he most unexpectedly succeeded in 1791, was the son
of a physician, Catholic and Jacobite, settled at Besan-
c,on. He was born in 1736, and may have first entered
the French Navy, which he quitted probably as a cadet
1 Prince Ettore Carafa.
no EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
in search of advancement, and not because of the
vague discredits afterwards imputed by the Jacobins.
The British Navy he could scarcely have contemplated,
because in the days of the Georges Catholicism and
Jacobitism were grave impediments to success. At
the age of thirty-nine he entered the naval service of
Carolina's brother, the Grand Duke Leopold of
Tuscany, and attracted Caramanico's notice by his
bravery as Captain on a Spanish expedition against
the Moors. Summoned by a stroke of luck to control
a realm at once ambitious and sluggish, he infused
English energy at every step. A martinet by train-
ing and disposition, shrewd, worldly, calculating, yet
sturdy, and for Naples, where gold always reigned,
inflexibly honest, he was well capable of defying and
brow-beating the supple Neapolitan nobility who de-
tested his introduction. A smooth-tongued adven-
turer, though good looks were not on his side, he
speedily won the favour of a Queen inclined to make
tools of favourites, and favourites of tools; but he
soon convinced her also that a mere tool he could never
remain. He was naturally pro-British, and Britain
was already a Mediterranean power : Acton recom-
mended the country of his origin to the Queen's notice
in the veriest trifles. It was not many years before
Maria Carolina was driving in the English curricle
which Hamilton had provided for her. Little else
than a stroke of destiny, under the conjunctures of the
near future, brought the new foreigner into close al-
liance with Sir William Hamilton, whose patriotism in
the very year when he was lolling with Sir Horace
Mann at Portici had expressed itself in a fervent wish
to see France " well drubbed," and a fury at the non-support of Rodney by Government. The different natures of the two perhaps cemented their friend-
ship. Hamilton for all his natural indolence could
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON in
rise to emergency ; Acton, on the contrary, was all com-
promise and caution a sort of Robert Walpole in
little, with " steady " for his motto. Hamilton was good-tempered to a fault: Emma wrote of him after
her marriage that he preferred " good temper to
beauty." In Acton lay a strong spice of the bully,
and he could be very unjust if his authority was im-
pugned. He was a born bureaucrat, and it was his
love of bureaucracy, as will appear, that ruined the
Queen.
Acton's only marriage occurred in his old age with
his young niece, by papal dispensation in 1805, as Pet-
tigrew has recorded. His brother Joseph's descend-
ants are still at Naples. But none of his family play
any part in the drama before us. Starting as an Ad-
miral of the Neapolitan Fleet, he soon became Min-
ister both of Marine and War. Caracciolo the elder's
opportune transference to diplomacy in Paris and Lon-
don, which Acton's future libellers accused him of
contriving, as afterwards even of causing his death,
installed him as Minister of Finance. He at once ad-
vised the institution of thirteen Commissioners who
could all be censured in event of failure; "divide et impera" was his principle; and at first his resource proved successful. He was soon made also a Lieutenant-General ; while some ten years later, in his heyday, he was appointed Captain-General, and at last a full-blown Field-Marshal. But long before, he blossomed
into power with the Queen, whose anti-Spanish policy
chimed with his own, and whose abhorrence of the
pro-Spanish functionaries around her required a
champion in council. This created two camps in the
court, for up to 1796 the King was pro-Spanish to
the core. But the Queen was already predominant,
and it was soon bruited that the Latin " hie, hac, hoc "
meant Acton, the Queen, and the King thus derided
112
as neuter ; indeed some added that Acton was " hie, hose, hoc " in one. In a brief space Acton had con-solidated a powerful fleet which in 1793 he was able
to despatch in aid of the English at Toulon and a
formidable army. The French events of 1789 ren-
dered him all the more indispensable to Maria Caro-
lina, whose ears were terrified by the first rumblings
of an earthquake so soon to engulf her sister's fam-
ily. The Bastille was taken, the Assembly held, and
fawning false-loyalty loomed fully as dangerous as up-
roarious Jacobinism. In the same year America estab-
lished her " Constitution." Already the aunts of Louis XVI., the two old " demoiselles de France,"
were on the verge of abandoning Paris for Rome;
already the charged air tingled with 'Liberty, Equal-
ity, Fraternity; already Carolina, masking hysterical
restiveness by imperious composure, was debating if
armed help were possible from Austria as well as
from Naples. But the irritated barons were unwar-
like, the King cared little, the lawyers still depended on his favour, the intelligent middle-class was beginning
to welcome the Gallic doctrines. Austria, too, was by
no means ready. And yet in Carolina's ears the hour
of doom was already striking. She longed for an
untemporising deliverer, a self-sacrificing friend, a
leader of men and movements; and as she longed and
champed in vain, she could only wait and hope and
prepare. Her anxiety was not that of a normal
woman. Calm in mind, in love and hate her ardour
ran to extremes. Though she owned a far better head
than her unhappy sister, her heart, outside her home
and in spite of her passions, was far colder. She was
truly devoted to her children, she was fond of romp-
ing even with the children of strangers ; and yet when
her sons-in-law grew lukewarm in aiding her, she
could rage against her daughters. Jealousy of her
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 113
ogling and dangling consort was often a prime mo-
tive for her actions; and yet she had often been
fern me galante, and was ever bent on mystery and
intrigue. She harped on duty, but her notions of
duty rested on maintaining the royal birthright of
her house. Masterful as her mother, light-living as
her eldest brother, she was neither hard nor frivolous.
She could be both ice and fire. Her strange tem-
perament combined the poles with the equator.
The year 1789 proved critical for Emma also. It
brought to Naples, among other illustrious visitors,
the good and gracious Duchess of Argyll, formerly
Duchess of Hamilton, who, as the beautiful Miss Gun-
ning, had years before taken England, and indeed
Europe, by storm. She had come southward for her
health. Her first marriage had related her to Sir
William, and n
o sooner had she set eyes on Emma than
she not only countenanced her in public but conceived
for her the most admiring and intimate friendship.
Hitherto the English ladies had been coldly civil, but
under the lead of the Duchess they now began to fol-
low the Italian vogue of sounding her praises. Emma
became the fashion. It was already whispered that
she was secretly married to the Ambassador, and had
she been his wife she could scarcely have been more
heartily, though she would have been more openly, ac-
cepted. Her request that she might accompany Sir
William, the King, and Acton on one of their long
and rough sporting journeys had been gladly granted.
She had attended her deputy-husband on his equally
rough antiquarian ramble through Puglia, made in
the spring of 1789. " She is so good," he informed Greville, " there is no refusing her." By the spring of 1790 not only the Duchess but the whole Argyll family lavished kindness on the extraordinary girl whom
U4 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
they must have respected. The new Spanish ambas-
sador's wife also had become her intimate friend.
Madame Le Brun, too, repaired in the wake of the
French troubles to Naples, and was besieged for por-
traits. Madame Skavonska, the Russian ambassador's
handsome wife, so empty-headed that she squandered
her time in vacancy on a sofa, was her first sitter.
Emma, brought by the eager Hamilton, was the sec-
ond, and during her sittings she was accompanied by
the Prince of Monaco and the Duchess of Fleury.
Madame Le Brun, herself by no means devoid both
of jealousy and snobbishness, raved of her beauty,
but formed no opinion of her brain, while she found
her " supercilious." This is curious, for by common consent Emma gave herself no airs; she conciliated
all. But though never a parvenue in her affections,
she could often behave as such in her dislikes; and
her self-assertiveness could always combat jealous or
freezing condescension. Her improvement both in
knowledge and behaviour had from other accounts
enhanced her accomplishments. No breath of scan-
dal had touched her; she was Hamilton's unwedded
wife, and her looks had kept even pace with her for-
ward path in many directions: she was fairer than
ever and far less vain. The Queen herself already
pointed to her as an example for the court, to which,
however, Emma could not gain formal admittance until
the marriage which she had predicted in 1786 had been
duly solemnised. For that desired climax everything
now paved the way. Each night in the season she re-
ceived fifty of the elite at the Embassy, till in Janu-
ary, 1791, her success was crowned by a concert and
reception of unusual splendour. The stars of San
Carlo performed. The court ladies vied with each
other in jewels and attire. The first English, as well
as the first Neapolitans, thronged every room; there
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 115
were some four hundred guests. Emma herself was
conspicuously simple. Amid the blaze of gems and
colours she shone in white satin, set off by the natural hues only of her hair and complexion.
And yet she was not elated. Her one study, her
single aim, she wrote to Greville, were to render Sir
William, on whom she " doated," happy. She would be the " horridest wretch " else. They had already passed nearly five years together, " with all the do-mestick happiness that's possible."
Was there any rift within the lute? If so, it lay in
Greville's attitude. He opened his eyes and sighed
as he read of Emma's virtuous glory; and he opened
them still wider when she assured him of her " esteem "
for " having been the means of me knowing him," and added " next year you may pay ous a visit." That Sir William should marry her quite passed the bounds
of his philosophy; there would be an eclat, and eclats
he detested ; his uncle would make himself ridiculous.
It seems likely, from an allusion in a letter from Ham-
ilton of a full year earlier, that the nephew had al-
ready thrown out hints of suitable provision should
chance or necessity ever separate the couple. Sir Will-
iam, however, had been deaf to such suggestions, al-
though, " thinking aloud," he did mention 150 a year to Emma, and 50 to her mother, " who is a very worthy woman." Such contingencies, however, could
not apply to their present " footing," for " her conduct was such as to gain her universal esteem." The only chance for such a scheme hinged on her per-tinacity in pressing him to marry her. " I fear," he continued, " that her views are beyond what I can
bring myself to execute, and that when her hopes on
this point are over, she will make herself and me un-
happy." But he recoiled from the thought; despite
the difference in their ages and antecedents, " hitherto ii6 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
her conduct is irreproachable, but her temper, as you
must know, unequal."
And now all these obstacles had melted under the
enchanter's wand, it would seem, of the charming
Duchess, who may well have urged him to defy con-
vention and make Emma his wife. Sir William's
fears were not for Naples, nor wholly for Greville,
who might laugh if he chose. They were rather for
the way in which his foster-brother, King George, and
his Draco-Queen, might receive such news, and how
they might eventually manifest their displeasure; the
Ambassador, however much and often he was wont
to bewail his fate, had no notion of retiring to absurd
obscurity. But these objections also seem to have
been equally dispersed by the fairy godmother of a
Duchess who was bent on raising Cinderella to the
throne; and although Queen Charlotte eventually re-
fused to receive Lady Hamilton, yet Sir William's
imminent return was in fact signalised by the honour
of a privy councillorship. Long afterwards, he as-
sured Greville that his treatment when he was eventu-
ally replaced, and subsequently when he was denied
reimbursement for his losses and his services (both
to go fully as unrewarded as his wife's), was not
due to the king but to his ministers. Moreover, his
two old Eton School friends, Banks and the ubiquitous
Lord Bristol, Bishop of Derry, had signified their ap-
proval. The latter in his peregrinations had already
worshipped at Emma's Neapolitan shrine a devotee at
once generous and money-grubbing, cynical and in-
genuous, constant and capricious, who (in Lady Ham-
ilton's words) " dashed at everything," and who was so eccentric as to roam Caserta in a gay silk robe
and a white hat. This original a miniature mix-
ture of Peterborough, Hume, and, one might add,
Thackeray's Charles Honeyman had braced Hamil-
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 117
ton's resolution by telling him it was " fortitude " and a " manly part " to brave a stupid world and secure Emma's happiness and his own. Sir William, whose
inclination struggled with Greville's prudence, could
not gainsay his friends who echoed
the wishes of his
heart. And all this must have been furthered by the
Duchess of Argyll.
No wonder that her sad death at the close of 1790,
far away from the climate which had proved power-
less to save her, desolated Emma. " I never," she assured Greville, who already knew of their home-
coming in the spring, " I never had such a f reind as her, and that you will know when I see you, and recount ... all the acts of kindness she shew'd to me :
for they where too good and numerous to describe in a
letter. Think then to a heart of gratitude and sensi-
bility what it must suffer. Ma passienza: io ho
molto."
The marriage project was first to visit Rome, where
they would meet the Queen, about to be reconciled to
the Pope, on her homeward journey from Vienna.
Then to repair to Florence, where they could take a
short leave both of her and the King; and thence to
Venice, where they were to encounter, besides many
English, the cream of the flying French noblesse, in-
cluding the Counts of Artois and Vaudreuil, the Poli-
gnacs, and Calonne. Before May was over they would
be in London, and there, if things went smoothly, the
wedding should take place. Emma's heart must have
throbbed when she reflected on the stray hazards that
might still wreck that happiness for which she had
long pined, and overthrow the full cup just as it
neared her lips.
Greville was unaware of the dead secret, but he im-
plored Emma not to live in London as she had done in
Naples; he pressed the propriety of separate establish-
u8
ments. Emma laughed him to scorn. The friend of
the late Duchess and her friends could afford to flout
insular opinion. But she laughed too soon: had she
been wiser she might possibly have propitiated the
Queen of England by discretion. It further happened
that Greville's official friend and Emma's old ac-
quaintance, Heneage Legge, met and spied on the
happy pair at Naples, just before he and they left for
Rome; he promptly reported progress to Greville, who
had plainly asked for enlightenment. The unsuspect-
ing Hamilton called on Legge immediately to proffer
him every friendly service. Mrs. Legge was in del-
icate health, and Emma, too, kindly offered to act
as her companion, or even nurse. Legge was embar-
rassed; his wife civilly declined Emma's attentions,
Full text of Memoirs of Emma, lady Hamilton, the friend of Lord Nelson and the court of Naples; Page 13