But whatever his ruling passion may have been, his belief in the Power
that rules us all never forsook him. He believed in religious forms as
of a spiritual force. He often committed himself to it, and claimed
the privilege of asking for Heaven's guidance. Call it eccentricity or
superstition, or what you like, but to him it was a reality. One of
the many amusing instances of his devotion to religious rites was the
occasion when he and Lady Hamilton stood as godfather and godmother
at the christening of their daughter, Horatia Nelson Thompson,[7] by
which name she was baptized. To the puritanic, orthodox mind (keeping
in view all the circumstances of parentage) this will be looked upon
as an act of abominable hypocrisy and sacrilege, but to him it was a
pious duty.
Like all highly strung and overwrought mortals, he was often moody,
depressed, and, worst of all, a victim to premonitions of his early
demise. His superstitious temperament was constantly worrying him, as
did his faith in the predictions of a gipsy fortune-teller who had
correctly described his career up to the year 1805, and then stopping
had said, "I can see no further." This creepy ending of the gipsy's
tale was afflicting him with a dumb pain and depression when he
unexpectedly came across his sister Catherine in London. She referred
to his worn, haggard look with a tenderness that was peculiarly her
own. He replied, "Ah! Katty! Katty! that gipsy!" and then relapsed
into morbid silence. The foreboding bore heavily on his mind, and the
story may well make one's heart throb with pity for the noble fellow
who was so soon to fulfil his tragic destiny. Well may we exclaim that
fame seems to be the most wretched of mockeries!
The Duke of Wellington, of whom it is said no dose of flattery was too
strong for him to swallow, has left on record an interesting account
of his meeting Nelson at the Colonial Office. He gives the account of
it, thirty years after Nelson's death, to John Wilson Croker at
Walmer, and here is what he says of Collingwood's great comrade:--
WALMER, _1st October, 1834_.
We were [that is, Croker and he] talking of Lord Nelson, and
some instances were mentioned of the egotism and vanity that
derogated from his character. "Why," said the Duke, "I am not
surprised at such instances, for Lord Nelson was, in different
circumstances, two quite different men, as I myself can vouch,
though I only saw him once in my life, and for, perhaps, an
hour. It was soon after I returned from India. I went to the
Colonial Office in Downing Street, and there I was shown into
the little waiting-room on the right hand, where I found, also
waiting to see the Secretary of State, a gentleman, whom, from
his likeness to his pictures and the loss of an arm, I
immediately recognized as Lord Nelson. He could not know who I
was, but he entered at once into conversation with me, if I can
call it conversation, for it was almost all on his side and all
about himself, and in, really, a style so vain and so silly as
to surprise and almost disgust me. I suppose something that I
happened to say made him guess that I was _somebody_, and he
went out of the room for a moment, I have no doubt to ask the
office keeper who I was, for when he came back he was altogether
a different man, both in manner and matter. All that I had
thought a charlatan style had vanished, and he talked of the
state of this country and the probabilities of affairs on the
Continent with a good sense, and a knowledge of subjects both at
home and abroad, that surprised me equally and more agreeably
than the first part of our interview had done; in fact, he
talked like an officer and a statesman. The Secretary of State
kept us long waiting, and certainly, for the last half or
three-quarters of an hour, I don't know that I ever had a
conversation that interested me more. Now, if the Secretary of
State had been punctual, and admitted Lord Nelson in the first
quarter of an hour, I should have had the same impression of a
light and trivial character that other people have had; but
luckily I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very
superior man; but certainly a more sudden and complete
metamorphosis I never saw."[8]
We must not be too critical of the Duke's opinions of the vanity of
the Admiral, but it calls for some notice, inasmuch as the Duke
himself is reputed to have had an uncommonly good amount of it
himself, though it took a different form and created a different
impression. Wellington showed it in a cold, haughty, unimaginative,
repelling self-importance; fearful of unbending to his inferiors lest
his dignity should be offended. Nelson's peculiarities were the very
antithesis; it was his delightful egotism and vanity that added to his
charm and made him such a fascinating personality. His direct
slap-dash, unconventional phrases and flashes of naval brilliancy,
whether in search of, or engaged in battle with the enemy, together
with a natural kindness to his officers and men of all ranks, filled
them with confidence and pride in having him as their chief. The
"Nelson touch," the "drubbing" he swore in his own engaging way that
Mr. Villeneuve--as he called him to Blackwood--was to have when he
caught him, the putting of the telescope to his blind eye at
Copenhagen when the signal was flying to leave off action, and then
"No, damn me if I do," had an inspiring effect on his men and
strengthened the belief in his dauntlessness and sagacity. "What will
Nelson think of us?" remarked one of the men aboard one of the
frigates that obeyed the signal. But Nelson went on fighting with
complete success. "Luckily," says Wellington, "I saw enough to be
satisfied that he was really a very superior man." Why "luckily"? What
difference would his lack of knowledge have made? The Duke was hardly
the type of man to understand the powerful personality whose style,
"so vain and silly, surprised and almost disgusted" him. That view
does not stand to _his_ credit, and no one else held it.
But let us see what a greater man than either Wellington or Nelson
says of both. Napoleon, at St. Helena, spoke in very high terms of
Lord Nelson,[9] and indeed attempted to palliate that one stigma on
his memory, the execution of Carraciolli, which he attributed entirely
to his having been deceived by that wicked woman Queen Caroline,
through Lady Hamilton, and to the influence which the latter had over
him. He says of the Duke: "Judging from Wellington's actions, from his
dispatches, and, above all, from his conduct towards Ney, I should
pronounce him to be a poor-spirited man, without generosity, and
without greatness of soul ('Un homme de peu d'esprit, sans générosité,
et sans grandeur d'âme'). Such I know to be the opinion of Benjamin
Constant and of Madame de Staël, who said that, except as a general,
he had not two ideas. As a general, however, to find his equal amongst
your own nation, you must go back to the time of Marlborough, but as
anything else, I think that history will pronounce him to be a man of
limited capacity ('Un homme borné')."[10]
"Nelson is a brave man. If Villeneuve at Aboukir and Dumanoir at
Trafalgar had had a little of his blood, the French would have been
conquerors. I ought to have had Dumanoir's head cut off. Do you not
think more highly of Nelson than of the best engineers who construct
fortifications? Nelson had what a mere engineer officer can never
acquire. It is a gift of nature."
The Emperor, in his eulogy of Nelson, is not unmindful of the terrible
crime he was led to commit at the instigation of that human viper,
Queen Caroline, and the licentious Emma Hamilton. He, to some extent,
whittles down Nelson's share of the responsibility by putting the
whole blame on them. But who can read the gruesome story of the trial
and hanging of the aged Prince Carraciolli without feeling ashamed
that a fellow-countryman in Nelson's position should have stamped his
career with so dark a crime? At the capitulation of St. Elmo,
Carraciolli made his escape. He commanded a Neapolitan warship called
the _Tancredi_, and had fought in Admiral Hotham's action on the 14th
March, 1795, and gained distinction, accompanying the Royal Family to
Palermo. He was given permission by the King to return for the purpose
of protecting his large property. The French had entered Neapolitan
territory and seized his estates, on the ground that he was a
Royalist, and the only way he could recover them was by agreeing to
take command of the Neapolitan fleet. The French were obliged to
evacuate the country, and left their friends to settle matters for
themselves as best they could. Carraciolli concealed himself, but was
discovered in disguise and put on board the _Foudroyant_ with his
hands tied behind his back. Captain Hardy, who was a man with a heart,
was indignant when he saw the old man subjected to such gross
indignity, and immediately ordered his hands to be liberated.
Nelson committed him for trial, which commenced at ten o'clock, and at
twelve he was declared guilty. At five o'clock he was hanged at the
yardarm of the Neapolitan frigate _Minerva_. This poor old man was
tried solely by his enemies without being allowed to have counsel or
call witnesses. A miscreant called Count Thurn, a worse enemy than
all, presided over the court. Carraciolli asked Lieutenant Parkinson
to obtain for him a new trial. Nelson, who had ordered the first,
could not or would not grant a second. Carraciolli asked to be shot,
and this also was refused. On the grounds of former association, he
sought the aid of Lady Hamilton, but she, being an approving party to
the execution, only came from her concealment to enjoy the sight of
the old Prince's dead body dangling at the yardarm. "Come, Bronte,
come," said she, "let us take the barge and have another look at
Carraciolli"; and there they feasted their eyes on the lifeless
remains of their former associate, who had assuredly cursed them both
with his last dying breath. It is the custom when sailors are buried
at sea to weight their feet so that the body may sink in an upright
position. The same course was adopted with Carraciolli; shot was put
at his feet, but not sufficient, and he was cast into the sea. In a
few days the putrified body rose to the surface head upwards, as
though the murdered man had come again to haunt his executioners and
give them a further opportunity of gazing at the ghastly features of
their victim.[11] The sight of his old friend emerging again terrified
Ferdinand, and he became afflicted with a feeling of abiding horror
which he sought to appease by having the body interred in a Christian
burial-ground. But the spirit of his executed friend worried him all
his remaining days, and the act of burial did not save Naples from
becoming a shambles of conflict, robbery, and revolution. Neither did
Emma Hamilton escape her just deserts for the vile part she played in
one of the most abominable crimes ever committed. Her latter hours
were made terrible by the thought of the mockery of a trial, and the
constant vision of the Prince's ghost glowering at her from the
_Minerva's_ yardarm and from the surface of his watery tomb from which
he had risen again to reproach her with the inhuman pleasure she had
taken in watching the dreadful act. Nor did her shrieking avowal of
repentance give the wretched Jezebel of a woman the assurance of
forgiveness. She sought for distractions, and found most of them in
wickedness, and passed into the presence of the Great Mystery with all
her deeds of faithlessness, deceit, and uncontrollable revenge before
her eyes.
It is sad to read of and hear the insensate rubbish that is talked of
new earths that are to evolve from war, as though it could be divorced
from wounds and death, unspeakable crime, suffering in all its varied
forms, and the destruction of property which must always be a direct
result. The spectacle of it can never be other, except to the
martially-minded, than a shuddering horror. I would ask any one who is
imbued with the idea that out of wars spring new worlds to name a
single instance where a nation that has engaged in it has not been
left bleeding at its extremities, no matter whether it emerges as
victor or vanquished. I would further ask the writer or orator who
talks in this strain if he imagines that the sending of myriads of men
to death can contribute to the making of new earths. The consequences
are much too tragically serious to the nation, and indeed to the
world, to be played with by smug diplomatists who seek to excite the
populace into support of their calamitous efforts at statesmanship by
shallow bursts of eloquence about the new conditions of life which are
to accrue from their imitation of Germanism.
No doubt Nelson thought, when he had poor old Prince Carraciolli
hung, that he would create a new earth by striking terror into the
hearts of the Neapolitan race, but natural laws are not worked out by
methods of this kind, and Nelson had the mortification of seeing his
plan of regulating human affairs create a new and more ferocious
little hell on earth. His judgment at this time was very much warped
through the evil influence of the Court of Naples and more especially
by his infatuation for Lady Hamilton.
Greville, and subsequently Sir William Hamilton, had taken great pains
to educate Emma Hart. Hamilton writes to his nephew: "I can assure you
her behaviour is such as has acquired her many sensible admirers, and
we have good man society, and all the female nobility, with the Queen
at their head, show her every mark of civility." Hamilton writes
further: "Hitherto, her behaviour is irreproachable, but her temper,
as you must know, unequal." Lady Malmesbury (with a decidedly sly
scratch) says of her: "She really behaves as well as possible, and
quite wonderfully, considering her origin and education." Sir George
Elliot says: "Her manners are perfectly, unpolished, very easy, but
not with the ease of good breeding, but of a barmaid; excessively
good-humoured, wishing to please and be admired by everybody that came
in her way. She has acquired since her marriage some knowledge of
history and of the arts, and one wonders at the application and pains
she has taken to make herself what she is. With men her language and
conversation are exaggerations of anything I ever heard anywhere; and
I was wonderfully struck with these inveterate remains of her origin,
though the impression was very much weakened by seeing the other
ladies of Naples." A naval lieutenant at Naples stated he "thought her
a very handsome, vulgar woman." There is no stabbing with a sneer
about this opinion. It expresses in a few words the candid opinion of
the sailor. Mrs. St. George thinks her "bold, daring, vain even to
folly, and stamped with the manners of her first situation much more
strongly than one would suppose, after having represented Majesty and
lived in good company fifteen years. Her dress is frightful. Her waist
is absolutely between her shoulders. Her figure is colossal, but,
excepting her feet, which are hideous, well shaped. The shape of all
her features is fine, as is the form of her head, and particularly her
ears; her teeth are a little irregular, but tolerably white; her eyes
light blue, with a brown spot in one, which, though a defect, takes
nothing away from her beauty or expression. Her eyebrows and hair,
which, by the bye, is never clean, are dark and her complexion coarse.
Her expression is strongly marked, variable, and interesting; her
movements in common life ungraceful, her voice loud, yet not
disagreeable." This female critic seems to have been overburdened with
the weight of Emma's defects, mental and physical! Elliot says: "Her
person is nothing short of monstrous for its enormity, and is growing
every day. Her face is beautiful." The latter view tones down the
apparent desire not to say too much in her favour.
We are persuaded, in fact, that the foregoing views of Lady Hamilton's
personal appearance are not correct. They give the impression that the
opinions of her critics are based on the woman's lowly origin, and
that they assume that because she was the offspring of poor parents
she ought to be described as a fat hoyden with the manners of the
kitchen. The people who knew her intimately do not make her out to be
a stout, unwholesome, East-End Palestiner. The sister of Marie
Antoinette, be it remembered, was her close companion, and many
English ladies living in Naples and visiting there were scarcely
likely to associate with a person who could not display better looks
and manners than those set forth. Nelson, the Prince of Wales, and her
many other men admirers, were hardly likely to tumble over each other
in competition for her smiles and favours if "her dress was
frightful," "her waist between her shoulders," "her hair dirty," "her
feet hideous," "her bones large," "her complexion coarse," and "her
person monstrous for its enormity, growing every day."
We are inclined to place little dependence on the accuracy of people
who seem to have described her according to their moods or perhaps
according to the manner of her admirers towards themselves. That she
was clever and attractive there can be no doubt, and it is equally
certain that she won for herself the mortal enmity of many ladies who
saw her powerful influence over prominent men and women whom they
themselves bored. Some importance must be given to her husband's
position as British representative; his influence must have been
great, especially in Neapolitan circles. This would help her natural
gifts of fascination, even though her breeding and education did not
reach the standard of her blue-blooded critics. She had something that
stood her in greater stead than breeding and education: she had the
power of enslaving gallant hearts and holding them in thrall with many
artful devices. They liked her Bohemianism, her wit, her geniality,
her audacious slang, and her collection of droll epithets that
fittingly described her venomous critics of a self-appointed nobility.
When she could not reach the heights of such superior persons she
proceeded to ridicule them with a tongue that rattled out vivid
invective which outmatched anything they could say of _her_. It
probably made her more enemies, but it satisfied her temper and
pleased her admirers. She never appears to have been conscious of any
inferiority in herself. We are inclined to agree with the opinion
expressed by the naval lieutenant at Naples, who said "She was a very
handsome, vulgar woman." All her portraits confirm what the sailor
says about her beauty, and the most reliable records are confirmatory
so far as his view of her vulgarity is concerned.
But in any case, whatever may have been her physical dimensions, they
were not understated by the crowd who gave vent to their aversion in
this and in many other deplorable ways. There are only a few
evidences of Nelson being aware of and resenting some of the
disparaging remarks made about his "wife in the sight of Heaven," and
these do not seem to have diminished his infatuation for her. He was
accustomed to say in connection with his professional duties that
whenever he followed his own head he was in general much more correct
in his judgment than by following other people's opinions. He carried
this plan into his private life so far as Emma was concerned, but men
and women who were his intimate friends would not support the view
that by following his head in _this_ particular case his judgment was
sound. We may term the infatuation a deteriorated state of mind, but
_he_ was sustained by the belief that she was a spirit unto him while
he lived, and with his last gasp, as he was passing into the shadows,
he bestowed her as a legacy to his country. We shall have something to
say hereafter as to how the British Government dealt with their great
Admiral's dying injunction.
The Neapolitan atmosphere was vile enough, and might well have made
even men and women who knew the loose side of life shrink from it, but
it can never be claimed that it had a demoralizing influence on Emma,
who at an early age became familiar with unspeakable vices which left
her little to learn at the time Greville sold her to his uncle, who
took her to a centre of sordid uncleanness, there to become his wife
after a brief association as his mistress. We may have no misgiving as
to her aptitude in acquiring anything she chose that was left for her
to learn from a community of debauchees and parasites.
The wonder is that her brain did not succumb to the poisonous
influences by which she was surrounded, and that the poor girl did not
sink into the depths of that luxurious sensuality which characterized
Neapolitan society at that time. It was a more distinguished and
fascinating type of debauchery than that which she had known in other
days in England, and from which Greville had rescued her. The
temptation to plunge into the boisterous merriment of a higher order
of depravity than that to which she had been accustomed must have been
very great to such a temperament as hers. But she worthily kept her
wild, wayward spirit under restraint, and, according to Sir William
Hamilton, she conducted herself in a way that caused him to be
satisfied with his reforming guidance. She adapted herself to the ways
of the more select social community of her new existence, and at the
time Nelson made her acquaintance she had really become a creditable
member of the society in which she moved. In every respect she was
congenial to him. He never lost a chance of applauding her gifts and
brazenly exempting himself from all moral restrictions, except, as I
have said before, when he was seized with a spontaneous fit of
goodness. He would then clumsily try to conceal the passion that
obsessed him. He did not brood long over trifles of this kind, merely
because he had lost, if ever he possessed, the power of consecutive
reasoning in matters of moral convention. His Neapolitan associates
were a cunning, lying, luxury-loving, depraved lot, and however
strongly his principles were fixed, there can be but one opinion--that
such an atmosphere was harmful to him. He speaks of Naples himself as
being a country of poets, whores, and scoundrels; and Southey does not
attempt to mince words, for in vigorous terms he describes England's
"alliances to superannuated and abominable governments of the
Continent." These are the states that we shed British blood and
squandered British money over, and in truth Southey describes them as
they were!
The King of Naples was a great hero to stand up against the bravest,
best-trained troops the world! He shivered at the thought of Nelson
going out of his sight, and whimpered him into staying to guard him
and his rotten kingdom. It was at this period of his gallant activity
that Nelson became the victim of fulsome flattery and the associate of
the most cunning, knavish charlatans in the world. These creatures
never ceased to inveigh against the wrongs they were suffering for the
uplifting of human rights, and because their great British ally was in
need of their disinterested and distinguished co-ordination. Nelson
was well aware of all this, but could not shake himself free. He
loathed the slavering way in which flattery was extended to him,
because it had a sickly resemblance to weeping. He declares of the
Neapolitan officers, "They are boasters of the highest order, and when
they are confronted with the duty of defending hearth and home, their
courage ends in vapour." He avers that they "cannot lose honour, as
they have none to lose," and yet he makes no serious effort to
unshackle himself from a detestable position. Emma, the Queen, and
King of Naples, and others, have a deep-rooted hold on him, and he
cannot give up the cheap popularity of the Neapolitans. He persuades
himself that the whole thought of his soul is "Down, down, with the
French," and that it shall be his "constant prayer." Throughout the
whole course of his brilliant career it was never doubted that the
French were his great aversion, because they were his country's
enemies. But the hysterical tears of Lady Hamilton and those of the
Neapolitan Queen proved too strong for him. The King's beseeching
fears were also added to an already difficult situation, which, he
persuaded himself, could not be ignored without damaging the interests
he was sent to protect; so his stay in the reeking cesspool of
Neapolitanism was prolonged, but there is no reason for supposing that
his "constant prayer" for the extinction of the French was any the
less ardent. The fatal day of their catastrophe was only postponed.
The praying went on all the same, with more or less belief in the
Almighty's preference for Englishmen.