Nelson: The Essential Hero (38 page)

The Hamiltons had settled into a draughty and uncomfortable house in Palermo, the Villa Bastioni, where Sir William promptly caught cold and took to his bed for several weeks. He had much to disturb him, for his political career was deeply damaged by his espousal of the Neapolitan adventure of attacking Rome. Nelson, who had been so largely responsible for the whole affair, seems to have felt that no blame could be apportioned to him. Like Sir William he blamed General Mack, the cowardice and inefficiency of the Neapolitan Army, and above all the failure of the Austrians to invade Italy from the north. Living in the minister’s house, seeing more of courtiers than of sailors, his vanity constantly stirred by such companions - and above all by Emma - Nelson began only too rapidly to take on something of the hue of that strange southern kingdom, more remote even from his English background than the absurdities of Naples. A grave disappointment to him was the conduct of Josiah Nisbet, an officer whom those who knew him well had long realised would never be ‘an ornament to the service’. Despite all that Nelson had done to promote his interest over the years, the fact was that Fanny’s son had been a constant source of embarrassment. In January 1799 he was finally impelled to tell her so: 'I wish I could say much to your and my satisfaction about Josiah, but I am sorry to say and with real grief that he has nothing good about him, and must sooner or later be broke, but I am sure neither you or I can help it. I have done with the subject, it is an ungrateful one.’ Although he was writing to Fanny in the same month about his desire to return home in March, and about buying ‘a neat house in London near Hyde Park’, the links binding him with home were gradually snapping. There can be no doubt that by now he acknowledged to himself that he had fallen in love with Emma Hamilton. It would only be a matter of time before that love would be consummated.

Nelson’s patent subservience to Emma, his dog-like devotion, could hardly escape comment and could hardly fail to distress his fellow captains, especially those who knew him well and knew how susceptible he was to women and flattery. Emma herself was seen with a sharp eye by a British visitor to Palermo that winter. Pryse Lockhart Gordon, who was travelling with Lord Montgomery and, as was natural, called on the British Minister upon his arrival in Palermo. After describing his presentation ‘to Sir W. Hamilton and Lord Nelson, who lived with him’, he goes on : Our introduction to the fascinating Emma Lady Hamilton was an affair of more ceremony, and got up with considerable stage effect. When we had sat a few minutes, and had given all our details of Naples, which we thought were received with great
sang froid
, the Cavaliere retired, but shortly returned by a
porte-battante
, and on his arm or rather on his shoulder was leaning the interesting Melpomene, her raven tresses floating round her expansive form and full bosom. . . . The ceremony of introduction being over, she rehearsed in a subdued tone a
melange
of Lancashire and Italian, detailing the catalogue of her miseries, her hopes and her fears, with lamentation about her dear queen, the loss of her own charming Palazzo and its precious contents, which had fallen into the hands of the vile republicans. But here we offered some consolation, by assuring her Ladyship that every article of the ambassador's property had been safely embarked in an English transport, and would be despatched in a few days. All this we afterwards learned she knew, as the vessel had actually arrived.

But, where a cool and aristocratic eye could see only affectation and vulgarity, the simple eye of a sailor could see only a full-blown beauty that captivated him.

While the cold Palermitan winter drew on and arrangements were made for the Hamiltons to move into a larger and more comfortable house, the Palazzo Palagonia near the harbour-mole, the affairs of Naples had passed from bad to worse. Only the
lazzaroni
had continued to defy the French and by the close of January all resistance was at an end. The city capitulated to General Championnet and although the Parthenopean Republic, which was now established in Ferdinand’s former capital, could hardly be said to be based on popular support it rested firmly enough, so it seemed, upon the indisputable strength of French arms. Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo, a type of worldly prelate familiar enough in the southern world, who owned large estates in Calabria, now left Sicily to attempt to organise the peasantry from his own lands and lead a general uprising. He was to prove himself a skilled and able revolutionary leader who, within a short space of time, managed to provoke a widespread movement of revolt against the French. Troubridge similarly was successful in the mission on which he was despatched by Nelson - to get control of the islands commanding the Bay of Naples. By early April that year both Procida and Ischia were in his hands, but he was soon to find that the ambivalent, indeed mercurial, nature of southern patriotism was altogether too complicated for his conservative nature to understand. Nelson proposed to send him some soldiers as well as a judge, so that the hard-pressed Troubridge did not have to concern himself overmuch with Neapolitan political affairs. These were deep waters where, as would soon be proved in Nelson’s case, straight-forwardness and simplicity, coupled with a belief in immediate action, were no substitutes for shrewdness, guile, and an understanding of the complexity of Latin natures.

Nelson meanwhile had made the Palazzo Palagonia his home and here the
Tria juncta in Uno —
Sir William’s graceful usage of the motto of the Order to which both he and Nelson belonged, and which was no more than a delicate euphemism for a
menage a trois -
quietly established itself. Sir William had long ago accustomed himself to the idea that he must one of these days yield to a younger man (naturally hoping that the arrangement could be conducted with suitable discretion). The fact that Nelson had clearly fallen under Emma’s spell, and that she was prepared to reciprocate his affection, was disturbing but not intolerable. He had found in Nelson not only a missing son but a classical hero, a figure almost from Homer, whom he loved for his achievements and for the shining light of his personality. Sir William, although naturally accredited as such by British visitors, by the Court, and by the Palermitan populace, was never the classic
cornuto -
that word of disparagement which still obtains in Palermo as the ultimate insult for a blind cuckold. He was also a great deal more than the
mari complaisant
, a term which suggests a husband who does not mind his wife’s taking a lover provided that she does not mind his having a mistress. He loved Emma for the kindness she had shown him over all the years, for the still singular beauty of her face, and he loved Nelson as the greatest and most admirable friend he had ever made. His conclusion was to be the simple Horatian one of autumnal acceptance. He was never to show about the whole matter the raging fury which he displayed to Greville when he heard of the loss of his great collection of classical vases.

In March
1799 Austria declared war on France - the very event which Nelson, Hamilton and Acton had hoped for the previous year. An Austrian and Russian army under General Suvarov marched into northern Italy, while a combined Russian and Turkish squadron captured the island of Corfu from the French. The result of this was that Cardinal Ruffo and his rapidly growing army of irregulars were able to continue their sweep from the south. The unfortunate citizens of Naples seemed inevitably doomed to be caught by the terror unleashed by the Jacobins in their city and the terror that would be unleashed when Ruffo and their compatriots finally reached it. During the same period, away in the western Mediterranean, General Sir Charles Stuart had captured Minorca, with its all-important naval base of Port Mahon, with such ease that the General was able to send two complete British regiments to reinforce the defence of Sicily. Troubridge meanwhile, from his vantage points of Procida and Ischia, continued to maintain a tight blockade of Naples. The failure of 1798 looked as if it was to be succeeded by resounding success throughout the Mediterranean. At such a moment, when the action for which he had earlier called seemed on all sides to be achieving a momentum that could drive the French out of the Mediterranean basin, the man whose victory at the Nile had inspired it all remained, as Lord Spencer was later to describe him, ‘inactive at a foreign court’.

The reason for this is sadly apparent. Lady Minto, wife of the ambassador to Vienna, had all the news from Palermo imparted to her by two British travellers who had been in that city since the first arrival of the royal family after their flight from Naples. She wrote to her sister:

Nelson and the Hamiltons all lived together in a house of which he bore the expense, which was enormous, and every sort of gaming went on half the night. Nelson used to sit with large parcels of gold before him, and generally go to sleep, Lady Hamilton taking from the heap without counting, and playing with his money to the amount of £500 a night. Her rage is play, and Sir William says when he is dead she will be a beggar. However, she has about £30,000 worth of diamonds from the royal family in presents. She sits at the Council, and rules everything and everybody.

The latter was very far from true, for the Queen, while making use of Emma Hamilton (and increasingly so as she observed Nelson’s dependence upon her), was not the kind of woman to let any other take the reins of power into her hands. But the general tenor of Nelson’s life during this period is well enough borne out by other accounts, including Lord Minto’s comment: ‘His zeal for the public service seems entirely lost in his love and vanity, and they all sit and flatter each other all day long. . . .’

The saddest comment of all, however, was to come from Troubridge, who wrote to his old friend as tactfully as possible : ‘Pardon me, my Lord, it is my sincere esteem for you that makes me mention it. I know you can have no pleasure sitting up all night at cards; why then, sacrifice your health, comfort, purse, ease, everything, to the customs of a country, where your stay cannot be long?’ He knew well enough the reason; he knew also that Nelson had never been a gambler, and that he appeared to be so now only because the woman with whom he was in love had a passion for high play. Troubridge goes on to say: ‘I trust the war will soon be over, and deliver us from a nest of everything that is infamous, and that we may enjoy the smiles of our countrywomen. Your Lordship is a stranger to half that happens, or the talk it occasions; if you knew what your friends feel for you, I am sure you would cut all the nocturnal parties. The gambling of the people at Palermo is publicly talked of everywhere. I beseech your Lordship leave off.’ Nelson was unable to, and, as far as we know, never even answered this letter.

At the time when Sir William had married Emma, the cynical Casanova, who knew Naples as well as so many other cities during the strange odyssey of his life, made the comment: ‘He was a clever man, but ended by marrying a young woman who was clever enough to bewitch him. Such a fate often overtakes a man of intelligence when he grows old. It is always a mistake to marry, but when a man’s physical and mental forces are declining, it is a calamity.’ His words were now sadly confirmed. The date when Nelson and Emma first became lovers cannot be certainly ascribed but such evidence as there is suggests that it was most probably on 12 February of this year 1799. A letter written by Nelson to Emma, after the birth of their daughter in 1801, contains the lines: ‘Ah my dear friend, I did remember well the 12th February, and also the two months afterwards. I shall never forget them, and never be sorry for the consequences.’ Now, there were only two 12 Februarys to which Nelson could possibly be referring -those of 1799 and 1800. But on 12 February 1800 Nelson sailed from Palermo to Malta with Lord Keith, who had succeeded St Vincent as Commander-in-Chief, on the cruise during which he captured
Le Genereux.
Knowing Nelson’s meticulous habit (long learned from his lifetime as a sailor) of recording dates with punctiliousness, there can be little doubt that it is to the 12 February of 1799 that he refers. In that year also he did not leave Palermo aboard
Vanguard
until 19 May, which would account for the ‘two months afterwards’. Palermo, after its bone-chilling winters with the snows on the high mountains behind the Conca d’Oro, blossoms out in spring to become one of the most gracious cities in the southern world. There seems little doubt that it was in the Palazzo Palagonia in the early months of that year that the Admiral and the Ambassadress consummated a love that had begun on her part as something of a charade mixed with adulation, and on his part as a sop to his vanity and the very human desire of an impressionable man for female affection and comfort. A confirmatory note to this conclusion is added by the fact that it was in May 1799 that Nelson added a codicil to his will in favour of Emma (many others were to follow) to the effect that he was leaving her a diamond-set gold box ‘as a token of regard and respect for her every eminent virtue (for she possesses them all to such a degree that it would be doing her injustice was any particular one to be mentioned)’. The nub here is what construction one puts upon the word ‘virtue’. . . .

As far as Nelson was professionally concerned the crucial event of that year was to be the replacement of St Vincent as Commander-in-Chief by Lord Keith. The relationship between St Vincent and Nelson was so close, with such implicit trust on either side, that the latter feared - and rightly - that he would never possess such freedom of command under a newcomer as he had had under his old friend. ‘Do not quit us,’ Nelson wrote. ‘If I have any weight in your friendship let me entreat you to rouse the sleeping lion,
GIVE NOT UP A PARTICLE OF YOUR AUTHORITY
, be again our St Vincent.’ But the latter was ageing and unwell, and in June that year Lord Keith superseded him. It is tempting, but somewhat unprofitable, to speculate as to whether Nelson would have behaved differently if St Vincent had remained as his commander. His friendship for the latter, coupled with his deep admiration and respect, might have held him back from some of the folly that was to follow upon his entanglement with Emma Hamilton. In the event, Lord Keith took over in June at almost the same time that Nelson shifted his flag from the
Vanguard
to a new 80-gun ship-of-the-line the
Foudroyant
, which had just joined his forces at Palermo. In a general promotion in February Nelson had now become a Rear-Admiral of the Red.