Nelson's Lady Hamilton by Meynell, Esther (surface ebook reader txt) 📕

Nelson said, " I am not in person in these busy scenes, more calculated for me than remaining here giving advice; but their Majesties think the advice of my incompetent judgment valuable at this moment, therefore I submit, and I can only say that I give it as an honest man, one without hopes or fears; therefore they get at the truth, which their Majesties have seldom heard."

But the month of May brought great news, and Nelson was released from distasteful coast-defence at Palermo—for distasteful it was, as his

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letters of this time show, in spite of the glamour and the sunshine of Lady Hamilton's presence. Waiting about a Court was little to his liking, even when seasoned with ardent flatteries and attentions. But on the i2th day of May came the call to action, and Nelson was himself again. A brig arrived at Palermo with the news that a French fleet had been seen off Oporto, making for the Mediterranean. Rumour for once understated fact, for the first intelligence said nineteen sail-of-the-line, whereas it later proved to be twenty-five. Here was an emergency and a danger after Nelson's own heart, and he made all possible dispositions to meet it; but his fettering promise to the Queen of Naples still shackled his own actions. To St. Vincent he wrote, in great anxiety—

" Should you come upwards without a battle, I hope in that case you will afford me an opportunity of joining you ; for my heart would break to be near my commander-in-chief, and not assisting him at such a time. What a state I am in! If I go, I risk, and more than risk, Sicily, and what is now safe on the Continent; for we know, from experience, that more depends on opinion than on acts themselves. As I stay, my heart is breaking; and, to mend the matter, I am seriously unwell."

Troubridge and his ships being summoned from Naples Bay, Captain Foote, who later signed

the articles of capitulation with the rebels which caused Nelson such trouble and vexation, was left behind as senior officer.

The safest way to guard the Two Sicilies was to look for the French at sea, and Nelson broke away from the nervous Court and decided to cruise off Maritimo with his squadron. From there he would cover Palermo, which he swore "should be protected to the last."

He was much missed by his two great friends, the British Ambassador and his wife. Sir William Hamilton wrote to him with a pleasant sincerity : " I can assure you that neither Emma nor I knew how much we loved you until this separation, and we are convinced your Lordship feels the same as we do."

On Nelson's side the feeling was certainly not less; indeed, for one of his two friends it was already much more warm than wise. He wrote to her on the iQth of May—

"To tell you how dreary and uncomfortable the Vanguard appears, is only telling you what it is to go from the pleasantest society to a solitary cell, or from the dearest friends to no friends. I am now perfectly the great man —not a creature near me. From my heart I wish myself the little • man again ! You and good Sir William have spoiled me for any place but with you. I love Mrs. Cadogan. You cannot conceive what I

feel when I call you all to my remembrance." p

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Alas ! poor Nelson ! He was rapidly nearing the point where one face and one voice could alone content him—and that face and voice fenced off from his need by a double debt of honour, she a wife and he a husband. See the change, too, in his temper. A year ago he had not written of the cabin of his flagship as a " solitary cell;" a year ago he did not speak of himself at sea as having "no friends," but said that he was surrounded by a " band of brothers."

But now the thought of Emma was becoming entangled with all his actions, and even when watching for the French fleet he had to stop and draw up a codicil to his will—as he was to do on the last day of his life six years later. " I give and bequeath/ 1 he said in this first codicil, "to my dear friend, Emma Hamilton, wife of the Right Hon. Sir William Hamilton, a nearly round box set with diamonds, said to have been sent me by the mother of the Grand Signor, which I request she will accept (and never part from) as a token of regard and respect for her very eminent virtues (for she, the said Emma Hamilton, possesses them all to such a degree that it would be doing her injustice was any particular one to be mentioned) from her faithful and affectionate friend."

Nelson was disappointed of the French fleet. Rumour flew along the Italian coast telling many tales—the French were coming to Naples, to

AS "CASSANDRA"

GEORGE ROMNJiY

Alexandria, they had gone to Toulon, or had effected a junction with the Spanish ships. Nelson returned to Palermo at the end of May, and a few days later he was joined by Duckworth with welcome reinforcements, and he then shifted his flag from the hardly seaworthy old Vanguard to the Foudroyant —the very ship he was to have had when he re-entered the Mediterranean in the spring of 1798. News came that Lord St. Vincent, the commander-in-chief who understood him, intended to return home. " If you are sick," Nelson wrote him, " I will fag for you, and our dear Lady Hamilton will nurse you with the most affectionate attention."

The time, like all times of uncertainty, was