Nelson's Lady Hamilton (18 page)

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King is having his picture set with dymonds for his Lordship, and the Queen has ordered a fine set of china with all the battles he has been engaged in, and his picture painted on china. Josiah desired his duty to your Ladyship, and says he will write as soon as he [h]as time, but he has been very busy for some time past.

"God bless you and your's, my dear Madam, and believe me your Ladyship's very sincere friend. EMMA HAMILTON

" Sir William is in a rage with [the] ministry for not having made Lord Nelson a Viscount, for, sure, this great and glorious action—greater than any other—ought to have been recognized more. Hang them, I say."

It would be interesting to know what Lady Nelson, in her quiet refinement and propriety, thought of the somewhat underbred vehemence of that last remark! But in other respects it is a kind, generous, and friendly letter. No suspicion of the great wrong she was to do Lady Nelson had as yet crossed the mind of Emma Hamilton.

Neither Nelson nor Emma were given to considering the effect their words might have upon their correspondents; what was in their hearts came out with a rush, without thought of its incongruity or odd effect, and it is this naturalness which makes Nelson's letters so eloquent of

the man, just as we feel Emma's impulsive heart panting behind her artless, excitable, ill-spelt words. Most men would not have chosen the cynical old St. Vincent as confidant of the fact that " Lady Hamilton is an Angel;" but if Nelson had it in his mind he said it with the same beautiful directness and simplicity with which he sprang from deck to deck of the conquered Spanish ships—his " Patent Bridge " for boarding First-Rates. After that little outburst over Lady Hamilton, he goes on: " She has honoured me by being my ambassadress to the queen: therefore she has my implicit confidence and is worthy of it."

This statement reveals the beginning of his faith in Lady Hamilton's diplomatic abilities; and judging from the evidence it seems clear that it was not simply her beauty, her enthusiasm, and her womanly tenderness that drew Nelson towards her, but a belief in her qualities of head as well as heart. Quite early in their acquaintance this man, who had so daringly and constantly thought for himself and followed his own decisions in face of all the dangers that threaten defiance of authority, was beginning to share his opinions with Lady Hamilton, and to adopt her views on Sicilian matters to a considerable extent. Neither she nor the Queen of Naples, whose mouthpiece she was, were safe guides in matters of high politics. Like most women—though they were

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both clever ones—they saw things too much through a mist of passion and prejudice. But they both had the daring temper, the disregard of obstacles, which marked Nelson himself; and partly through the glamour they cast over him, partly through his own fervent hatred of the French, Nelson was committed to advice which did much to plunge the kingdom of Naples into war. That Nelson should have urged this act upon the weak and unstable kingdom was one of his rare failures in judgment, and its consequences were doubly disastrous—not merely to Naples and the misguided Court, but disastrous to Nelson himself, who was thus bound, by ties he could not sever without an appearance of desertion, to a Court he had partly led into war, and this tangle was the beginning of his connection with Lady Hamilton. Thus it was from a temporary failure of judgment, the temporary error of a brain usually as quick and keen as it was rightly inspired, came this tragedy of the heart and the single blot on the scutcheon.

The beginning of the business is shown by the letter Nelson wrote to Lady Hamilton on the 3rd of October, 1798, which in the postscript he told her to regard as a "preparative" for Sir William and as "the firm and unalterable opinion of a British Admiral, anxious to approve himself a faithful Servant to his Sovereign by doing everything in his power for the happiness and

STUDY OF LADY HAMILTON

GEORGE ROMNEY

security of their Sicilian Majesties and their Kingdoms."

In passing, it may be said that it was less the business of a British admiral to push their Sicilian Majesties into a war for which they were not fitted, than to attend to his own affair of punishing the French. But already Nelson's vision was a little clouded—not so much by the flatteries as by the appeals of the Neapolitan Court, represented with so much ardour by Emma —and the tangled web in which he involved himself when serving Maria Carolina was already subtly closing round this simple-hearted British admiral, who, all unconsciously at first, was being led by the silken thread of a woman's influence.

His letter to Lady Hamilton explains the situation and his own views upon it:—

" MY DEAR MADAM, —The anxiety which you and Sir William Hamilton have always had for the happiness of their Sicilian Majesties, was also planted in me five years past, and I can truly say, that on every occasion which has offered (which have been numerous) I have never failed to manifest my sincere regard for the felicity of these Kingdoms. Under this attachment, I cannot be an indifferent spectator to what has and is passing in the Two Sicilies, nor to the misery which, (without being a politician,) I cannot but

see plainly is ready to fall on those Kingdoms, now so loyal, by the worst of all policy—that of procrastination. Since my arrival in these seas in June last, I have seen in the Sicilians the most loyal people to their Sovereign, with the utmost detestation of the French and their principles. Since my arrival at Naples I have found all ranks, from the very highest to the lowest, eager for war with the French, who, all know, are preparing an Army of robbers to plunder these Kingdoms and destroy the Monarchy. I have seen the Minister of the insolent French pass over in silence the manifest breach of the third article of the Treaty between his Sicilian Majesty and the French Republic. Ought not this extraordinary conduct to be seriously noticed ? Has not the uniform conduct of the French been to lull Governments into a false security, and then to destroy them ? As I have before stated, is it not known to every person that Naples is the next marked object for plunder ? With this knowledge, and that his Sicilian Majesty has an Army ready (I am told) to march into a Country anxious to receive them, with the advantage of carrying the War from, instead of waiting for it at, home, I am all astonished that the Army has not marched a month ago. . . . But should, unfortunately, this miserable ruinous system of procrastination be persisted in, I would recommend that all your property and persons are ready to embark at a very short

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notice. It will be my duty to look and provide for your safety, and with it (I am sorry to think it will be necessary) that of the amiable Queen of these Kingdoms and her Family. I have read with admiration her dignified and incomparable Letter of September, 1796. May the Councils of the Kingdoms ever be guided by such sentiments of dignity, honour, and justice; and may the words of the great William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, be instilled into the Ministry of this Country—' The boldest measures are the safest!"

Such was Nelson's advice; and it is significant that he wrote this letter to Lady Hamilton, and not to the British Ambassador, trusting to her influence with Sir William to urge the case upon him and upon the Court. In pressing for war, Nelson may have considered that he was justified by his instructions from the Admiralty—part of his duty as set forth by My Lords being " The protection of the coasts of Sicily, Naples, and the Adriatic, and in the event of the war being renewed in Italy, an active co-operation with the Austrian and Neapolitan armies."

His natural instinct as a sea-officer was really the true one, and that turned towards the scene of his great battle. To Lady Hamilton he wrote, on the 24th of October, when off Malta, " I feel my duty lays at present in the East." But his judgment was perverted, and his course turned

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by what was in reality an unscrupulous appeal to his chivalry. A few days later he was writing to his Commander-in-Chief: "I am, I fear, drawn into a promise that Naples Bay shall never be left without an English Man-of-War. I never intended leaving the Coast of Naples without one; but if I had, who could withstand the request of such a Queen ? "

Once having made up his mind, Nelson's temper was always for instant action, so the delays and hesitancy of the King of Naples before the somewhat nerve-shaking prospect of making war on the French were intensely irritating to his vehement spirit. " Naples sees this squadron no more/' he wrote (before the date of his promise to the Queen) to Lord Spencer, " except the king calls for our help, and if they go on, and lose the glorious moments, we may be called for to save the persons of their majesties."

Meanwhile, Nelson had an ardent ally in Emma Hamilton, who, after his departure from Naples on the isth of October, had gone to Caserta to be near the Queen. She wrote to him on the 2Oth—

" I flatter myself WE SPUR them, for I am allways with the Queen, and I hold out your energick language to her. Mack is writing. He does not go to visit the frontiers, but is now working night and day, and then goes for good. And I tell her Majesty, for God's sake, for the

LADY HAMILTON AS "CASSANDRA'

GEORGE ROMNEY

Country's sake, and for your own sake, send him of as soon as possible, no time to be lost, and I believe he goes after to-morrow. ... I translate from our papers for her to inspire her, or them, I should say, with some of our spirit and energy. How delighted we Booth were to sit and speak of you. She loves, respects, and admires you. For myself, I will leave you to guess my feilings. Poor dear Trowbridge staid that night to comfort us. What a good, dear soul he is!" She hopes his doctor is satisfied with his health, she begs him to write and come soon, adding—as if he were wanted only there!—iwith all the emphasis of underscoring, "you are wanted at Caserta. All their noddles are not worth your's."

In her next letter, four days later, she informs him of what is coming for him from Constantinople :—

" A pelicia of Gibelini with a feather for your hat of Dymonds, large, most magnificent, and 2 thousand Zechins for the wounded men, and a letter to you from the Grand Signer, God bless him! There is a frigate sent of[f] on purpose. We expect it here. I must see the present. How I shall look at it, smel it, taste it, to[u]ch it, put the pelice over my own shoulders, look in the glas, and say Viva il Turk! . . . God bless, or Mahomet bless, the old Turk; I say, no longer Turk, but good Christian."

In another letter she bursts out into the

somewhat childish extravagance, "If I were King of England I wou'd make you the most noble present, Duke Nelson, Marquis Nile, Earl Aboukir, Viscount Pyramid, Baron Crocodile, and Prince Victory, that posterity might have you in all forms." To Emma neither beauty nor greatness unadorned were adorned the most— she failed to realize that the simple name of Nelson was nobler than any superb or fantastic titles which might be tacked on to it.

Her letters from Caserta, written in the diary style she was fond of, and which was so convenient in view of the thick-thronging events, give Nelson all the news. On the 24th of October she says, "We have been 2 days desperate on account of the weak and cool acting of the Cabinet of Viena." The Emperor of Austria is " a poor sop;" the Queen of Naples is " in a rage." Two couriers have arrived, one from London with " the lovely news of a fleet to remain in the Mediterranean ; a treaty made of the most flattering kind for Naples. In short, everything amicable, friendly, and most truly honnerable." But this was offset by the conduct of the Austrian Court, the letters brought by the second courier being " cold, unfriendly, mistrustful, frenchified, and saying plainly, help yourselves. How the dear Maria Carolina cried for joy at the one, and rage at the other." But at last the Austrian general, Mack, had gone to

prepare the army to march immediately. " And I flatter myself," says Emma, " I did much. For whilst the passions of the Queen [were] up and agitated, I got up, put out my left arm like you, spoke the language of truth to her, painted the drooping situation of this fine country, her friends sacrificed, her husband, children, and herself led to the Block; and eternal dishonour to her memory, after for once having been active, doing her duty in fighting bravely to the last, to save her Country, her Religion, from the hands of the rapacious murderers of her sister, and the Royal Family in France, that she was sure of being lost, if they were inactive, and their was a chance of being saved if they made use now of the day, and struck now while all minds are imprest with the Horrers their neighbours are suffering from these Robbers. In short, their was a Council, and it was determined to march out and help themselves; and, sure, their poor fool of a son" [Emma means the Emperor of Austria, who was son-in-law to the King and Queen of Naples] "will not, cannot, but come out. He must bring a hundred and fifty thousand men in the Venetian State. The French cou'd be shut in between the two armys, italy cleared, and peace restored."