NELSON LEAVES THE MEDITERRANEAN.--THE JOURNEY OVERLAND THROUGH
GERMANY.--ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.--SEPARATION FROM LADY NELSON.--HOISTS
HIS FLAG IN THE CHANNEL FLEET, UNDER LORD ST. VINCENT.
JUNE, 1800--JANUARY, 1801. AGE, 42.
At the time Nelson and the Hamiltons returned to Palermo, the Queen of
Naples was wishing, for political reasons, to visit Vienna. To meet
this wish Nelson took the "Foudroyant" and "Alexander" off the
blockade of Malta, that they might carry herself and suite to Leghorn,
together with the Hamiltons. He clung also to the hope that Keith
would give him his powerful flagship to return to England, in which
case the Hamiltons would go with him. "I go with our dear friends Sir
William and Lady Hamilton," he wrote to Lord Minto; "but whether by
water or land depends on the will of Lord Keith. May all orders be as
punctually obeyed," alluding to the completion of the destruction of
the Nile fleet by the capture of the "Guillaume Tell," "but never
again an officer at the close of what I must, without being thought
vain (for such I am represented by enemies), call a glorious career,
be so treated!"
Keith's opinion of Nelson's obedience was probably somewhat different.
The latter had written him on the 12th of May, that, being under an
old promise to carry the Queen to the Continent, he proposed to take
the two ships-of-the-line for that purpose, and Keith sent him a
letter forbidding him to do so, and directing them to be sent back at
once to Malta. Nelson, it is true, did not receive this; but it is
impossible to reconcile with attention to orders the diversion of two
ships of their force from the singularly important station appointed
them by the commander-in-chief, without reference to him, and using
them to carry about foreign sovereigns. On arriving in Leghorn, on the
14th of June, Nelson announced the fact to Keith, with apparent
perfect unconsciousness that the latter could be other than charmed.
"I was obliged to bring the Alexander, or the party never could have
been accommodated: I therefore trust you will approve of it." "I was
so displeased by the withdrawing of the ships from before Malta,"
wrote Keith to Paget, "and with other proceedings, that her Majesty
did not take any notice of me latterly." It would seem also that some
harm had come of it. "What a clamour, too, letting in the ships to
Malta will occasion. I assure you nothing has given me more real
concern, it was so near exhausted." "Had not Nelson quitted the
blockade," he wrote a week later, "and taken the ships off the
station, it might have fallen about this time."[6]
Lord Keith had been engaged for six weeks past in the famous blockade
and siege of Genoa, the garrison of which, spent with famine and
disease, marched out on the 5th of June, 1800. On the 14th--the day
Nelson reached Leghorn--was fought the Battle of Marengo, in which the
Austrians were totally defeated, the French army under Bonaparte
remaining victorious across their line of retreat to Mantua. The next
day Mélas signed a convention, abandoning Northern Italy, as far as
the Mincio, to the French, to whom were given up all the fortified
places, Genoa included. At midnight of June 18, Nelson received an
order from Keith to take all the ships at Leghorn to Spezia, for
certain minor military purposes. Nelson sent the "Alexander" and a
frigate, but remained himself in Leghorn with the "Foudroyant," ready,
he wrote the admiral, "to receive the queen and royal family, should
such an event be necessary." Keith rejoined with a peremptory order
that no ships-of-the-line should be used for such purpose; the Queen,
he said, had better get to Vienna as fast as she could, and not think
of going back to Palermo. "If the French fleet gets the start of ours
a day, Sicily cannot hold out even that one day." "Lord Keith,"
commented Nelson, "believes reports of the Brest fleet, which I give
not the smallest credit to." "I own I do not believe the Brest fleet
will return to sea," he told Keith; "and if they do, the Lord have
mercy on them, for our fleet will not, I am sure." It was not the
least of his conspicuous merits that he was blind to imaginative or
exaggerated alarms. Keith saw too vividly all that might happen in
consequence of recent reverses--much more than could happen.
On the 24th of June the latter reached Leghorn in person. "I must go
to Leghorn," he complained, "to land the fugitives, and to be bored by
Lord Nelson for permission to take the Queen to Palermo, and princes
and princesses to all parts of the globe." The Queen was in a panic,
and besought him with tears to give her the "Foudroyant," but Keith
was obdurate. "Mr. Wyndham[7] arrived here yesterday from Florence,"
wrote Lady Minto on the 6th of July to her sister. "He left the Queen
of Naples, Sir William and Lady Hamilton, and Nelson, at Leghorn. The
Queen has given up all thoughts of coming here. She asked Lord Keith
in her own proper person for the Foudroyant to take her back. He
refused positively giving her such a ship. The Queen wept, concluding
that royal tears were irresistible; but he remained unmoved, and would
grant nothing but a frigate to convoy her own frigates[8] to Trieste.
He told her Lady Hamilton had had command of the fleet long enough.
The Queen is very ill with a sort of convulsive fit, and Nelson is
staying there to nurse her; he does not intend going home till he has
escorted her back to Palermo. 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." It is only fair to say that there are
indications, in the correspondence, of bad terms between the Hamiltons
and Wyndham, who, therefore, was probably not a sympathetic observer.
He had also before this written unpleasantly to Nelson, insinuating,
apparently, a lack of attention to duty; for the latter in a letter to
Troubridge says, "I send you an extract of Mr. Wyndham's unhandsome
mode of expressing himself towards me." Towards Keith her Majesty
manifested her displeasure by omitting him in the public leave she
took of all the officials.
The Queen finally resolved to continue her journey, but the victories
of the French introduced into the political future an element of
uncertainty, which caused her to delay a month in Leghorn, undecided
whether to go by sea or land; and Nelson had vowed not to forsake her.
Keith, after some days, relented so far as to authorize the
"Alexander" taking the royal family to Trieste, but many of the party
were averse to the sea voyage. There had been for some time living
with the Hamiltons a Miss Knight, an English lady already in middle
life, whose journal gives the chief particulars that have been
preserved of this period. "The Queen," she wrote, "wishes, if
possible, to prosecute her journey. Lady Hamilton cannot bear the
thought of going by sea; and therefore nothing but impracticability
will prevent our going to Vienna." When it was at last fixed, after
many vacillations, that they should go to Ancona, and there take small
Austrian vessels for Trieste, she exclaims, "to avoid the danger of
being on board an English man-of-war, where everything is commodious,
and equally well arranged for defence and comfort! But the die is
cast, and go we must." She mentions that Lord Nelson was well, and
kept up his spirits amazingly, but Sir William appeared broken,
distressed, and harassed.
On the 11th the travellers started for Florence, passing within two
miles of the French advanced posts. At Ancona they embarked on board
some Russian frigates, and in them reached Trieste safely on the 2d of
August. Nelson was received with acclamations in all the towns of the
Pope's states. A party in which were not only the queen of a reigning
sovereign, but an English minister and his wife, was sure of receiving
attention wherever it passed or stopped; but in the present case it
was the naval officer who carried off the lion's share of homage, so
widely had his fame spread throughout the Continent. At Trieste, says
Miss Knight, "he is followed by thousands when he goes out, and for
the illumination which is to take place this evening, there are many
_Viva Nelsons_ prepared."
The same enthusiasm was shown at Vienna, where they arrived on the
21st or 22d of August. "You can have no notion of the anxiety and
curiosity to see him," wrote Lady Minto.[9] "The door of his house is
always crowded with people, and even the street when his carriage is
at the door; and when he went to the play he was applauded, a thing
which rarely happens here." "Whenever he appeared in public," records
Miss Knight, "a crowd was collected, and his portrait was hung up as a
sign over many shops--even the milliners giving his name to particular
dresses, but it did not appear to me that the English nation was at
all popular." At a dinner at Prince Esterhazy's, where he spent some
days, his health was drunk with a flourish of trumpets and firing of
cannon. "I don't think him altered in the least," continued Lady
Minto, who remembered him from the old days in Corsica. "He has the
same shock head and the same honest simple manners; but he is devoted
to _Emma_, he thinks her quite an _angel_, and talks of her as such to
her face and behind her back, and she leads him about like a keeper
with a bear. She must sit by him at dinner to cut his meat, and he
carries her pocket-handkerchief. He is a gig from ribands, orders and
stars, but he is just the same with us as ever he was;" and she
mentions his outspoken gratitude to Minto for the substantial service
he had done him, and the guidance he had imparted to his political
thought,--an acknowledgment he frequently renewed up to the last days
of his life.
Lady Minto's nephew, Lord Fitzharris, the son of the Earl of
Malmesbury, was then in Vienna, apparently as an attaché. He speaks in
the same way of Nelson himself, but with less forbearance for Lady
Hamilton; and he confirms the impression that Nelson at this time had
lost interest in the service. Writing to his father, he says: "Nelson
personally is not changed; open and honest, not the least vanity about
him. He looks very well, but seems to be in no hurry to sail again. He
told me he had no thoughts of serving again." "Lord Nelson and the
Hamiltons dined here the other day; it is really disgusting to see her
with him." A few days later there was a ball at Prince Esterhazy's,
where Fitzharris was present. "Lady Hamilton is without exception the
most coarse, ill-mannered, disagreeable woman I ever met with. The
Princess had with great kindness got a number of musicians, and the
famous Haydn, who is in their service, to play, knowing Lady Hamilton
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. In short, I could not disguise my feeling, and joined in the
general abuse of her."[10] The impression that Nelson would decline
further service had been conveyed to other friends. Troubridge, who
had meanwhile returned to England, wrote two months later to a young
lieutenant who wished to get on board the admiral's next ship: "Lord
Nelson is not yet arrived in England, and between ourselves I do not
think he will serve again."
Both Lady Minto and Fitzharris have recorded an account given them by
Nelson, of his motives for action at the Battle of the Nile. "He
speaks in the highest terms of all the captains he had with him off
the coast of Egypt," writes the former, "adding that without knowing
the men he had to trust to, he would not have hazarded the attack,
that there was little room, but he was sure each would find a hole to
creep in at." In place of this summary, her nephew gives words
evidently quite fresh from the speaker's lips. "He says, 'When I saw
them, I could not help popping my head every now and then out of the
window, (although I had a d----d toothache), and once as I was
observing their position I heard two seamen quartered at a gun near
me, talking, and one said to the other, 'D----n them, look at them,
there they are, Jack, if we don't beat them, they will beat us.' He
says, 'I knew what stuff I had under me, so I went into the attack
with only a few ships, perfectly sure the others would follow me,
although it was nearly dark and they might have had every excuse for
not doing it, yet they all in the course of two hours found a hole to
poke in at. If,' he added, 'I had taken a fleet of the same force from
Spithead, I would sooner have thought of flying than attacking the
French in their position, but I knew my captains, nor could I say
which distinguished himself most.'" Yet to Lady Minto he revealed the
spirit he was of. "I told him I wished he had the command of the
Emperor's army. He said, 'I'll tell you what. If I had, I would only
use one word--_advance_, and never say _retreat_.'"
After a month's stop at Vienna, during which Sir William Hamilton's
health continued to cause anxiety, the party started north for Prague,
Dresden, and Hamburg, following the course of the Elbe. On the 28th
of September, Prague was reached, and there Nelson was met by
arrangement by the Archduke Charles, the first in ability of the
Austrian generals, approved as no unworthy antagonist by Bonaparte
himself, but rarely employed, except in moments of emergency, because
of his pronounced opposition to the Court policy. The next day,
September 29th, was Nelson's birthday, and the Archduke gave a grand
entertainment in his honor. Continuing thence, the travellers on
October 2d reached Dresden, to which Court the British minister was
Hugh Elliot, the brother of Lord Minto. It was here that they came
under the eye of Mrs. St. George, a young Irish widow, who by a second
marriage, some years later, became Mrs. Trench, and the mother of the
late Archbishop of Dublin. Her description and comments have been
considered severe, and even prejudiced; but they do not differ
essentially from those of the Mintos and Fitzharris, except in saying
that on one occasion, after dinner, Nelson took too much champagne,
and showed the effects. Such a thing has happened on isolated
occasions to many a good man and true, and, however much to be
deplored, is not so impossible an occurrence, even in a man of
Nelson's well-established habitual abstemiousness, which indeed his
health necessitated, as to invalidate the testimony of an eye-witness.
Mrs. St. George's journal was not written for publication, and did not
see the light till thirty-odd years after her death. "October 3d.
Dined at Mr. Elliot's with only the Nelson party. It is plain that
Lord Nelson thinks of nothing but Lady Hamilton,[11] who is totally
occupied by the same object. Lord Nelson is a little man, without any
dignity; who, I suppose, must resemble what Suwarrow was in his youth,
as he is like all the pictures I have seen of that General. Lady
Hamilton takes possession of him, and he is a willing captive, the
most submissive and devoted I have ever seen. Sir William is old,
infirm, all admiration of his wife, and never spoke to-day but to
applaud her. Miss Cornelia Knight seems the decided flatterer of the
two, and never opens her mouth but to show forth their praise; and
Mrs. Cadogan, Lady Hamilton's mother, is--what one might expect. After
dinner we had several songs in honour of Lord Nelson, written by Miss
Knight, and sung by Lady Hamilton.[12] She puffs the incense full in
his face; but he receives it with pleasure, and snuffs it up very
cordially." Lord Minto, whose friendship for Nelson was of proof,
wrote eighteen months after this to his wife: "She goes on cramming
Nelson with trowelfuls of flattery, which he goes on taking as quietly
as a child does pap."[13]
"Lady Hamilton," wrote Mrs. St. George on succeeding days, "paid me
those kinds of compliments which prove she thinks mere exterior alone
of any consequence ... She loads me with all marks of friendship at
first sight, which I always think more extraordinary than love of the
same kind, pays me many compliments both when I am absent and present,
and said many fine things about my accompanying her at sight. Still
she does not gain upon me ... Mr. Elliot says, 'She will captivate the
Prince of Wales, whose mind is as vulgar as her own, and play a great
part in England,'"--a remark which showed shrewd judgment of
character, as Nelson afterwards found to his intense disturbance. At
Vienna the whole party had been presented at Court, but at Dresden the
Electress refused to receive Lady Hamilton, on account of her former
dissolute life. "She wished to go to Court," says Mrs. St. George, "on
which a pretext was made to avoid receiving company last Sunday, and I
understand there will be no Court while she stays." Nelson felt
resentment at this exclusion, though powerless, of course, to express
it; but he declined an invitation to a private house which had not
been extended to her. This incident naturally raised the question,
what prospect there was of the lady being accepted at the Court of her
own sovereign. "She talked to me a great deal of her doubts whether
the Queen would receive her, adding, 'I care little about it. I had
much rather she would settle half Sir William's pension on me,'"--a
remark which showed more philosophy than self-esteem.
A week's visit in Dresden ended by the party taking boats for Hamburg,
which they reached on the 21st of October, the journey being prolonged
by stopping every night. They there remained ten days, of which no
very noteworthy incidents have been recorded, although the general
interest of all classes of people in the renowned warrior, of whom
they had heard so much, continued to be manifested, sometimes in
quaint and touching expression. On the 31st of October they embarked
on board the mail-packet for England, and after a stormy passage
landed at Yarmouth on the 6th of November, 1800. Two years and eight
months had passed since Nelson sailed from Spithead, on a cruise
destined to have so marked an influence on his professional reputation
and private happiness. He was received on his landing with every
evidence of popular enthusiasm, and of official respect from all
authorities, civil and military. With the unvarying devout spirit
which characterized him in all the greater events of his life, he
asked that public service might be held, to enable him to give thanks
in church for his safe return to his native country, and for the many
blessings which he had experienced. The whole party then went on to
town, arriving on the 8th.
From those who welcomed Nelson when he first put his foot on shore
there was one conspicuously missing. Lady Nelson had not thought well
to go to Yarmouth to await her husband. Under ordinary conditions
there would have been little to challenge remark, in the decision not
to leave the feeble old man, her husband's father, who depended much
upon her, for the period of uncertain duration during which she might
have to wait at Yarmouth, in those days of sailing-vessels and head
winds. Coining as her husband did, hand in hand with the woman whose
name had been scandalously linked with his for nearly two years, the
absence easily took on the appearance of cold and reserved censure.
Unquestionably, if Lady Nelson wished above all things to win her
husband back, and cared more for that than for her own humiliation,
more or less, the best fighting chance would have been to meet him at
once, with a smile on her face and words of love on her lips.
Considering the flagrancy of the affair throughout Europe, and the
antecedents of Lady Hamilton, it may be permitted to doubt whether,
regarded as a struggle for possession, many women would have thought
the game worth the candle; although Lady Nelson did not then know that
her husband expected soon to be a father, by the woman whom he at once
brought to her apartments and presented to her.
In the scanty details that have been transmitted to us concerning Lady
Nelson, there is little to appeal to the imagination, or to impress
one strongly with her attractions; but candor to her surely compels
the admission that, to await her husband in their own home, to greet
him alone, without the observation even of beloved outsiders, was no
singular impulse in a tender and reserved woman. A seaside hotel and
the inevitable clamor of the multitude do not fit in well with the
emotions that would naturally stir her, and a very little tact, a very
little sympathy, would have induced Nelson to let the Hamiltons go
their way for one evening, while he went directly and alone to her and
his father. She had been sorely tried, and as far as is known had
restrained herself patiently in her letters. The latest one that is
now accessible is dated the 29th of March, 1800, seven months
therefore before they now met, and is lacking neither in dignity,
affection, nor pathos.
"I have this instant received a note from Admiral Young, who tells me
if I can send him a letter for you in an hour, he will send it,
therefore, I have only time to say I have at last had the pleasure of
receiving two letters from you, dated January 20th and 25th. I rejoice
exceedingly I did not follow the advice of the physician and our good
father to change the climate, and I hope my health will be established
by hot sea-bathing and the warmth of the summer.
"I can with safety put my hand on my heart and say it has been my
study to please and make you happy, and I still flatter myself we
shall meet before very long. I feel most sensibly all your kindnesses
to my dear son, and I hope he will add much to our comfort. Our good
father has been in good spirits ever since we heard from you; indeed,
my spirits were quite worn out, the time had been so long. I thank God
for the preservation of my dear husband, and your recent success off
Malta. The taking of the Généreux seems to give great spirits to all.
God bless you, my dear husband, and grant us a happy meeting, and
believe me," etc.[14]
From the difficulties attendant upon the mails in those days, this
letter would not be likely to reach Nelson till towards the end of
May, when he was on the point of leaving Palermo finally; and, having
regard to the uncertainties of his movements before quitting Leghorn,
it is not improbable that it was among the last, if not the very last,
he received before landing in England. If so, it represented fairly
the attitude of Lady Nelson, as far as known to him,--free from
reproach, affectionate, yet evidently saddened by a silence on his
part, which tended to corroborate the rumors rife, not only in society
but in the press. It is possible that, like many men, though it would
not be in the least characteristic of himself, he, during his journey
home, simply put aside all consideration of the evil day when the two
women would be in the same city, and trusted to the chapter of
accidents to settle the terms on which they might live; but, from his
actions, he seems to have entertained the idea that he could still
maintain in London, with the cheerful acquiescence of his wife, the
public relations towards Lady Hamilton which were tolerated by the
easy tone of Neapolitan society. Miss Knight relates that, while at
Leghorn, he said he hoped Lady Nelson and himself would be much with
Sir William and Lady Hamilton, that they all would dine together very
often, and that when the latter went to their musical parties, he and
Lady Nelson would go to bed. In accordance with this programme, he
took his two friends to dine with his wife and father, immediately
upon his arrival in town. Miss Knight went to another hotel with Lady
Hamilton's mother, and was that evening visited by Troubridge. He
advised her to go and stop with a friend; and, although no reason is
given, it is probable that he, who knew as much as any one of the
past, saw that the position of residence with the Hamiltons would be
socially untenable for a woman. Miss Knight accordingly went to live
with Mrs. Nepean, the wife of the Secretary to the Admiralty.
A few days later there was again a dinner at the house taken by the
Hamiltons in Grosvenor Square. The Nelsons were there, as was Miss
Knight. The next day several of the party attended the theatre, and
Lady Nelson, it is said, fainted in the box, overcome by feeling, many
thought, at her husband's marked attentions to Lady Hamilton. The
latter being in her way a character as well known as Nelson himself,
the affair necessarily became more than usually a matter of comment,
especially as the scene now provided for London gossipers was a
re-presentation of that so long enacted at Palermo, and notorious
throughout Europe; but it was received with little toleration. "Most
of my friends," wrote Miss Knight, "were urgent with me to drop the
acquaintance, but, circumstanced as I had been, I feared the charge of
ingratitude, though greatly embarrassed as to what to do, for things
became very unpleasant." Had it been a new development, it would have
presented little difficulty; but as she had quietly lived many months
in the minister's house under the same conditions, only in the more
congenial atmosphere of Palermo, it was not easy now to join in the
disapproval shown by much of London society.
Lady Hamilton, of course, could not have any social acceptance, but
even towards Nelson himself, in all his glory, a marked coldness was
shown in significant quarters. "The Lady of the Admiralty," wrote he
to his friend Davison, "never had any just cause for being cool to
me;" an allusion probably to Lady Spencer, the wife of the First Lord.
Coldness from her must have been the more marked, for after the Nile
she had written him a wildly enthusiastic letter, recognizing with
gratitude the distinction conferred upon her husband's administration
by the lustre of that battle. "Either as a public or private man," he
continued, "I wish nothing undone which I have done,"--a remark
entirely ambiguous and misleading as regards his actual relations to
Lady Hamilton. He told Collingwood, at this same time, that he had not
been well received by the King. "He gave me an account of his
reception at Court," his old comrade writes, "which was not very
flattering, after having been the adoration of that of Naples. His
Majesty merely asked him if he had recovered his health; and then,
without waiting for an answer, turned to General----, and talked to
him near half an hour in great good humour. It could not be about his
successes." This slight was not a revival of the old prejudice
entertained by the King before the war, which had been wholly removed
by the distinguished services Nelson had rendered afterwards. Eighteen
months before this Davison had written to him: "I waited upon the King
early last Sunday morning, and was _alone_ with him a full hour, when
much of the conversation was about you. It is impossible to express
how warmly he spoke of you, and asked me a thousand questions about
you ... I have been again at the Queen's house, and have given the
King a copy of your last letter to me, giving an account of your
health, which he read twice over, with great attention, and with
apparent emotion of concern. His Majesty speaks of you with the
tenderness of a father." Samuel Rogers has an incidental mention of
the effect produced upon Nelson by the treatment now experienced. "I
heard him once during dinner utter many bitter complaints (which Lady
Hamilton vainly attempted to check) of the way he had been treated at
Court that forenoon: the Queen had not condescended to take the
slightest notice of him. In truth, Nelson was hated at Court; they
were jealous of his fame."[15] People, however, are rarely jealous of
those who are not rivals.
The position which Nelson had proposed to himself to establish was of
course impossible. The world was no more disposed to worry about any
private immoralities of his than it did about those of other men, but
it was not prepared to have them brandished in its face, and it would
have none of Lady Hamilton,--nor would Lady Nelson. The general public
opinion at the time receives, probably, accurate expression from Sir
William Hotham, a man then in London society. "His vanity, excusable
as such a foible is in such a man, led him to unpardonable excesses,
and blinded him to the advantages of being respected in society....
His conduct to Lady Nelson was the very extreme of unjustifiable
weakness, for he should at least have attempted to conceal his
infirmities, without publicly wounding the feelings of a woman whose
own conduct he well knew was irreproachable."[16] On the other hand,
Nelson could not forget the kindnesses he had accepted from Lady
Hamilton, nor was he either able or willing to lessen an intimacy
which, unless diminished, left the scandal unabated. He was not able,
for a man of his temperament could not recede before opposition, or
slight a woman now compromised by his name; and he was not willing,
for he was madly in love. Being daily with her for seven months after
leaving Palermo, there occurs a break in their correspondence; but
when it was resumed in the latter part of January, 1801, every
particle of the reticence which a possible struggle with conscience
had imposed disappears. He has accepted the new situation, cast aside
all restraints, and his language at times falls little short of
frenzy, while belying the respect for her which he asserts continually
and aggressively, as though against his convictions.
The breach with Lady Nelson had in this short time become final. We
have not the means--happily--to trace through its successive stages a
rapid process of estrangement, of which Nelson said a few months
afterwards: "Sooner than live the unhappy life I did when last I came
to England, I would stay abroad forever." A highly colored account is
given in Harrison's Life of Nelson, emanating apparently from Lady
Hamilton, of the wretchedness the hero experienced from the temper of
his wife; while in the "Memoirs of Lady Hamilton," published shortly
after her death, another side of the case is brought forward, and Lady
Nelson appears as rebutting with quiet dignity the reproaches of her
husband for heartlessness, displayed in her unsympathetic attitude
towards her rival, when suffering from indisposition. Into these
recriminations it is needless to enter; those who wish can read for
themselves in the works mentioned. A marked symptom of growing
alienation was afforded by his leaving her on the 19th of December, in
company with the Hamiltons, to spend the Christmas holidays at
Fonthill, the seat of William Beckford.
During this visit occurred a curious incident, which shows that the
exultant delight unquestionably felt by Nelson in battle did not
indicate insensibility to danger, or to its customary effects upon
men, but resulted from the pleasurable predominance of other emotions,
which accepted danger and the startling tokens of its presence as the
accompaniments, that only enhanced the majesty of the part he was
called upon to play. Beckford tells the story as follows: "I offered
to show him what had been done by planting in the course of years.
Nelson mounted by my side in a phaeton, drawn by four well-trained
horses, which I drove. There was not the least danger, the horses
being perfectly under my command, long driven by myself. Singular to
say, we had not gone far before I observed a peculiar anxiety in his
countenance, and presently he said: 'This is too much for me, you must
set me down.' I assured him that the horses were continually driven by
me, and that they were perfectly under command. All would not do. He
would descend, and I walked the vehicle back again."[17] Nelson, of
course, never claimed for himself the blind ignorance of fear which
has been asserted of him; on the contrary, the son of his old friend
Locker tells us, "The bravest man (so we have heard Lord Nelson
himself declare) feels an anxiety '_circa præcordia_' as he enters the
battle; but he dreads disgrace yet more."[18] In battle, like a great
actor in a great drama, he knew himself the master of an invisible
concourse, whose homage he commanded, whose plaudits he craved, and
whom, by the sight of deeds raised above the common ground of earth,
he drew to sympathy with heroism and self-devotion. There, too, he
rejoiced in the noblest exercise of power, in the sensation of
energies and faculties roused to full exertion, contending with mighty
obstacles, and acting amid surroundings worthy of their grandeur; like
Masséna, of whom it was said that he only found his greatest self
when the balls flew thick about him, and things began to look their
worst.
After his return from Fonthill Lady Nelson and himself lived together
again for a time in their London lodgings, in Arlington Street, and
there, according to the story told forty-five years afterwards by Mr.
William Haslewood, Nelson's solicitor, the crisis of their troubles
was reached. "In the winter of 1800, 1801, I was breakfasting with
Lord and Lady Nelson, at their lodgings in Arlington Street, and a
cheerful conversation was passing on indifferent subjects, when Lord
Nelson spoke of something which had been done or said by 'dear Lady
Hamilton;' upon which Lady Nelson rose from her chair, and exclaimed,
with much vehemence, 'I am sick of hearing of dear Lady Hamilton, and
am resolved that you shall give up either her or me.' Lord Nelson,
with perfect calmness, said: 'Take care, Fanny, what you say. I love
you sincerely; but I cannot forget my obligations to Lady Hamilton, or
speak of her otherwise than with affection and admiration.' Without
one soothing word or gesture, but muttering something about her mind
being made up, Lady Nelson left the room, and shortly after drove from
the house. They never lived together afterwards." Though committed to
paper so many years later, the incident is just one of those that
sticks to the memory, and probably occurred substantially as told.
Lady Nelson's ultimatum will probably be differently regarded by
different persons; it shows that she was at least living human flesh
and blood. In later life, we are told by Hotham, who was in the habit
of frequently seeing her, up to her death, in 1831, "she continually
talked of him, and always attempted to palliate his conduct towards
her, was warm and enthusiastic in her praises of his public
achievements, and bowed down with dignified submission to the errors
of his domestic life."
The same testimony is borne by a lady, of whom Nicolas speaks as "the
personal and intimate friend both of Lord and Lady Nelson, and the
widow of one of his most distinguished followers," but whose name he
does not give.[19] "I am aware of your intention not to touch upon
this delicate subject: I only allude to it in order to assure you,
from my personal knowledge, in a long and intimate acquaintance, that
Lady Nelson's conduct was not only affectionate, wise, and prudent,
but admirable, throughout her married life, and that she had not a
single reproach to make herself. I say not this to cast unnecessary
blame upon _one_ whose memory I delight to honour, but only in justice
to that truly good and amiable woman.... If mildness, forbearance, and
indulgence to the weaknesses of human nature could have availed, her
fate would have been very different. No reproach ever passed her lips;
and when she parted from her Lord, on his hoisting his flag again, it
was without the most distant suspicion that he meant it to be final,
and that in this life they were never to meet again. I am desirous
that you should know the worth of her who has so often been
misrepresented, from the wish of many to cast the blame anywhere, but
on him who was so deservedly dear to the Nation."
The latter years of Lady Nelson's life were passed partly in Paris,
where she lived with her son and his family. Her eldest grandchild, a
girl, was eight or ten years old at the time of her death. She
remembers the great sweetness of her grandmother's temper, and tells
that she often saw her take from a casket a miniature of Nelson, look
at it affectionately, kiss it, and then replace it gently; after which
she would turn to her and say, "When you are older, little Fan, you
too may know what it is to have a broken heart." This trifling
incident, transpiring as it now does for the first time, after nearly
seventy years, from the intimate privacies of family life, bears its
mute evidence to the truth of the last two witnesses, that Lady Nelson
neither reproached her husband, nor was towards him unforgiving.[20]
Nelson's early friend, the Duke of Clarence, who had given her away at
the wedding, maintained his kindly relations with her to the end, and
continued his interest to her descendants after his accession to the
throne.
Thus abruptly and sadly ended an attachment which, if never ardent,
had for many years run undisturbed its tender course, and apparently
had satisfied Nelson's heart, until the wave of a great passion swept
him off his feet. "I remember," writes Miss Knight, "that, shortly
after the Battle of the Nile, when my mother said to him that no doubt
he considered the day of that victory as the happiest in his life, he
answered, 'No; the happiest was that on which I married Lady Nelson.'"
On the 13th of January, 1801, Nelson took formal and final leave of
her before hoisting his flag at Torbay. "I call God to witness," he
then said, "there is nothing in you, or your conduct, that I wish
otherwise." His alienation from her was shared by most of his family,
except his father, who said to him frankly, that gratitude required he
should spend part of his time with Lady Nelson. Two years before, he
had written of her: "During the whole war [since 1793] I have been
with Lady Nelson, a good woman, and attentive to an infirm old man,"
and they had continued to live together. The old man persuaded himself
that there was nothing criminal in relations, the result of which, as
regarded his son and daughter-in-law, he could not but deplore; but
his letters to Lady Hamilton go little beyond the civility that was
necessary to avoid giving offence to Nelson. Nelson's two married
sisters, Mrs. Bolton and Mrs. Matcham, evidently shared their father's
belief. They and their children maintained with Lady Hamilton a
friendly and even affectionate correspondence, long after Trafalgar,
and until the death of the parties put an end to it.
Immediately upon landing at Yarmouth, Nelson had written to the
Admiralty that his health was perfectly restored, and that he wished
to resume service immediately. He was soon designated to a command in
the Channel fleet, under Earl St. Vincent, who had been
commander-in-chief since the spring of 1800. The "San Josef," the
three-decker boarded by him at Cape St. Vincent, was named to receive
his flag, and on the 17th of January it was hoisted on board her, at
Plymouth,--blue at the fore, he having been promoted Vice-Admiral of
the Blue on New Year's Day. An arrangement, however, had already been
made, that, if the impending difficulties with Denmark threatened to
lead to hostilities, he should accompany the fleet sent to the Baltic,
as second to Sir Hyde Parker, selected for the chief command. While he
was officially reporting to St. Vincent, on the 16th, at Torbay,
preparatory to hoisting his flag, a letter from Parker informed him
that the armament was decided upon. This he showed at once to St.
Vincent, who acquiesced of course in the disappointment, but expressed
a hope that after a brief absence he would rejoin him.
By the first of February the "San Josef" had gone round to Torbay, the
rendezvous of the Channel fleet under St. Vincent's command, and there
it was that Nelson received the news of the birth, on the 29th or 30th
of January, of the child Horatia, whose parentage for a long time gave
rise to much discussion, and is even yet considered by some a matter
of doubt. Fortunately, that question requires no investigation here;
as regards the Life of Nelson, and his character as involved in this
matter, the fact is beyond dispute that he believed himself the
father, and Lady Hamilton the mother, of the girl, whose origin he
sought to conceal by an elaborate though clumsy system of
mystification. This might possibly have left the subject covered with
clouds, though not greatly in doubt, had not Lady Hamilton, after
wildly unnecessary lying on her own part, recklessly preserved her
holdings of a correspondence which Nelson scrupulously destroyed, and
enjoined her to destroy.
The sedulous care on his side to conceal the nature of their
relations, and the reckless disregard of his wishes shown by her, is
singularly illustrated by the method he took to bring the child into
her charge, from that of the nurse to whom it had been intrusted. When
it was somewhat over three years old, on the 13th of August, 1804, he
wrote Lady Hamilton a letter, evidently to be used, where necessary,
to account for its presence under his roof. "I am now going to state a
thing to you and to request your kind assistance, which, from my dear
Emma's goodness of heart, I am sure of her acquiescence in. Before we
left Italy I told you of the extraordinary circumstance of a child
being left to my care and protection. On your first coming to England
I presented you the child, dear Horatia. You became, to my comfort,
attached to it, so did Sir William, thinking her the finest child he
had ever seen. She is become of that age when it is necessary to
remove her from a mere nurse and to think of educating her.... I shall
tell you, my dear Emma, more of this matter when I come to England,
but I am now anxious for the child's being placed under your
protecting wing." With this letter (or, possibly, with another written
the same day) was found an enclosure, undated and unsigned, but in
Nelson's handwriting. "My beloved, how I feel for your situation and
that of our dear Horatia, our dear child...."[21]
The indifference to incidental consequences which was shown by Nelson,
when once he had decided upon a course of action, was part of his
natural, as well as of his more distinctively military character; but
in this connection with Lady Hamilton he must have felt intuitively
that not only her reputation--which probably was his first care--was
involved, but his own also. The hospitality, the attention, the
friendship, extended to him at Naples and Palermo, were not from Lady
Hamilton only but from her husband also, in whose house he lived, and
who to the end, so far as the records show, professed for him
unbounded esteem and confidence. This confidence had been betrayed,
and the strongest line of argument formerly advanced, by those who
disputed Lady Hamilton's being the mother of the child, has become now
Nelson's severest condemnation.
"However great was Nelson's infatuation," says Sir Harris Nicolas,
"his nice sense of honour, his feelings of propriety, and his love of
truth, were unquestionable. Hence, though during a long separation
from his wife on the public service in the Mediterranean, he so far
yielded to temptation as to become the father of a child, it is
nevertheless difficult to believe that he should for years have had a
criminal intercourse with the wife of a man of his own rank, whom he
considered as his dearest friend, who placed the greatest confidence
in his honour and virtue, and in whose house he was living. Still more
difficult is it to believe, even if this had been the case, that he
should not only have permitted every one of his relations, male and
female,--his wife, his father, his brothers, his brothers-in-law, his
two sisters, and all their daughters,--to visit and correspond with
her, but even have allowed three of his nieces to live for a
considerable time with her; have ostentatiously and frequently written
and spoken of her 'virtuous and religious' character,--holding her up
as an example to his family; have appointed her the sole guardian of
his child; have avowedly intended to make her his wife; have acted
upon every occasion as if the purity of their intimacy was altogether
free from suspicion; and in the last written act of his life have
solemnly called upon his country to reward and support her. An
honourable and conscientious man rarely acts thus towards his
mistress.... Moreover, Nelson's most intimate friends, including the
Earl of St. Vincent, who called them 'a pair of sentimental fools,'
Dr. Scott, his Chaplain, and Mr. Haslewood, were of the same
opinion; and Southey says, 'there is no reason to believe that this
most unfortunate attachment was criminal.'"
This complicated and difficult path of deception had to be trod,
because the offence was not one of common error, readily pardoned if
discovered, but because the man betrayed, whatever his faults
otherwise, had shown both the culprits unbounded confidence and
kindness, and upon the woman, at least, had been led by his love to
confer a benefit which neither should have forgotten.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] The Paget Papers, vol. i. pp. 253, 257.
[7] British minister to Tuscany.
[8] There were some Neapolitan frigates in Leghorn, but the royal family
were never willing to trust them.
[9] Life of Lord Minto, vol. iii. pp. 147-150.
[10] Malmesbury's Memoirs, vol, ii. p. 24.
[11] Mrs. St. George's description of Lady Hamilton has already been given,
_ante_, vol. i. p. 380.
[12] Miss Knight mentions the same ceremony occurring in Vienna.
[13] Life of Lord Minto, vol. iii. pp. 242-243.
[14] This letter, with another, appears in the Alfred Morrison "Collection
of Autograph Letters" (Nos. 472, 473). It is purposely given entire, except
immaterial postscripts.
[15] Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers.
[16] The author is indebted to Prof. J. Knox Laughton for some extracts
from Hotham's diary.
[17] Beckford's Memoirs, London, 1859, vol. ii. p. 127.
[18] Locker's Greenwich Gallery, article "Torrington."
[19] Nicolas, vol. ii. p. 353. The present writer believes this lady to
have been Lady Berry, wife of Nelson's flag-captain, who gave Nicolas much
of his information.
[20] The author is indebted for this anecdote to Mrs. F.H.B. Eccles, of
Sherwell House, Plymouth, the daughter of the "little Fan" who told it.
[21] Morrison. The Hamilton and Nelson Papers, Nos. 777, 778, 779.