by Susan Nagel
John Morier also kept diaries but recorded a less positive view of Lord Elgin. In his diaries, Morier wrote that Elgin was cold to people and had no intention of paying them, even though he had said that he would. According to Morier, once on board the ship, Elgin apprised his staff that they would all have to pay their own expenses until his term of ambassador was over—whenever that would be. The young chaplain, Reverend Hunt, came aboard with only pocket change and urgently wrote home for money. This started Elgin off on the wrong foot with his men. Mary admitted in her letters that if anyone mentioned money to her husband, he became irascible. Rather than subjecting herself to scenes and temper tantrums, she made a mental note that once they were in Constantinople, she would take over the accounting.
Mary couldn’t wait to dock in Lisbon. They arrived on September 13, but from the moment she set foot onshore, where she mailed her first letter home, she hated it and was very blunt: “the filth and stink of this place you can form no idea of … they fling everything out of the windows … you can have no notion of anything so beastly.” With her usual penchant for nicknames for those who are dear to her, she had rechristened her husband “Eggy” and referred to herself as “Poll.” She was desperately homesick. “Today I calculate Lady Robert and Bluey will arrive at Archerfield. I have thought of that all day … Oh Mam, that I had a little of your butter and cream and bread.”
Lisbon disgusted her despite her pretty view of the Tagus River. She was terrified of the local dogs because they were trained to eat trash—including discarded meat—and she thought her pets would get mauled. She, however, went ashore, as she felt it requisite to visit the local sites of interest like churches, the aqueduct with a notable echo under its central arch, and amphitheaters. She also felt it her duty to attend church services on Sunday morning, carefully recording the biblical narrative preached by Mr. Hunt, the group’s chaplain. A bride herself, she reported home with delight that Captain Morris was asked to permit a wedding on board for “a beauty” and her German lover and that Mr. Hunt was to perform the ceremony.
The Nisbets, Aunt Mary, her grandmother Lady Robert, Aunt Bluey, and her friends were all a thousand miles away. She hungered for news from home and sought out newspapers to find out bits about British maneuvers. In a private section addressed to her mother, she tried to assure her that despite her isolation,
nobody can be happier than I am, for nothing can equal his [Elgin’s] attention and anxiety for me and his wretchedness when he sees me suffering; and to hear him speak of you and my Father the way he does, is indeed comfortable. Before we left Portsmouth, we both went down upon our knees and prayed for our dear parents, Mam.
She pondered their departure: what would be worse, getting stuck in Lisbon or seasickness? Their ship was detained, “the only morning since we have been here that the ship could not get out,” because they needed to “have an American Vessel going with us to Gibraltar, where it is going on a cruze, so if we are attacked by the Gun Boats, I shall be deposited in the American.” Once under way, she complained that her head was swimming like the scum (“the Bratt”) under the Tron Bridge in Edinburgh.
Their next stop, Gibraltar, was far more pleasant. In Gibraltar, Mary met the dashing governor general, the legendary ladies’ man and highly esteemed soldier Charles O’Hara. O’Hara had earned his reputation for gallantry at the Battle of Yorktown when, handling the British surrender for an embittered Cornwallis, he, instead of his leader, dined with George Washington. O’Hara broke many women’s hearts, most notably the Bluestocking and Horace Walpole protégée Mary Berry, who mourned him for some fifty years after his death. Berry, an excellent travel writer, was second cousin to Elgin’s neighbor Robert Ferguson, the man who would reenter Elgin’s life and change it forever.
Mary, too, was smitten with the general. “If he were forty years yonger what a scrape Eggy would be in.” In her opinion O’Hara would be “just the very thing for my Father, amazingly entertaining, famous stories not over correct but quite charming.”
At O’Hara’s home in Gibraltar, Mary had her first exposure to what life would be like as the wife of an important international figure. “We are treated in a most magnificent manner, for before we came on shore, Admiral Duckworth and all his Officers came and paid us a visit, and when we arrived here we were saluted, 17 Guns fired by the Guards at their posts saluting … it really almost makes up for my past hardships.” She was invited to tour, with an entourage, St. Michael’s Cave, which “is to be lighted up for me, a great compliment from the Governor, he hardly ever allows it to be lighted, it is such a great expense to the Government…. You would laugh could you see the grandeur I am treated with by everybody—they are A’Bowing!” Her international reputation, launched at the constant dinner parties and balls, was cemented: “I was the object of admiration.”
They left Gibraltar on September 25 and headed for Sicily, having passed the Barbary Coast, which Mary thought “exceedingly beautiful.” The “Mediterranean is much wider than people in England, I think, talk of; for Captain Morris intended to have taken us from Gibraltar to Palermo without our being able to see a bit of land.” Sounding cheerful, she was, however, sick much of the time and admitted that she still did “detest a ship as much as ever.” For the most part, she remained in her “cabin” where Masterman frequently bathed her face in vinegar. No one on board the Phaeton knew that at the same time they were heading east toward Palermo, Napoleon was on an escape route from North Africa and passed by within a few miles.
Chapter 4
A BATTLE OF BEAUTIES
Once in Sicily, Mary’s letters sent home delicious gossip about British naval hero Horatio Nelson, his mistress, Emma Hamilton, and her cuckolded husband, Sir William Hamilton. Her lampoon would spread news all around London about Nelson’s pretentious behavior:
How I shall make up to the Duke de Bronte when I arrive at Palermo. Now I will lay a bet you do not know who that is—Why no other than Lord Nelson! I saw an Officer at Gibraltar who assured me he had seen a letter signed by Lord Nelson “de Bronte & Nelson,” in which letter he told his friend this was his title and £3000 a year with it. I was told the King of Naples had also given him a sword worth £3000 set with diamonds, which was left by Charles the V to the King of Naples, on condition that if ever Naples should be wrested from that family, the sword should be given to the person who reconquered it and delivered it up again to them. The King of Naples said the Duke de Bronte WS certainly the person for whom it was intended. Is this not very fine?
On the second of October, Mary encountered the beautiful Lady Hamilton, Nelson’s married mistress, for the first time. Although both women enjoyed the status of ambassadors’ wives, their backgrounds were worlds apart. Emma Hamilton, born Amy Lyon, the daughter of a blacksmith, was thirteen years almost to the day older than Mary Nisbet. Amy had been a maid, an artist’s model, and paid companion to many men. The painter George Romney, obsessed with Emma, immortalized her in seductive poses.
In the 1780s, “Emma,” as she had restyled herself, lived with her mother in a small house in London where she was kept by Charles Greville. In 1785, Greville, suffering financial losses, offered his mistress to his elderly uncle, a recent widower. Sir William Hamilton was in his sixties and Emma was barely twenty when she joined him in Naples. Greville thought that Emma would delight the already besotted old man but that Emma’s unsuitability as a wife would ensure his status as heir to his uncle’s fortune. Much to his—and everybody else’s—surprise, Sir William married her.
Emma was most definitely a woman and not a lady. Tongue firmly planted in cheek, Mary referred to Emma Hamilton as “her Ladyship.” Lady Hamilton sent a servant to the Phaeton with a message for the young Elgins stating that she would have paid them a visit but the king (of Naples) was expecting her that evening. She intended to stop by the next morning on her way to the country, where she was supposed to be for four or five days. Coming as it did from the wife of Lord Hamilton, the British amba
ssador, this message was in flagrant disregard for protocol and completely unacceptable to Mary who, now fully aware of the kind of tribute due her as the wife of an important British ambassador, wrote with sarcasm, “A remarkable civil message, is it not?” She handled the situation by refusing to see “her Ladyship” on the ship, “as I said I was going on shore tonight.” As no good Christian girl would stay in a home where adultery was ongoing, she “resolved not to take up by abode at Sir William Hamilton’s.”
Mary sprinkled her letters with spicy anecdotes illustrating Emma’s lack of gentility.
[This] has just happened to Captain Morris. He has been on shore to speak to Lord Nelson; he went to Sir William Hamilton’s house and a little old Woman with a white bed gown and black petticoat came out and said “What do you want Sir?” “Lord Nelson, M’am.” (Old Woman) “and what do you want to say to Lord Nelson?” Captain, laughing. “Oh M’am you must excuse me telling you that.” Upon this a servant said to him, “Sir I fancy you don’t know that is Lady Hamilton’s Mother.” The Captain was surprized and said, “What! Does she act as Housekeeper?” “Why yes Sir, I believe she does sometimes.”
On October 3, Mary and Elgin went onshore, and to honor her public duties, they attended a dinner party at the Hamiltons’. “I had the satisfaction of seeing her Ladyship, and what is still more, heard her sing.” Emma was “vulgar” but “makes up amazingly, [she appeared] quite in undress;—my Father would say; ‘There is a fine Woman for you, good flesh and blood.’ She is indeed a Whapper! … It is really humiliating to see Lord Nelson, he seems quite dying and yet as if he had no other thought than her.” The sexual term “whapper” was intended to make her father chuckle.
Lord Hamilton and Lord Elgin got along very well and found their love of antiques and art a common bond. Elgin discussed his plan to hire artists to sketch and make molds on the classical sites in Greece. They both agreed that the well-known Italian artist Giovanni Battista Lusieri would do a fine job. Mary wrote home that Sir William heartily approved of Elgin’s plan to bring sketches and copies back to England for the use of art students and the museumgoing public. In fact, Hamilton used his influence to get a release from the king of Naples for Lusieri, who was an official court painter, to accompany Elgin for just such a project.
The financial arrangement was £200 per year and all work would remain the sole property of Lord Elgin. Lusieri agreed to remain in Greece for the duration of Elgin’s term as ambassador, but their collaboration would last twenty years, far beyond their stay in the Middle East. Elgin was thrilled that his artist came so much cheaper than anyone in England. Napoleon’s campaigns had left much of Europe in upheaval, which affected the art world as well. At the beginning, Lusieri was retained only to sketch and make molds, and it was clear that at that time, Elgin had no thought about removing any sculptures. It was, in fact, Napoleon, and not Elgin, who waged a war on antiquities. From Italy to Rosetta and beyond, wherever Napoleon marched, he stripped museums, archaeological sites, and private collections, sending great treasures home.
Although both Mary and Elgin had great respect for Lord Hamilton’s own accomplishments as an art connoisseur, the fact that Lady Hamilton openly committed adultery with Lord Nelson and later, in 1802, gave birth to Nelson’s daughter, Horatia, made Sir William somewhat sad in both their opinions. Hamilton, the cuckold, routinely and bravely faced the public despite his wife’s flagrant behavior.
Mary, too, observed that in this triangle Emma was the puppeteer. When Captain Morris went to the Hamiltons’ before the dinner party to deliver some dispatches to Lord Nelson, according to Mary, Nelson “read them and then called Lady Hamilton out of the room. They had a conference, and when she came back, she said, ‘Sir William we shall not go to the country today, you must dress yourself and go to Court after breakfast.’ Poor Sir William asked, ‘Why?’ ‘Oh I will tell you presently.’ Is it not a pity a man who had gained so much credit should fling himself away in this shameful manner?” Emma coerced Nelson to “do many very foolish things,” and Mary disapproved of “the absurdity of his conduct.” Emma took complete advantage of her seat of power, demanding tribute. Whoever wished to procure Lord Nelson’s favor must first kowtow to “her ladyship.” “The Queen whenever she has any point to carry [to Lord Nelson], sends Lady H. some diamonds. I am told positively she has given her to the amount of £15,000 worth; the quantity of jewells here is quite astonishing.”
Lord Elgin, in his own letters home to his mother, the Dowager Countess, added the finishing touches to Mary’s unflattering and pathetic portrait of England’s great admiral. “He looks very old, has lost his upper teeth, sees ill of one eye, and has a film coming over both of them.”
During the dinner at Lord Hamilton’s, Lady Hamilton informed Mary that Maria Carolina, the queen of Naples (daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and sister of Marie Antoinette), was so eager to meet Lady Elgin that she didn’t care what state of dress Mary was in. The queen wanted to meet her that very evening, and since Mary “did not chuse to spend all my time with Lady H,” she was happy to oblige. The evening was pleasant, they “were the only people there,” and the queen “flattered us beyond all credibility” and “made such thorough dupes of as Lady Hamilton, Sir William, and Lord Nelson.”
Emma Hamilton did not like female competition, and she waged a battle of the beauties that provoked Mary’s pen. Included in the grand gala day as a special guest of the queen, Mary wrote to her family that she dressed herself “in my blue and silver gown to which I have added my silver hops, all my diamonds, and at a quarter past 7, away we dash to a ball.” Her illustration of the day’s events reveals Lady Hamilton’s very naughty behavior. It started pleasantly enough: “The moment the Queen saw us land, she sent Sir William Hamilton to hand me up to the private stand. This was a very particular mark of favor for all the Neapolitan Grandees were left below.”
Lady H. Told me the evening before, that she should go quite in a common morning dress and that nobody would think of dressing till afterwards, instead of which when I arrived I found her in a fine gold and coloured silk worked gown and diamonds; the Queen and Princesses in fine dresses with pearls and diamonds. I apologized to the Queen, who would not allow me to speak of it, and brought the King up to me, to insist upon it that I would not think of going home and changing my dress for the ball. However, that I was most determined upon. I find it is a constant trick of Lady H. To make everybody she can, go undressed…. I am told the Queen laughs very much at her to all her Neapolitans, but says her influence with Lord N. Makes it worth her while making up to her.
The festivities more than made up for Mary’s irritation. “I never in England saw so fine a shew as the supper, it was out in a garden and everything completely Chinese … they say the fete cost £6000; the whole garden lit with colored lamps, one of the avenues I dare say at least a mile long, quite full of lamps, it really outdid the Arabian Nights.” She wanted to share it all with her mother. “How I longed for you,” she declared.
In Mary’s fifth letter home, dated October 6, 1799, from Palermo, she apologized for the haste with which she wrote the last note; she had wanted to be sure that it went out “by the first conveyance.” Wise beyond her years, Mary understood that great men do small things, and she suspected that Lord Nelson might open her mail. She worried that although he was adored in Palermo—and admired around the world—should he open her letter, he would learn that Mary, Countess of Elgin, remained unimpressed.
Chapter 5
LETTERS: A LIFELINE
Before Mary and Elgin embarked for Constantinople, Mary consulted the letters of another British lady who, some ninety years before when her husband served as England’s ambassador to Turkey, had written the illuminating Turkish Embassy Letters. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s letters, written to friends and family, were published posthumously in 1763 and provided entertaining preparation for the young Lady Elgin. Montagu was much older than Mary when she lived in Constantinople and tr
aveled by land to get there. She was also in constant fear and believed that she was going to die during the entire trip. In contrast to Lady Wortley Montagu, Mary was more excited about her adventure, both as a tourist and as a new wife, and was eager to please her bridegroom. Both women actually did face mortal danger in undertaking the voyage—but in Mary’s case the constant threat from Napoleon’s forces significantly added to the intrigue.
Both ladies have left a legacy of letters that provide a glimpse into each woman’s personality as well as a rare look into the world of the Ottoman Empire from the vantage point of the ambassador’s wife. Each woman most definitely understood the importance of her correspondence not only as a revelatory instrument of the self, but also as an important tool of communicating historical events for posterity. Lady Elgin experienced firsthand exposure to the exotic world that Lady Montagu only dreamed about. In her letters, Lady Wortley Montagu imagined what life in a harem might be like, while Lady Elgin would actually visit the harem and witness its rituals firsthand.
In the eighteenth century, letter writing was an art with its own set of accepted rules. Entire families would read the letter. The letter would be passed to friends in order to relay news. Any personal information would be written on a separate insert to be removed by its intended party for no one else’s eyes. Writers had to reveal their personalities, entertain, display intelligence, and offer information to create well-written letters. A person was not considered well reared if she couldn’t write a letter with skill. This was a requirement especially important to young ladies because it was often the woman’s role to communicate for the family—as the husband would be preoccupied with business. Mary knew that her job was to inform and entertain and often apologized in advance for “haste” or “a dismal ditty.” She was consummately aware of others judging her, and she revealed a great deal of self-consciousness with remarks like “I am going to write down a description of everything exactly as it happened,” “But I have left out the prettiest part of my story,” and “But I am entering too much into particulars and then my little book will lose its charm.” She marked “Private” on some letters and warned her mother-in-law,