 They never forgot either her birthday or Mrs. Cado- 
 gan's. When in a passing fit of retrenchment she 
 meditated migration to one of her several future lodg- 
 ings in Bond Street, who so afraid for her inconveni- 
 ence 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 suc- 
 cess ? And so in a sense it proved, for one of the min- 
 istry's excuses may well have been that a noble fam- 
 ily 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 fete 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 immediately after the 
 " codicil " annoyances, and twice more earlier in that 
 same year alone. Emma, they repeated, " was beloved 
 by all." And her affection extended to their friends 
 at Brancaster and elsewhere. Sir William Bolton re- 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 441 
 
 mained in his naval command, and Lady Hamilton 
 kept her popularity with the navy. Anne and Eliza 
 Bolton, together with their mother, hung on her light- 
 est 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 and a thumping 
 legacy. " There is a feeling for 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 mag- 
 netic so to draw the hearts of the young towards her 
 — even when, as now, she seemed to neglect them. 
 Those who judge, or misjudge her, might have modi- 
 fied their censoriousness had they experienced the win- 
 ning charm of her friendship. 
 
 , But all this while, and under the surface, Emma 
 continued miserable, ill, and worried. Her impor- 
 tunities with the Government were doomed to failure; 
 her monetary position, aggravated by reckless gen- 
 erosity towards her poverty-stricken kinsfolk, grew 
 more precarious ; but her pride seems not to have let 
 her breathe a syllable of these embarrassments to the 
 Boltons or the Matchams. 
 
 For a while she removed to 136 Bond Street as a 
 London pied-a-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. " Con- 
 tinue to love us," she says, " and if you would make 
 Merton your home, whenever 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 Hora- 
 tia's education was her main care, but her ideas of 
 
442 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 education began and ended with accomplishments. 
 Horatia's precocities 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 *.n getting 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 whom she 
 liked to surround herself; in hoping that Hayley 
 would celebrate her in his Life of Romney. An un- 
 published 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 law- 
 yers, ill-used by the Government, and distracted 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 
 possible," 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 in- 
 vincible as her gratitude to her old friend who so often 
 influenced her for good. She is distraught, misin- 
 terpreted, the sport of chance and apathy. 
 
 "L'ignorance en courant fait sa roide homicide, 
 L'indifference observe et le hasard decide." 
 
 Two years later again, when misfortunes were thick- 
 ening 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 443 
 
 tKe great and glorious Nelson in his dying moments 
 begged 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." 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 perpetually 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 own sadness, was she ever unmindful of the mis- 
 ery 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 relation, 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 bene- 
 factress : — 
 
 "... 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, ungrate- 
 ful 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 
 
444 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 believe 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 Reyn- 
 oldses, 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 hid- 
 den 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 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 regularity 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 correspondence with her 
 friend, was, however, unable, it would seem, or un- 
 willing to aid her since she had written the reluctant 
 plea on her behalf to the English ministers four years 
 previously. Indeed, it may be guessed that one of the 
 reasons alleged for disregarding the supplication of 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 445 
 
 Nelson, was that its discussion might compromise 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 elab- 
 orately, Emma betook herself to Lord St. Vincent. 
 If her importunities could effect nothing with the gods 
 above, she would entreat one of them below. Per- 
 haps Nelson's old ally could melt the obdurate min- 
 isters into some regard for Nelson's latest prayers; 
 perhaps through him she might 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 dis- 
 appointment," that some heed may be paid to the dying 
 wishes of " our immortal 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 in- 
 fant daughter, expressly left under her guardianship, 
 to the munificent protection of our Sovereign and the 
 nation." She will not arouse his resentment " by re- 
 citing the many petty artifices, mean machinations, 
 
446 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 hus- 
 band's endeavours she had been indebted for his friend- 
 ship. The widow of Lock, the Palermo Consul, had 
 an immediate pension assigned of £800 a year, while 
 Mr. Fox's natural daughter, Miss Willoughby, ob- 
 tained one of £300. Might not the widow of the 
 King's foster-brother, an Ambassador so distinguished, 
 hope for some recognition of what she had really done, 
 and what Nelson had counted on being conceded? 
 
 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, forwarded to Pitt a solemn assurance 
 that it was through Emma's " exclusive interposition 
 that he had obtained provisions and water for the Eng- 
 lish 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 stay- 
 ing with him at Cuffnells, had " listened favourably " 
 to his representations. Rose had previously assured 
 Lady Hamilton that he was convinced of the " justice 
 of her pretensions," 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 re- 
 peats, and with truth, " has been more unfortunate 
 for me, as I have incurred very heavy expenses in com- 
 pleting what Lord Nelson had left unfinished at Mer- 
 ton, and I have found it impossible to sell the place." 
 She might have added that Nelson entreated her not 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 447 
 
 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 in- 
 terfered to prevent it, under whose kind protection 
 alone I am enabled to exist. My case is plain and sim- 
 ple. I rendered a service of the utmost importance to 
 my country, attested in the clearest and most undeni- 
 able 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 mention- 
 ing them, nor indeed after his death, if I had been left 
 in a less comparatively destitute state." 
 
 Yet the latter was the excuse continuously urged by 
 successive Governments. Both Rose and Canning, 
 more than once, admitted the justice of her claims, 
 and even Grenville seems by implication not to have 
 denied it. 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 disinclination to 
 favour one whom the King's foster-brother had mar- 
 
448 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 ried 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. The sum named — 
 £6000 or £7000 — would have been a bagatelle 
 in view of the party jobbing then universally prevalent; 
 and no attentive peruser of the whole correspondence 
 from 1803- 181 3 can fail to grasp that each successive 
 minister — one generously, another grudgingly — at 
 least never disputed her claims even while he refused 
 them. It was not their justice, but justice itself that 
 was denied, and the importunate widow was left plead- 
 ing 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 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 £500 " for her. Melville himself spoke 
 " very handsomely " both of her and her " services." 
 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 appar- 
 ently between the two stools of social propriety and of- 
 ficial convenience, while the hope against hope, that 
 no disillusionment could extinguish, constantly made 
 her the victim of her anticipations. 
 
 For a moment a purchaser willing to give £13,000 
 for Merton had been almost secured. But debts and 
 fears hung around her neck like millstones. They in- 
 terrupted her correspondence and sapped her health, 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 449 
 
 now in serious danger. By June, 1808, she told her 
 surgeon, Heaviside, that she was so " low and com- 
 fortless " 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 re- 
 mained : he had named her in his will, and that suf- 
 ficed. With her staunch servant Nanny, and her 
 faithful " old Dame Francis," who attended her to the 
 end she and Horatia retired to Richmond, 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 endearments, and expressing the perhaps 
 impudent request that possibly she might be permitted 
 to rest near Nelson in St. Paul's, but otherwise she de- 
 sired 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 administration 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 Bol- 
 tons 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 as- 
 sociates were Goldsmid, 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 
 
450 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 amounted to £17,500, " 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 seems to have been on account of the Mer- 
 ton improvements, amounted to £8,000, but there were 
 also exorbitant demands on the part of money-lenders, 
 who had made advances on the terms of receiving " an- 
 nuities." To satisfy these, £10,000 were required. 
 
 Everything possible was managed. All her assets, 
 including the prosecution of those hopeless claims, 
 were vested in the committee as trustees, and they 
 were realised to advantage. Goldsmid himself pur- 
 chased 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 whom his iciest reserve and most petti- 
 fogging avarice had never chilled. He had evidently 
 asked her to call, though he never seems to have of- 
 fered 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 in- 
 form 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 De- 
 struction, 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 
 
The death of Admiral Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar. 
 "Thank God, I have done my duty." 
 
 From the Painting by W. H. Overend. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 451 
 
 on earth shall make me deviate from my present sys- 
 tem," she concludes, using the very word which 
 Greville used concerning his methods with woman- 
 kind 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 her old revenue when the " annuities " 
 had been discharged. Somehow they never were, and 
 they again figure largely during her last debacle. The 
 mysteries of her entanglements baffle discovery; so 
 does her sanguine improvidence which, to the end, 
 alternated with deep depression. 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 
 sometimes dances, in the fashionable set of the Duke 
 and the Abercorns. In June, 1809, Lord Northwick 
 begged her to come to the Harrow speeches, and after- 
 wards meet a few " old Neapolitan friends " and her 
 life-long friend the Duke of Sussex at " a fete in his 
 house." The fame of Horatia's accomplishments 
 added the zest of curiosity. All were eager to meet 
 the " interesting Sieve 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 ad- 
 vantage to do a thoughtful kindness for an unhappy 
 bride who had just married the composer Francesco 
 
 Memoirs — Vol. 14 — 15 
 
452 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Bianchi. Twelve days earlier she had tried appar- 
 ently 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. Bil- 
 lington, whose brutal husband, Filisan, was now threat- 
 ening her from Paris; while Mrs. Grafer, on the very 
 eve of return to Italy, continued to beset her with im- 
 portunities. 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 over- 
 tasked 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 Nel- 
 son 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 disinterested, and even calumny never coupled 
 their names together. When he died next year, he 
 left her an annuity of £500, which, however — such was 
 her persistent ill luck — she never lived to receive, for 
 the old voluptuary's will was contested, it would seem, 
 till after Lady Hamilton had paid the debt of nature. 
 Even if she had survived the litigation, it would prob- 
 ably have absorbed a portion of the bequest. 
 
 The autumn of 1809 saw, too, the end of Greville. 
 Since his mean and heartless treatment of her after 
 Hamilton's death, Emma, save for the glimpse of 
 reconciliation afforded by the remarkable communica- 
 tion 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, him- 
 self been petrified. In 1812 his crystals, for which he 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 453 
 
 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 pic- 
 tures of successive ages — many of them very bad." 
 And perhaps the faultiest of his pictures had been him- 
 self. 
 
 From 1810, when they left Richmond, onwards, 
 Emma and Horatia owned no fixed abode. They 
 moved from Bond Street to Albemarle Street, thence, 
 after perhaps a brief sojourn in Piccadilly again, 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, and my dear 
 Horatia. . . . God bless you, my dear Lady Ham- 
 ilton." 
 
 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 
 
454 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 understand 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 for- 
 lorn 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 pos- 
 sesses 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 had storm enough, and surely the sun must 
 shine sometimes." 
 
 The sun was never to shine again. This very year 
 two more staunch friends, to whom Emma had been 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 455 
 
 indebted for many kindnesses, made their exit, the old 
 Duke and the generous Abraham Goldsmid, who, in 
 despair at the failure of the recent Government loan, 
 died by his own hand. 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 Nel- 
 son seemed to have died in vain. 
 
 The sum raised for her relief had been soon ex- 
 hausted. 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 landlady, Mrs.Daumier, pressed 
 for payment. And yet Lady Hamilton's own require- 
 ments seem to have been modest enough. It was Mrs. 
 Bianchi, Mrs. Billington, the person, whoever he may 
 have been, who 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," importuned 
 her for another from Bethnal Green; Mr. Twiss, Mrs. 
 Siddons's nephew, urged her influence for his solicita- 
 tions to gain a " commissionership of Bankruptcy " — 
 an ominous word for Emma. 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 en- 
 treated her good offices with the royal dukes for " poor 
 
456 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 Horace " ; so did Mrs. Matcham with Rose. She 
 could not even now refrain from maintaining appear- 
 ances, 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 Lady 
 Elizabeth Foster, by now the new Duchess of Devon- 
 shire. 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 Miss Connor a legacy also, 
 but all his bequests were long postponed. While Mrs. 
 Matcham was congratulating Emma on accessions of 
 fortune, while elderly, complimentary, Frenchified 
 Fetherstonehaugh rejoiced 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 fore- 
 stalled revenue. With reason, as well as with excuses, 
 Lord Mansfield warned her not to increase her ex- 
 penditure till her " affairs were settled." Sir Richard 
 Puleston, inviting her from Wrexham to revisit the 
 scenes 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. But Mrs. Bolton well said to 
 her that she feared the friendly Rose was " promising 
 more than he could procure " ; and amid these dubious 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 457 
 
 hopes two tell-tale pieces of paper in the Morrison Col- 
 lection speak volumes. They are bills drawn on 
 Emma by Carlo Rovedino, an Italian, for £150 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 ab- 
 sence his wife was ill. Emma could not rest for think- 
 ing 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 con- 
 solation it would be to me." All smiles to the world, 
 full of wretchedness 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 com- 
 fort to you." 
 
 The crash came suddenly with the opening of the 
 new year, and just as Miss Matcham was begging her 
 to repose herself with them at Ashfield Lodge. Hora- 
 tia had whooping-cough. Emma, who was never with- 
 out 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 inexpug- 
 nable. She owed it to her kind committee, to Nelson's 
 memory, to Horatia, to herself. The creditors, how- 
 ever, at last perceived that the asset on which they had 
 
458 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 they 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 proprietor of the Morning Chron- 
 icle, 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 cir- 
 cumstances 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 re- 
 muneration, will aid by your counsel your ever affec- 
 tionate and gratefull. . . ." 1 
 
 And to the Abbe Campbell, who had just left for 
 Naples : — 
 
 ". . . You was beloved and honour'd by my hus- 
 band, 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 
 1 Morrison MS. 1042, January 3, 1813. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 459 
 
 you; but rest assured none reveres you nor loves more 
 than your ever, etc. PS. — Poor Horatia was so 
 broken-hearted at not seeing you. Tell dear Mr. 
 Tegart to call on me, for I do indeed feil truly for- 
 lorn 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 vis- 
 ited 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 for- 
 warded 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 ac- 
 count of what Nelson understood from their last in- 
 terview. All, however, ended in smoke. Perceval, 
 whom she had persuaded into benefiting one of Nel- 
 son's nephews, had been shot in the previous year, 
 and Lord Liverpool trod in the footsteps of Lord 
 Grenville. 
 
 Whither she repaired on liberation is unknown, 
 though by the summer of the year she managed to 
 reinstate herself in Bond Street. 1 There is no head- 
 ing to the strange remonstrance which the distressed 
 
 *No. 150. This is manifest from the inventory and sale cata- 
 logue of the following July sold at Sotheby's on July 8, 1905. It 
 is dated " Thursday, July 8, 1813." Her last refuge was at Ful- 
 ham with Mrs. Billington. 
 
4 6o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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, correct your- 
 self 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. Re- 
 form your conduct, or you will be detested by all the 
 world, and when you shall no longer have my foster- 
 ing arm to sheild you, woe betide you, you will sink 
 to nothing. Be good, be honourable, tell not false- 
 hoods, 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 wel- 
 fare. 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. 
 PS. — Look on me as gone from this world." 
 
 Six months later she again blamed her for her 
 1 April 18, 1813. Cf. Morrison MS. 1047. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 461' 
 
 " 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 ex- 
 claimed Emma, who had, at any rate, been a most duti- 
 ful daughter, " If my poor mother was living to take 
 my part, broken as I am 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 estab- 
 lishment." 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 for- 
 gotten 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 ve- 
 hement 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 men- 
 
462 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 tioned." It has been assumed that his 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 ac- 
 tion 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 neglect of her last " memorials " into re- 
 newed 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 rem- 
 nants 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 July added 
 one more to the many fatalities that thronged around 
 her. The Matchams, themselves poor, were unweary- 
 ing in their solicitude, and three years earlier a small 
 windfall had enabled them to contribute £100 to her 
 dire necessities. Alderman Smith came for the sec- 
 ond 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 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 463 
 
 bed, a crowning trouble beset her. Through the per- 
 fidy 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 fre- 
 quently 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 published 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 falsehoods." 
 " I have taken an oath and confirmed it at the altar," 
 the much-harried Emma was to write to the press in 
 the next September, after she had crossed the Chan- 
 nel, " that I know nothing of these infamous publica- 
 tions 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 his [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." 
 
 1 Harrison ; cf. Horatia's letter. Cornhill, June, 1906. 
 
464 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 un- 
 doubtedly 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 weight of temptation, 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 XV 
 
 FROM DEBT TO DEATH 
 
 July, 1814 — January, 18 15 
 
 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 18 13 
 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 bank- 
 rupt. The Matchams themselves were breaking up 
 the last of their many establishments. They all wished 
 to join Emma and Horatia, when possible, in some 
 " city, town, or village abroad." This proposal prob- 
 ably 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 1st 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 onhangers whom she had reck- 
 
 465 
 
466 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 lessly maintained. She herself had gone bail " for 
 a person " whom she thought " honourable." This 
 " person " was probably one Jewett, a young friend 
 of the Russells, in whom she had taken a warm inter- 
 est. " 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 ex- 
 ception 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 them- 
 selves to the utmost on her behalf. A small further 
 sum was collected for her in the city, and by the last 
 week of June, 1814, her full discharge was obtained 
 from Lord Ellenborough. 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 dis- 
 honour, 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 Nelson, the gratitude of a court, and the 
 praise of Britain! 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 467 
 
 About the last day of June she and Horatia, unat- 
 tended, 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, more- 
 over, that she had some disposing power over the ac- 
 cumulations of arrears on her income under her hus- 
 band'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 £100 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 im- 
 posed upon by my good nature. . . . When I came 
 away, I came with honour, as Mr. Alderman Smith 
 can inform you, but mine own innocence 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 por- 
 trayer's pupil, must have often told her) started on his 
 Sentimental Journey, by the confession over a bottle 
 of Burgundy that there was " mildness in the Bour- 
 bon blood "; and where the " Englishman who did not 
 travel to see Englishmen " first inspected, in his host's 
 company, the ramshackle desobligeante 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 housekeeper. 
 
468 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 gram- 
 matically. 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 fete champetre 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." x 
 
 Dis aliter visum; it was not to be. Nothing but the 
 pittance of Horatia's settlement remained. Rose be- 
 stirred himself, but Lord Sidmouth continued imper- 
 vious to the importunate widow, herself slowly re- 
 covering from the jaundice. 
 
 When "Dame Francis" arrived, they tenanted a 
 farmhouse 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 after- 
 wards, they again removed to a neighbouring one. It 
 
 1 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. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 469 
 
 belonged to two ladies who had lost a large sum by 
 the refusal of their sons to join 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. Oc- 
 casionally a stray visitor passed their way. Lord Cath- 
 cart, 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 Hamil- 
 ton was in retreat : a real live " milord " must have flut- 
 tered 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 Ham- 
 ilton, who so much contributed to the Battle of the 
 
47o EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 much], and now to ask! " 1 
 Such was the plight of one who had gladly lavished 
 care and money on the son and daughter of Earl Nel- 
 son. 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 Franqaise — No. in — 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 sus- 
 pense been protracted, they must ere long have been so. 
 At the beginning of December the " annuitants' " at- 
 torneys were in close correspondence with the Honour- 
 able Colonel Sir R. Fulke Greville. Proceedings, in- 
 deed, were being instigated in Chancery, which were 
 only stopped by Lady Hamilton's unexpected demise. 
 An embargo was laid on every penny of Emma's in- 
 come. Even Horatia's pittance was not paid in ad- 
 vance, till she herself begged for a trifle on account 
 from her uncle, Earl Nelson. 
 
 1 Lady Hamilton to Sir William Scott— September 12, 1814. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 471 
 
 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 un- 
 til Horatia's next quarter's allowance should fall due. 
 In 181 1 the Matchams had sent all they could spare; 
 they may have done so again. If the mother, denuded 
 of all, asked for anything, it was for Horatia that she 
 pleaded. At her debut, 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 ene- 
 mies 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 brilliance had hovered, lay poverty-stricken and 
 alone. Where now were the tribes of flatterers, of 
 importuners for promotion, or even the crowd of true 
 and genial hearts? Her still lingering beauty had 
 formed an element of her age, but now only the prim- 
 itive 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 her mother — remnants from the wreck. Nel- 
 son was no longer loathed at Calais ; a Bourbon sat on 
 
472 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 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 spell- 
 bound princes alike and peasants; whose fame, what- 
 ever 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 be- 
 fore her fading eyes. Ah ! 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 re- 
 ceive extreme unction from a stranger's hands. Weep- 
 ing Horatia and old " Dame Francis " re-enter as, in 
 that awful moment, shrived, let us hope, and recon- 
 ciled, 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 fol- 
 lowed by the many naval officers then at Calais to the 
 cheerless cemetery, before many years converted into 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 473, 
 
 a timber-yard. 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 blameless 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 begin- 
 ning 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 de- 
 frayed 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 interpret 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 
 
474 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 his indifferent pictures 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 en- 
 hanced 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 un- 
 shaken 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 expressiveness Which throughout ren- 
 dered 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 melancholy 
 decline, from the moment of the prelude to Horatia's 
 birth to the years which involved its far-reaching and 
 inevitable sequels. We have found, despite all the re- 
 sulting stains which soiled a frank and fervid but un- 
 schooled and unbridled nature, that she never lost a 
 capacity for devotion, and even self-abandonment; 
 while her kindness and bounty remained as reckless 
 and extravagant as the wilfulness of her moods and 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 475 
 
 the exuberance of her enthusiasm. We have found 
 her headstrong successively, and resolute, bold and 
 brazen, capricious and loyal, vain-glorious, but vainer 
 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 the stones flung at her — to gold. We 
 have tracked also the cruelty and shabbiness of those 
 that were first and foremost 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 damna- 
 tion met. And in her semi-consecration of true 
 motherhood, springing at first from wild-animal de- 
 votion to her first child, we can discern the refine- 
 ment 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 blot, and made her more 
 beautiful than her beauty. May we not say, at the 
 last, that because she loved much, much shall be for- 
 given her : quia midtiim 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 
 
476 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 
 
 wood, " like a battledore, handle downwards " ; the 
 second, a headstone, which a Guide to Calais mentions 
 in 1833. 1 Its Latin inscription was then partially de- 
 cipherable : — 
 
 "... Quae 
 . . . Calesiae 
 Via in Gallica vocata. 
 Et in dotno c.vi. obiit 
 Die xv. Mensis Januarii. a,d. mdcccxv. 
 ^Etatis suae lj." 2 
 
 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 the literary doctor Beattie (not Nelson's Sir 
 William Beatty), after visiting her grave on his re- 
 turn from attending William IV. and his wife in Ger- 
 many. They were published in 1831, and have been 
 quoted by Pettigrew. 
 
 " And here is one — a nameless grave — the grass 
 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 tf aant of that lowly grave. 
 
 . . . Levelled with the soil, 
 The wasting worm hath revelled in its spoil — 
 The spoil of beauty 1 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 
 
 1 Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 636. The " battledore " bore the in* 
 scription, "Emma Hamilton, England's friend." 
 
 2 i. e. In the fifty-first year of her age. 
 
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 477 
 
 Of some rapt minstrel's warm imaginings, 
 The more than form and face of earthly things. 
 
 Few bend them at thy bier, unhappy one! 
 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." 
 
 THE END 
 
NOV 2 * 8U 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div.