which seems to obscure the brightness of Nelson’s name and to fling an
additional lurid hue round that of the wife of a British Minister. We
say seems; for in truth there is more of seeming than of reality in it,
and yet all is not seeming and there is something real. We allude, of
course, to the case of Admiral Prince Carracciolo. According to some
he was murdered by Nelson at the instigation of Lady Hamilton, who
was so fiercely Royalist that, if we may believe partial writers, the
blood of a Jacobin was to her of marvellous sweet savour. Divested of
exaggeration the story of old Carracciolo is simply this--He was a
rich, valiant, and aged seaman, and warmly attached to Royalty until
the triumph of Republicanism endangered those who had a distaste for
Commonwealths. When the Neapolitan royal family fled from Naples to
Sicily their hitherto faithful old servant followed them thither:
when the heads of the party who had proclaimed a Republic at Naples
threatened to confiscate the property of absentees, Carracciolo
returned to protect his own. In thinking over-much of himself he
forgot fealty to his Sovereign, and in a brief period he became as hot
a Republican as ever he had been an eager Royalist. He took up arms
against his King, opposed his restoration, and fired upon his flag.
After the principal body of rebels had capitulated to the force in arms
to give the King his own again, he was captured in open rebellion,
taken on board the _Foudroyant_, Lord Nelson’s own ship, and there
given up to be tried by a court-martial. Nelson, as chief of the united
Sicilian and English squadrons, ordered this court-martial to be held:
it was formed exclusively of Sicilian officers, but it was held on
board the English admiral’s ship. The trial did not exactly exhibit a
specimen of Jedburgh justice, by which a man is hung first and tried
afterwards, but there was a spirit manifested that was very much akin
to it. The president of the court, Count Thurn, was a personal enemy
though an old shipmate of Carracciolo. The case for the prosecution
was soon gone through: the facts were clear, patent, and undeniable;
but the brave and misguided old seaman made a most gallant, fearless,
and almost irresistible defence. Probably, the worst enemy of the crown
of Naples was the King himself: he was worthless, selfish, weak, vain,
and pompous. Carracciolo asserted that _he_ had not deserted the royal
cause, but that in fact the King himself had betrayed it: when there
was no longer a royalty to defend that was worth the keeping, then
alone had he joined the Republicans. Thus far the defence was, perhaps,
founded on truth. It was not less true when Carracciolo alluded to his
property and the risk he ran of rendering his posterity beggars if he
had not taken office under the Republican flag; but this was a sort of
truth that was even less valid as an apology for rebellion than the
former. The court unanimously found him guilty and sentenced him to
be hung by the neck at the yard-arm of his own flag-ship. ‘Hereafter’
(said the undaunted old man with some emotion)--‘hereafter, when you
shall be called to your great account, you will weep for this unjust
sentence in tears of blood. I take shame to myself for asking for any
favour from such men; but, if possible, I wish to be shot as becomes
my rank, and not hung up like a felon and a dog.’ ‘It is inadmissible’
(was the curt and savage reply of the court), ‘and the court is hereby
dissolved.’ What followed is ever to be deplored. Dr. Pettigrew
struggles ably and manfully to defend Nelson from all blame, but he
struggles unsuccessfully. The facts are these--even by Dr. Pettigrew’s
admission. The sentence was no sooner made known than Nelson issued
an order for the immediate execution. The guilty man was to be hung
from six o’clock till sunset, ‘when you will have his body cut down
and thrown into the sea.’ So run the words to which the name of Nelson
is affixed. Lieutenant Parkinson, at the request of the doomed man,
interceded with the admiral; but to the prayer of Carracciolo, that he
might die the death of a man and not that of a dog, Nelson refused to
interfere, and harshly bade the poor lieutenant to go and attend to his
duty. The result was that Carracciolo was ignominiously run up to the
yard-arm, not of his own flag-ship, but to that of Lord Nelson. The
English admiral not only refused the mercy that he unquestionably might
have granted, but he, in some sort, became the executioner: he not only
insisted that the sentence of hanging should be carried into effect,
but he lent a gallows for the purpose.
The sentence was just, and the unfortunate old warrior merited death;
but justice would have been satisfied had the great criminal been
allowed the melancholy privilege of falling as he might have done
in battle. At all events, the yard-arm of a British ship ought not
to have been lent for the purpose of hanging a foreigner who had
betrayed his trust to a foreign king. In thus much does blame appear
attributable to Nelson. That any is due to Lady Hamilton, or that
Nelson was in the least degree influenced by her on this occasion,
we disbelieve, simply for the reason that such an assertion is
unsusceptible of proof.
But the _Foudroyant_ was the scene of other disgraces. We come to
the mention of them with reluctance, and will narrate them with all
possible brevity. In 1800, Sir William Hamilton was superseded as
British Minister at Naples: he and Lady Hamilton, with the Queen
of Naples, were on board Nelson’s ship. Nelson himself was now a
Neapolitan duke. The whole party were about to leave the Mediterranean,
and, with the exception of the Queen, whose destination was Vienna, to
return to England by land through Germany. It was during the passage
from Palermo to Malta that the intimacy took place which resulted
in the birth of that little Horatia who was long thought to be the
daughter of the Queen of Naples, but whom Dr. Pettigrew, under Nelson’s
own hand, proves to be the child of Lady Hamilton. That Nelson was the
child’s father no one ever doubted. The strange party--husband, wife,
and friend--reached London in November, 1800. Lady Nelson was not
among those who stood first to greet the arrival of the hero or who
at meeting greeted him with any warmth of feeling. She had, possibly,
heard through her son, Captain Nisbet, of the too friendly terms which
existed between her husband and the wife of another. His home was, in
consequence, an unhappy one, and he left it to proceed on an excursion
with Sir William and his lady. This excursion was an ovation which
reached its highest point at Fonthill. Here the celebrities in art,
rather than the noble by birth, were assembled to meet the illustrious
party: here Banti, the Pasta of her day, joined her voice with the
ex-ambassadress; and here West looked on and smiled.
In the gallery of the Abbey, after the repast, the company
assembled, and Lady Hamilton enchanted them with one of her
remarkable personations--that of Agrippina bearing the ashes of
Germanicus in a golden urn, and as presenting herself before the
Roman people with the design of exciting them to revenge the death
of her husband, who, after having been declared joint Emperor
by Tiberius, fell a victim to his envy, and is supposed to have
been poisoned by his order at the head of the forces which he
was leading against the rebellious Arminians ... Lady Hamilton
displayed with truth and energy every gesture, attitude, and
expression of countenance, which could be conceived in Agrippina
herself, best calculated to have roused the passions of the Romans
in behalf of their favourite general. The action of her head,
of her hands and arms, in the various positions of the urn, in
her manner of presenting it to the Romans, or of raising it up
to the gods in the act of supplication, was most classically
graceful. Every change of dress, principally of the head, to suit
the different situations in which she successively presented
herself, was performed instantaneously with the most perfect
ease, and without retiring or scarcely turning aside a moment
from the spectators. In the last scene of this beautiful piece of
pantomime, she appeared with a young lady of the company who was
to personate a daughter. Her action in this part was so perfectly
just and natural, and so pathetically addressed to the spectators
as to draw tears from several of the company.
When the character of the Roman dress is remembered, it is difficult
to believe that the representative of Agrippina was in the condition
noticed by Dr. Pettigrew.
The final separation between Nelson and his wife took place in the
January of 1801. The last scene between the latter is thus described by
a yet living witness, Mr. Haslewood:--
In the winter of 1800-1, 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. I believe that Lord Nelson took
a formal leave of her ladyship before joining the fleet under Sir
Hyde Parker.
Dr. Pettigrew cites this letter of Mr. Haslewood to show that the
separation was unavoidable on Lord Nelson’s part: it appears to us
to have been inevitable and necessary. Perhaps the strangest part of
this incident is that Nelson’s family closely attached themselves
to Lady Hamilton. We must make exception, however, of the still
stranger incident--namely, the birth of Lady Hamilton’s daughter at
her residence in Piccadilly, the absence of all attempt to confer the
honours of paternity on Sir William, and the consequent mystification.
The birth took place about the last day of January 1801. The child was
conveyed to a nurse about a week or ten days afterwards, and was not
the home companion of its guilty parents until 1803, after the death
of Sir William Hamilton. Nelson’s daughter was recently alive, and was
formerly married to Captain Ward, late of the 81st regiment.
Before the death of Sir William Hamilton, Lord Nelson had made his
house their common residence. At the death of the former, he, with
something of an affected decency, quitted it for private lodgings. Sir
William left his widow totally unprovided for. He thought, as Nelson
thought, that the Government would not hesitate to make her an ample
provision for her services. In the meantime, waiting for an event that
was never to occur, Lord Nelson purchased Merton. It is yet the object
of many a sailor’s pilgrimage, and is about ten minutes’ walk from the
Wimbledon station. Here he offered the deserted widow and the mother of
his child a refuge--nay, more, a home. It was such to her; for there
she enjoyed the homage and respect not only of every member of Nelson’s
family, but also of the great and good of the exterior world. Never was
woman placed in so anomalous a condition, in which the anomaly was so
carefully concealed from herself and unheeded by the world.
It should have had the realities of the virtue of which it bore so well
the semblance. That it had not was, perhaps, one of the causes why
it endured so brief a space. It is most touching to read the letters
of Nelson, cited by Dr. Pettigrew, and written to his child’s mother
_at home_. The heavy responsibilities connected with Trafalgar, the
anxieties coming thick and fast, the duties he had to fulfil--none of
these things rendered him forgetful of his treasure. For the safety of
one little life his heart beat as only a parent’s heart _can_ beat;
and while meditating the array of battle, in which his own life was
to cloud the splendour of the victory, he found leisure to send home
detailed instructions how a substantial netting should be raised in
the grounds of Merton to preserve little Horatia from falling into a
pond ambitiously called the _Nile_. There wanted but one thing to give
holiness to Nelson’s character as a father.
To this, as to all his worldly glory, and to all the felicity that had
hitherto rested upon Merton, a sudden termination was given by the
fatal ball which struck him, when his glory was greatest, on the deck
of the _Victory_, at Trafalgar. The last request of such a man, made
in such an hour, and amid such a triumph, purchased by him with his
heart’s blood--the dying request of such a man ought to have been held
sacred by his country. For five years Lady Hamilton struggled on at
Merton: she made application to every source, but she applied in vain.
The recompense justly due to her for services rendered was withheld or
denied under the most shabby and futile pretences. The worst of all,
perhaps, was the pretence, or the plea, of the length of time that had
expired since the service itself was rendered!
In a codicil annexed to his will, and made by Nelson as he was about to
enter into action at Trafalgar, the Admiral, with a strong feeling that
death was near him, asked two favours of his King and Country in whose
defence he was about to offer up his own life--one was, protection
and provision for Lady Hamilton, whose late husband was the King’s
foster-brother; the other, goodwill for his ‘adopted daughter.’ He
solemnly bequeathed both to his sovereign and his fellow-countrymen.
When the will was proved, this codicil was held back by the Rev.
William Nelson, although he and his family had been partaking of Lady
Hamilton’s hospitality for months. Indeed, during six years, she was
a second mother to his children, to whom he recommended Lady Hamilton
as an example and enjoined obedience to her as an instructress. ‘The
Earl (says Dr. Pettigrew--for the reverend gentleman was created an
earl) fearful that Lady Hamilton should be provided for in the sum
Parliament was expected to grant to uphold the hero’s name and family,
kept the codicil in his pocket until the day 120,000_l._ was voted
for that purpose. On that day he dined with Lady Hamilton in Clarges
Street, and, hearing at table what had been done, he brought forward
the codicil, and, throwing it to Lady Hamilton, coarsely said she might
now do with it as she pleased. She had it registered the next day at
Doctors’ Commons, where it is now to be seen.’
With insufficient means to live in her old dignity at Merton, and with
little knowledge of how to make the best of those means, accustomed to
find others her stewards and unused to provide for hours of necessity,
she at length found herself compelled to make an assignment of the
home which Nelson had established for her and their child. She removed
to Richmond, and, subsequently, had lodgings in Bond Street. Pursued
by creditors, without her child for whom she had no home--and for
whom such protection as she could give was not that which a child
most needed--she led a miserable life, which was hardly rendered more
miserable by her incarceration, in 1813, in the King’s Bench. She
passed ten months in this captivity, and was only relieved at last
by the humanity of Alderman Smith. With freedom came no measure of
happiness: utterly destitute, and abandoned by those who in the days of
her prosperity professed to be her slaves, she fled the country that
would not aid her, and sought succour in a foreign land. She found
shelter, and nothing more, in Calais, in a miserable house, kindly lent
her, however, by a Monsieur de Rheims. That it was only shelter, and
nothing else, may be inferred from the following account handed to Dr.
Pettigrew by the lady who enacts in it so graceful a part:--
Mrs. Hunter was in the habit of ordering meat daily at a butcher’s
for a little dog, and on one of these occasions was met by
Monsieur de Rheims, who followed her exclaiming, ‘Ah, Madam!--ah,
Madam! I know you to be good to the English. There is a lady here
who would be glad of the worst bit of meat you provide for your
dog.’ When questioned as to who the lady was, and promising that
she should not want for anything, he declined telling, saying
that she was too proud to see anyone, and that besides he had
promised her secrecy. Mrs. Hunter begged him to provide her with
everything she required, &c., as if coming from himself, and she
would pay for it. This he did for some time, until she became very
ill, when he pressed her to see the lady who had been so kind to
her; and, upon hearing that her benefactress was not a person of
title, she consented, saw her, thanked her, and blessed her.
Shortly after this her infirmities increased, and ultimately she died
at Calais of water on the chest, on January 15, 1815. Dr. Pettigrew
gives no credence to the report of an anonymous foreign writer that she
had been converted to the Romish faith, and had received the sacrament
from a Romish priest as long before as during her confinement in the
King’s Bench. That she died, as the same anonymous author reported, in
the bosom of the Catholic Church, and received its sacraments on her
death-bed, can be as little confirmed. The Romish Church would have
buried a convert with willing ceremony: as it was, the method of the
sad solemnity was thus ordered for one who, even in death, remained, as
described by Mrs. Hunter, exceedingly beautiful:--
Mrs. Hunter was anxious to have her interred according to English
custom, for which, however, she was only laughed at; and poor
Emma was put into a deal-box without any inscription. All that
this good lady states that she was permitted to do was to make a
kind of pall out of her black silk petticoat stitched on a white
curtain. Not an English Protestant clergyman was to be found in
all Calais or its vicinity; and, so distressed was this lady to
find some one to read the burial service over her remains, that
she went to an Irish half-pay officer in the Rue du Havre, whose
wife was a well-informed Irish lady. He was absent at the time;
but, being sent for, most kindly went and read the service over
the body. Lady Hamilton was buried in a piece of ground in a spot
just outside the town, formerly called the gardens of the Duchess
of Kingston, which had been consecrated and was used as a public
cemetery till 1816. The ground, which had neither wall nor fence
to protect it, was some years since converted into a timber-yard,
and no traces of the graves now remain. Mrs. Hunter wished to have
placed a head or foot-stone, but was refused. She, therefore,
placed a piece of wood in the shape, as she describes it to me,
of a battledore, handle downwards, on which was inscribed ‘Emma
Hamilton, England’s friend.’ This was speedily removed--another
placed and also removed; and the good lady at length threatened
to be shot by the sentinel if she persisted in those offices of
charity. A small tombstone was, however, afterwards placed there,
and was existing in 1833.
To the latter assertion we may remark that no tombstone was existing
there in the month of August of the latter year. We searched the field
very narrowly for the purpose, and found but one record of the decease
of an English sojourner. The grave itself was pointed out to us by a
Calaisian, but its locality was only traditionary. About nine pounds’
worth of effects, twelve shillings in money, a few clothes, and some
duplicates of pawned plate were all that was left by the companion and
friend of queens. Little as it was, the Reverend Earl Nelson hastened
to Calais to claim it. He expected more, and in his cupidity wished to
take the pledged trinkets without paying the necessary expenses for
getting them out of pawn; he would not even discharge the few debts
incurred by her death. These were discharged by Mr. Cadogan, to whom
Horatia was entrusted (Mrs. Matcham, Nelson’s sister, receiving her
after Lady Hamilton’s decease), and to whom, as to Alderman Smith, the
forlorn creature was indebted for much aid ere death placed her beyond
the need of requiring it.
This tale bears with it its own moral: retribution followed offence:
the commission of sin reaped its usual reward; the wanderer from
virtue was visited with terrible affliction; and the penalty awaited
not its commencement till the knell of the offender had summoned
her to judgment. Thus much man knows, but with thus much he has not
condescended to rest satisfied; and the sons of the seducers have been
eager to cast stones at her whom their fathers enticed to sin. In the
remembrance of her faults they make no account of her services, of her
suffering, or of her sorrows; they have no idea that, if there was
guilt, there might have been reconciliation, and that the dark season
of her long last agony might have been passed in
Owning her weakness,
Her evil behaviour,
And leaving with meekness,
Her sins to her Saviour.
No: man who bore part in the offence constituted himself the judge of
this poor daughter of frailty, and she met with such mercy at his hands
as man is accustomed to give.
Do not let it be supposed that we are advocates or even apologists in
this case: our only anxiety is that, in the sacrifice of one, impunity
may not be gained by, perhaps, greater offenders. Let not the man who
flung her beauty and her virtue into ruin be allowed to escape. Her
sins were of man’s making: if these are to be remembered, let his share
in them form part of the example we are taught to avoid. By man she
was ruined in body and perilled in soul. Throughout the course of her
life she does not appear to have met with one who acted by her in a
spirit of Christian charity and anxiety: she was born with qualities
that should have led her heavenward: she was early pushed from the
path thither tending; nor amid all her royal, her noble, and alas!
her clerical companions, was there one who persuaded her that she was
erring--nay, but the contrary. The whole correspondence, now for the
first time divulged in these volumes, shows the wickedness of men
who could seduce to sin--their guilt in maintaining such terms with
her who had fallen as to make her feel assured that she had neither
incurred sin nor merited disgrace--and their baseness in making her in
her helplessness feel with double weight the penalty of a crime which
they had in the days of her greatness held to be none. Let us, indeed,
learn wisdom from a tale, the heroine of which does not afford the
sole example that is to be avoided; but be it also ours to remember
her services rather than her sins. The latter, with those of the first
seducer who made of her very charity a means to destroy her for ever,
may be left to Him who will render an unerring sentence when seducer
and victim are in presence together at the tribunal of truth. At all
events, let not the hardest blows of humanity fall on the weakest
offender. She would have been better but for man--that she was not much
worse was for no lack of energy on his part to make her so.
Who made the heart, ’tis He alone
Decidedly can try us:
He knows each chord, its various tone--
Each spring, its various bias.
Then at the balance let’s be mute,
We never can adjust it.
What’s _done_ we partly can compute,
But know not what’s resisted.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Graham first appeared in London in 1782. He was a graduate of
Edinburgh, wrote in a bombastic style, and possessed a great fluency
of elocution. He opened in Pall Mall a mansion which he called the
‘Temple of Health.’ The front was ornamented with an enormous gilt
sun, a statue of Hygeia, &c. The rooms were superbly furnished, and
the decorations, mirrors, &c., gave to the whole the appearance of an
enchanted palace. Single admission to his lectures on health and the
birth of children cost two guineas--a sum readily given. The Goddess
of Health usually delivered a supplementary lecture when the doctor
concluded. When two guinea auditors were exhausted, his two gigantic
porters, decked in gorgeous liveries, deluged the town with bills
stating that the lectures would be delivered at one guinea each. The
descending scale ultimately reached half-a-crown, and at last he
exhibited the Temple of Health itself at one shilling per head. Its
chief attraction was a ‘celestial bed,’ with rich hangings and glass
legs. The quack promised such results from merely sleeping on this
enchanted couch that married persons of high rank and respectability
were known to have given one hundred pounds for the accommodation.
Persons more foolish still and as highly exalted were found who gave
him one thousand pounds for a supply of his ‘elixir of life.’ He
then, when dupes were not grown scarce, but required variety in the
means of imposition, took to the practice and public exhibition of
earth-bathing. He and his goddess stood an hour each day immersed to
the chin in earth, above which their heads appeared, dressed in the
extravagant fashion of the day. In this position he delivered a lecture
on the salubrity of the practice at sums for single admissions which
commenced at a guinea and ended at a shilling. When all London had
heard and seen him he made a provincial tour; but, in spite of his
elixir of life, he died at the early age of fifty-two; and, in spite
of the facility with which he gained money, he died in poverty. The
famous Mrs. Macaulay married his brother, and Dr. Arnold, of Leicester,
the author of an able treatise on insanity, married his sister. In the
profession of the most impudent quackery Dr. Graham has never been
equalled, either for impudence or the success which attended it.
_EDWARD WORTLEY MONTAGU._
Lady Mary Pierrepont, when she wrote to Mr. Wortley touching the
death of his sister, said she had lost what she loved most, and could
thenceforth only love those who were nearest and dearest to her
departed friend. Out of this hint, it may be, came the marriage of Lady
Mary and Mr. Wortley. It seemed a disinterested match on both sides,
but it was not fruitful in happiness. Of this union were born a son and
daughter; the mother reserved all her love for the latter.
The son was born in May 1713. Within two months from that date Lady
Mary had left her firstborn to mercenary, but perhaps efficient and
kindly care. In July she wrote to her husband, ‘I heard from your
little boy yesterday, who is in good health.’ In that phrase, so cold
in its unmotherly temper, may perhaps be found the cause why that
‘little boy’ became so wayward, and why he developed into a man so
wilful and so irreclaimable. In 1717 the boy was taken by his parents
to Constantinople, where Mr. Wortley acted, for a few months, as
English representative. On the return from this embassy, Lady Mary
tarried for a while at Belgrade. At that time the small-pox was a
deadly scourge in England. In Turkey it was less mortal. The infidel
Turk anticipated and modified the disease by inoculation. Lady Mary had
the courage to submit her child to the novel system of ‘engrafting,’ as
it was called. In a letter written at Belgrade in March 1718 she says:
‘The boy was engrafted last Tuesday, and is at this time singing and
playing, very impatient for his supper. I pray God my next may give as
good an account of him.’ For society at large the step which Lady Mary
took was most beneficial; but few mothers, however courageous, would
have had the heart, in a foreign land too, to suffer such an experiment
to be made on an only son, not yet five years of age. She had, however,
full confidence in the efficacy of the proceeding: and she remarked
that she would have imparted the matter to the doctors generally, only
that they were too selfish to sanction a course which would diminish
their incomes!