Nelson's Lady Hamilton by Meynell, Esther (cheapest way to read ebooks .txt) 📗

so finely different. " The hand of God," he wrote to his father, "was visibly pressed on the French : it was not in the power of man to gain such a Victory." Nelson had a child-like vanity which was the outward manifestation of a very superb and deep-rooted faith in himself, but till he came under the influence of Lady Hamilton his vanity —if vanity it can be called in such a man—was of a simple and engaging sort, never guilty of those outrages to taste and feeling of which Emma herself was so fatally capable. But Emma's lack of restraint and dignity was offset by her fine large nature and her endless capacity for toiling in the service of those she loved and honoured. Stern old St. Vincent had called her the " Patroness of the Navy," and it was a name she fully deserved. All who had fought with Nelson were entitled to her exertions and her enthusiastic admiration. Captain Ball wrote to her in the following year : " I find, that you fascinate all the navy as much at Palermo as you did at Naples. If we had many such advocates, every body would be a candidate for our profession." Indeed, till the time when Troubridge ventured to speak his mind about her behaviour with Nelson, there was hardly an officer or seaman in the British fleet who did not think her as kind as she was

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beautiful—with the exception of the lieutenant of a frigate which visited Naples when hunting for Nelson before the Battle of the Nile, and who said curtly, " I thought her a very handsome, vulgar woman."

But in spite of the rapture at Naples, the illuminations, the sonnets—Lady Hamilton tells him it would be necessary to " have taken a ship on purpose to send you all written on you "—the assurance that the Queen " shall be for ever unhappy if you do not come/' the knowledge that his apartment was prepared for him at the Palazzo Sessa, in spite of all these things Nelson was reluctant to return to Naples. Lady Hamilton's excitable account of the Queen's agitation simply moved him to say, " I only hope I shall not have to be witness to a renewal of it." In a letter written at sea to Lord St. Vincent, two days before he reached Naples, he said—

" I detest this voyage to Naples ; nothing but absolute necessity could force me to the measure. Syracuse in future, whilst my operations lie on the eastern side of Sicily, is my port, where every refreshment may be had for a fleet. . . . On the day Hoste left me I was taken with a fever, which has very near done my business: for eighteen hours my life was thought to be past hope ; I am now up but very weak, both in body and mind, from my cough and this fever."

He was little inclined for the extravagant

plaudits of Naples, and little tempted by Sir William Hamilton's invitation, though it was given in the kindest words. "Come here for God's sake, my dear friend," said the British Ambassador, warmly, "as soon as the service will permit you. A pleasant apartment is ready for you in my house, and Emma is looking out for the softest pillows to repose the few wearied limbs you have left."

But in forecast Nelson regarded the whole business with dread and a sort of shrinking—a dread that might almost be regarded as prophetic in view of later happenings.

On the 22nd of September, the battered Vanguard —the ship which had borne Nelson in his long chase of the French and been his flagship at the Nile—anchored in the Bay of Naples. A tremendous ovation was prepared for the returned and victorious admiral; flowers and music, and crowds of small boats dotting the Bay, while radiant sunshine transfigured everything and the thunder of saluting guns shook the tranquil air. The King in his yacht came out three leagues to meet and greet Nelson, while with him were the Hamiltons. Nelson described the meeting to his wife at home :—

" I must endeavour to convey to you something of what passed; but if it were so affecting to those who were only united to me by bonds of friendship, what must it be to my

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dearest wife, my friend, my everything which is most dear to me in the world ? Sir William and Lady Hamilton came out to sea, attended by numerous Boats, with emblems, etc. They, my most respectable friends, had really been laid up and seriously ill; first from anxiety, and then from joy. It was imprudently told Lady Hamilton in a moment, and the effect was like a shot; she fell apparently dead, and is not yet perfectly recovered from severe bruises. Alongside came my honoured friends: the scene in the boat was terribly affecting. Up flew her Ladyship, and exclaiming, * O God! Is it possible ?' she fell into my arm more dead than alive. Tears, however, soon set matters to rights ; when alongside came the King. The scene was in its way as interesting. He took me by the hand, calling me his ' Deliverer and Preserver,' with every other expression of kindness. In short, all Naples calls me ' Nostro Liberatore! My greetings from the lowest classes are truly affecting. I hope some day to have the pleasure of introducing you to Lady Hamilton; she is one of the very best women in this world, she is an honour to her sex. Her kindness, with Sir William's to me, is more than I can express. I am in their house, and I may tell you it required all the kindness of my friends to set me up. Lady Hamilton intends writing to