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

they should have come in. The Countess Mountmorris, Lady this, that, and t'other, came alongside, a Mr. Lubbock with them —to desire they might come in. I sent word, I was so busy that no persons could be admitted, as my time was employed in the King's service. Then they sent their names, which I cared not for; and sent Captain Gore, to say it is impossible ; and that if they wanted to see a ship, they had better go to the Overyssel (a sixty-four in the Downs). They said, no; they wanted to see me. However, I was stout, and will not be shown about like a beast! and away they went."

310 NELSON'S LADY HAMILTON

Nelson was strangely changed in some respects, though the excuse must be made for him that in the same letter he declared, " I am so dreadfully sea-sick, that I cannot hold up my head!" Also after the Boulogne expedition he was fretting for a sight of Emma, fretting because the promised visit which she and Sir William were to pay to Deal was delayed. " I came on board," he says, " but no Emma. I have 4 pictures, but I have lost the original." Again he tells her : "Our separation is terrible, my heart is ready to flow out of my eyes. I am not unwell, but I am very low. I can only account for it by my absence from all I hold dear in this world." About this time Emma appears to have expressed some nervous fears as to his personal safety. Nelson answered her with all his old fine spirit and love of duty :

" You ask me, my dear Friend, if I am going on more Expeditions ? And, even if I was to forfeit your friendship, which is dearer to me than all the world, I can tell you nothing. For, I go out; if I see the Enemy, and can get at them, it is my duty : and you would naturally hate me if I kept back one moment. I long to pay them, for their tricks t' other day, the debt of a drubbing, which, surely, I'll pay : but when, where, or how, it is impossible, your own good sense must tell you, for me or mortal man to say."

At this time he was very anxious about one of

LADY HAMILTON

GEORGE ROMNEY

TO THE LAST BATTLE 311

his young officers, Commander Edward Parker, who was specially dear to him, and who had been seriously—and as it later proved, fatally—wounded in the unsuccessful boat attack on Boulogne. In September, Sir William and Lady Hamilton came to Deal for a fortnight, and during this time Nelson and Emma were constantly at the bedside of poor young Parker, of whom Nelson said characteristically, " He is my child, for I found him in distress." Parker rallied for a time, but on the 2Oth of September he became rapidly worse, and on the same day Lady Hamilton had returned to London. These two events weighed heavily on Nelson's spirits. " I came on board, but no Emma," he told her. " No, no, my heart will break. I am in silent distraction. . . . My dearest wife, how can I bear our separation ? Good God, what a change! I am so low that I cannot hold up my head." A few days later Parker died. " It was, they tell me," said Nelson, " a happy release; but I cannot bring myself to say I am glad he is gone; it would be a lie, for I am grieved almost to death."

Nelson was himself very much out of health, and angry at being kept so long at his cold and unsatisfactory post, away from the comforts of home and the presence of Emma. He refused to believe that Lord St. Vincent and Sir Thomas Troubridge (who was then at the Admiralty) kept him at sea for public reasons; he thought,

in the distemper of his mind, that it was t< prevent his being with Lady Hamilton.Againsl his old friend and comrade-in-arms, Troubridge, he was particularly bitter; perhaps because Troubridge, with characteristic courage and honesty, had ventured to protest earlier against Lad 1 Hamilton's undue influence. To Emma he wrote, at the beginning of October: " Troubridge has so completely prevented my mentioning any body's service, that I am become a cypher, and he has gained a victory over Nelson's spirit.Captain Somerville, has been begging me to intercede with the Admiralty again; but I have been so rebuffed, that my spirits are gone, and the great Troubridge has what we call cowed the spirits of Nelson; but I shall never forget it." Even Troubridge's kind suggestions were twisted into scorn. " I have a letter from Troubridge, recommending me to wear flannel shirts.Does he care for me ?No ; but never mind."Again, " Troubridge writes me, that as the weather is set in fine again, he hopes I shall get walks on shore.He is, I suppose, laughing at me; but, never mind."

Thus Nelson, like " poor Brutus—with himself at war, forgot the shows of love to other

men."

But after the preliminaries to the Peace of Amiens were signed there was no longer any reason, real or imaginary, why Nelson should not

TO THE LAST BATTLE 313

return to his friends. "Only two days more," he writes