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

go forth to fight our battles, and the last to return ! ' And, then, all these honours reflect on you. . . . My heart is with you, cherish it. I shall, my best beloved, return—if it pleases God —a victor ; and it shall be my study to transmit an unsullied name."

There speaks a man who needed no woman's word to spur him to his duty! Though written in August, 1803, it almost exactly expressed Nelson's feeling in September, 1805. The only difference was a deeper tone, a sense of solemnity and fate shadowing his hopes. After saying his last farewell to Emma and Horatia—he spent his parting moments praying over the cot of his little sleeping daughter—he wrote in his letter-book on September the i3th—

" Friday night, at half-past ten, drove from dear, dear Merton, where I left all that I hold dear in this world, to go and serve my King and country. May the great God whom I adore enable me to fulfil the expectations of my country, and if it is His good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never cease being offered up to the throne of His mercy. If it is His good providence to cut short my days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission, relying that He will protect those so dear to me that I leave behind. His will be done. Amen. Amen. Amen."

Before he finally left the shores of England

344 NELSON'S LADY HAMILTON

and set sail for Trafalgar—then "a name by fame unchronicled "—he was followed by tearful notes from Emma; and wrote her encouragement and hope even while the shadow of parting lay heavy on his heart. Some of Emma's later letters he never lived to read ; her last little stories of Horatia fell unheeded into the void where he had gone.

"You will be even fonder of her when you return," wrote Emma, on the 8th of October. " She says, ' I love my dear, dear Godpapa, but Mrs. Gibson told me he killed all the people, and I was afraid. 1 Dearest angel she is! Oh! Nelson, how I love her, but how do I idolise you,—the dearest husband of my heart, you are all in this world to your Emma. May God send you victory, and home to your Emma, Horatia, and paradise Merton, for when you are there, it will be paradise. My own Nelson, may God preserve you."

There is a cry of foreboding fear in those words. But Nelson knew neither fear nor foreboding when the great occasion of his life faced him at last. He had a growing conviction, as the time drew on, that he would not live through the battle, but he had also a spirit " fraught with fire unquenchable." The momentous hours must be shared by Emma, so to her he wrote—

" My dearest beloved Emma, the dear friend of my bosom, the signal has been made that the

LADY HAMILTON

J. J. MASQUERIER

TO THE LAST BATTLE 345

Enemy's Combined Fleet are coming out of Port. We have very little wind, so that I have no hopes of seeing them before to-morrow. May the God of Battles crown my endeavours with success; at all events, I take care that my name ishall ever be most dear to you and Horatia, both jof whom I love as much as my own life. And las my last writing before the Battle will be to iyou, so I hope in God that I shall live to finish my letter after the Battle/'

This letter was found open on Nelson's desk

after he had fallen. His last thoughts before

She went into action were of Lady Hamilton: he

iwrote the famous Codicil to his Will, in which

he so confidently commended her to the care of

jhis King and country, and as her portrait was

'moved from his cabin in the general clearance

before a ship goes into action, he cried, " Take

care of my Guardian Angel! "

The great incidents of that battle off Cape

j Trafalgar are engraved imperishably in the

hearts of the English people.When the fatal

bullet from the Rcdoutabtts top had done its

jwork, when Nelson lay dying in theVictory's

dark cockpit, in death as in life he had but two

j thoughts—the two that were one in his heart,

! Emma and England.In the last hours of mortal

j anguish he spoke constantly of the woman he

had so devotedly loved. "Pray let my dear

Lady Hamilton have my hair, and all other

346 NELSON'S LADY HAMILTON

things belonging to me," was his first request after he had satisfied his anxiety as to the fortunes of the fight. When the surgeon told him that unhappily for his country his injuries were past aid, Nelson said, " I know it. I feel something rising in my breast which tells me I am gone." After a few minutes he murmured, "What would become of poor Lady Hamilton, if she knew of my situation?" When Hardy visited him for the second time, Nelson begged him to "take care of my dear Lady Hamilton, Hardy. Take care of poor Lady Hamilton." In a low but emphatic voice, he said to Dr. Scott, his chaplain, " Doctor, I have not been a great sinner;" and after a pause, "Remember, that I leave Lady Hamilton and my Daughter Horatia as a legacy to my Country; never forget Horatia." Then as speech grew more difficult, his last words expressed the ideal which had guided him