EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 153
Nelson, anchored off Capri, remained on the Van-
guard, contains this sentence : " I will not say how glad I shall be to see you. Indeed I cannot describe to you
my feelings on your being so near us." A woman
could not so express herself to a man unseen for five
years unless the twelve days or so spent in his com-
pany had produced a deep effect. Every concern of
his already enlisted her eagerness. His stepson,
Josiah, then a young midshipman, was driven about by
her and caressed. She laughingly called him her
cavaliere servente. As yet it was only attraction, not
love for Nelson. This very third anniversary of her
wedding day had enabled her proudly to record that
her husband and she were more inseparable than ever,
and that he had never for one moment regretted the
step of their union. But she did fall in love with the
quickening force that Nelson represented. Infused by
the ardour of her Queen, proud of the destiny of Eng-
land as European deliverer, urged by her native am-
bition to shine on a bigger scale, she reflected every
hue of the crisis and its leaders. If his hour struck,
hers might strike also. He, she, and Sir William had
for this short span already realised what the legend
round Sir William's Order of the Bath signified,
" Tria juncta in uno " three persons linked together by one tie of differing affections.
The sole mentions of Emma by Nelson at this time
are in a letter to his brother, and another to his wife, already noticed. But that her influence had already
begun to work is proved by the fact that he carefully
preserved the whole series of her letters of the summer
and autumn of 1798. Three days only after he had
started for Leghorn, he wrote as follows : " In my
hurry of sailing I find I have brought away a butter-
pan. Don't call me an ungrateful guest for it, for I
assure you I have the highest sense of your and Lady
154 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
Hamilton's kindness, and shall rejoice in the oppor-
tunity of returning it. ... The sending off the prints
adds to the kindness I have already received from
you and Lady Hamilton." And when at the close of
August in the next year he stayed at Leghorn once
more, he assured Sir William how glad he would have
been to have visited them again, " had the state of the Agamemnon allowed of it," but " her ship's crew are so totally worn out, that we were glad to get into the
first port, . . . therefore for the present I am de-
prived of that pleasure."
When Nelson was not dining at court or concerting
operations with the Ministers,, he was at the Embassy
or Caserta, meeting the English visitors, who included
the delicate Charles Beauclerk, whom the artistic Lady
Diana had commended to Emma's (harge. All was
joy, excitement, preparation. " I believe," wrote Nelson, " that the world is now convinced that no con-
quests of importance can be made without us." Nel-
son had aroused Naples from a long siesta, and hence-
forward Emma sings " God save the King " and calls for " Hip, hip, hurrah ! " which she teaches the Queen, at every Neapolitan banquet. Naples is no more a
hunting-ground for health or pleasure, but a focus of
deliverance. It is as though in our own days the
Riviera should suddenly wake up as a centre of patri-
otism and a rallying-ground for action. Within a few
years Maria Carolina could write to Emma of singing
the national anthem, and in the year of the Nile battle, of the " brave, loyal nation," and of the " magnanimous " English, whom she loves and for whose
glory she has vowed to act. As for Nelson, he was
in that year to be called her deliverer, her preserver,
and her " hero."
On September 24th Nelson purposed a slight mark
of gratitude for the hospitality and the substantial
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 155
reinforcements so liberally proffered. The Agamem-
non was all flowers and festivity. He had invited the
King, the Queen, the Hamiltons, Acton, and the Min-
isters to luncheon. The guests were awaiting the ar-
rival of the court under a cloudless sky amid the flutter of gay bunting and all the careless chatter of southern
mirth. Suddenly a despatch was handed to the cap-
tain. He was summoned to weigh anchor and pursue
a French man-of-war with three vessels stationed off
Sardinia. Not an instant was lost. The guests dis-
persed in excitement. When Ferdinand arrived in
his barge, it was to find the company vanished, the
decks cleared, and the captain buried in work. Within
two hours Nelson had set sail for Leghorn, which he
had immediately to quit for Toulon. Calvi and its
further triumph awaited him afterwards.
But over the bright horizon was fast gathering a
cloud no bigger than a man's hand. By the end of
the year the Queen was again in the depths. Her
sister had been executed with infamy. Buonaparte
whom Nelson heard described at Leghorn as an " ugly, unshaven little officer " had shot into pre-eminence and had worked his wonders; Toulon was evacuated.
At home fresh conspiracies were discovered, this time
among the nobles. The best names were implicated.
The Dukes of Canzano, Colonna, and Cassano, the
Counts of Ruvo and Riario, Prince Caracciolo the
elder were arrested. The whole political landscape
was overcast. Next year was to be one of " public
mourning and prayer," of plague, famine, and
pestilence. The ragged remnant of the squadron, for-
warded with such royal elation to Toulon, returned in
shame for shelter; and with it the ship of Trogoff,
whom the French had branded as traitor. Two hun-
dred victims had been slaughtered, four hundred lan-
guished in French prisons. These fresh disasters were
156 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
heightened and shadowed by the terrible earthquake
of June 1 2- 1 6, when the sun was blotted out ; and while the Archbishop, grasping the gilt image of St. Januarius, groped his way in solemn procession to the
cathedral, the darkened sky bombarded the interceding
city with emblematic bolts of relentless artillery.
CHAPTER VI
" STATESWOMAN "
1794-1797
TATES WOMAN" is Swift's term for Stella.
It fits better the Trilby of the political studio.
The muse as medium was already being trans-
ferred from attitude to affairs.
Since Nelson's brief sojourn and its keen impress,
the Queen, .under growing troubles, leaned more and
more on the English. The King's pro-Spanish faction
was now defied; even the pro-Austrian group lost
ground and flagged. Acton, save for a brief interval,
remained her right hand hie, hac, et hoc et omnia, as
they now styled him. The Hamiltons' enthusiasm for
the budding hero had communicated itself through
Emma to her royal friend, who had hitherto cared little
even for the English language. Maria Carolina clung
more closely to a consoler not only
responsive and di-
verting, but unversed enough in courts to be flattered
by the intimacy and free in it. They were constantly
together; by 1795 so often as every other day. It
was " naturalness " and " sensibility " once more that prevailed. Doubtless, policy entered also into her
motives. Notes to Emma would pass unsuspected
where notes to Sir William might be watched. Verbal
confidences to a frequenter of the palace would never
excite the curiosity which Sir William's formal pres-
ence must arouse. But the bond of policy was mutual.
Hamilton encouraged his wife to glean secret in-
157
158 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
formation for the British Government. What the
Queen did not at first realise, though afterwards she
recognised it to the full, was Lady Hamilton's " native energy of mind " which Hayley, comforting her after Nelson's death, recalled as one of her earliest characteristics; and for the work of life, as has been truly said, inborn vigour is apter than cultivated refinement.
Emma now definitely emerges as patriot and poli-
tician. Did she aspire thus early to help her country ?
The field of controversy begins to open, and con-
troversy is always irksome. It is necessary, however,
at this juncture, to consider this first of Emma's
" claims " in its context.
In her latest memorial for the recognition of her
" services " her petition to the Prince Regent of 1813
she claimed to have responded to the then Sir John
Jervis's appeals for help while employed upon the re-
duction of Corsica. In this statement, which is one of
several, she makes some confusion between two names
influential in two successive years. If such lapses as
these stood alone, without substantial evidence beneath
them, her censors might have been fairly justified in
pressing them to the utmost. But since (as will be
shown) there is strong corroboration of the substance
of her services in 1796, considerable proof of her main
service in 1798, with abundant new and historical evi-
dence for her truthfulness in the account of the part
played by her in the royal escape just before Christmas
of the same year they amount to little more than the
immaterial inaccuracies which recur in several of her
recitals. Her critics, in fixing on the memorial to the
Prince Regent framed in her declining years and her
extremest need have consistently ignored her other
applications for relief, and especially that to King
George III. in which she does not specify this claim
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 159
at all, but only implies it under " many inferior
services."
In her " Prince Regent " memorial she urges that
" In the year 1793, when Lord Hood had taken pos-
session of Toulon, and Sir John Jervis was employ'd
upon the reduction of Corsica, the latter kept writing
to me for everything he wanted which I procured to be
promptly provided him ; and, as his letters to me prove, had considerably facilitated the reduction of that island.
I had by this time induced the King through my in-
fluence with the Queen to become so zealous in the
good cause, that both would often say I had de-Bour-
boniz'd them and made them English."
In the same " memorial " she mentions a side-circumstance which can now be fully substantiated. She
there asserts that Sir William in his " latter moments, in deputing Mr. Greville to deliver the Order of the
Bath to the King, desired that he would tell His
Majesty that he died in the confident hope that his pen-
sion would be continued to me for my zeal and service."
Greville's letter of 1803 more than bears out her
veracity in this trifle. Greville himself, the precisest of officials, and just after his uncle's death by no means
on the best of terms with Lady Hamilton, added that
he knew that the public " records " confirmed " the testimony of their Sicilian Majesties by letter as well
as by their ministers, of circumstances peculiarly dis-
tinguished and honourable to her, and at the same time
of high importance to the public service." Hamilton's own share in the many transactions which are to follow
passed equally disregarded with his widow's. And
with regard to the preliminary " service " which we must now discuss, she repeats her asseveration in al-
'most the last letter that she ever wrote, adding that in this case, as in the others, she paid " often and often out of her own pocket at Naples."
160 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
As has been recounted, Hood took Toulon in
August, 1793. It had to be evacuated on December
i/th of that year; and it was Lord Hood, not the
future Lord St. Vincent, who superintended the Cor-
sican operations from the December of 1793 to their
issue in Nelson's heroism at Calvi in July, 1794. Sir
John Jervis, on the other hand, was in command of
the West Indian expedition of 1794. He does not, it
is true, figure as corresponding with the Hamiltons on
naval affairs until 1798, when, in an interesting cor-
respondence, he thanks her for services as " patroness of the navy," protests his " unfeigned affectionate regard," and signs himself her " faithful and devoted knight." But none the less he was (and this has
eluded notice) in close correspondence with Acton
throughout the early portion of 1796.
Such, then, in this instance, are the material dis-
crepancies. In dwelling long afterwards on her first
endeavours for her country, she transposed the
sequence of two successive years, while she confounded
Lord Hood and the future Lord St. Vincent together.
Little sagacity, however, is needed to perceive that
these very confusions point to her sincerity. Had she
been forging claims, imperatively raised in the ex-
tremities of her fate, nothing would have been easier
than to have verified these trifles, especially as many
of Nelson's friends remained staunch to her till the
close. Wilful liars do not concoct and elaborate evi-
dence manifestly against themselves. For the truth of
this, the least important and most general of her
services, Acton's manuscript correspondence of these
years with Hamilton supplies a new presumption.
What England wanted during these two years from the
Neapolitan premier was something outside and be-
yond what her treaty with Sicily enabled her, as a fact, to receive, and it was just these extras that Emma's
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 161
rising ascendency with the Queen and her own am-
bition may have prompted her to procure.
The real pretexts for refusal, as we shall find in their proper place, were not scepticism, but royal disfavour,
technical precedent, lapse of time, private pique^ and
party interest. Canning thought her " richly entitled "
to compensation. Grenville himself did not deny the
performance of her services. Addington grounded
his refusal mainly on the multiplicity of other claims
on the Government.
The year 1794 at Naples was one of continuous
calamity; while succ
essive catastrophes were height-
ened by the undoubted tyrannies of the Queen. France,
by fomenting the Neapolitan ferment, was deliberately
inveigling the two Sicilies. No quarter would Maria
Carolina give to the French assassins or to the Neapol-
itan republicans. Hitherto, in the main, her old clem-
ency had found vent, and she had striven to be just.
She still deemed justice her motive, but she deceived
herself. While the King always remained optimist,
her pessimism verged on madness. She treated affairs
of State just as if they had been affairs of the heart.
Her mistrust both of the conspiring nobles and the
thankless students, now, from changed incentives, in
attempted combination, showed signs of yielding to a
paroxysm of revenge disguised by an inscrutable face.
Robespierre was branded on her brain. Her word for
every rebellious aristocrat was " We will not give him time to become a Robespierre." The close of the year witnessed Robespierre's doom, and a false lull brought
with it a film of security. Yet the signal baseness now
confronting her would have justified a moderate sever-
ity. Disaffection was not native but imported. The
great mass of the people never wavered in allegiance
to the King of the Lazzaroni, and agitation was bought
1 62 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
and manipulated by France. The rest of Europe
recognised the real significance of these insurrections.
" God knows," wrote Nelson to the Hamiltons in 1796,
" I only feel for the King of Naples, as I am con-
fident the change in his Government would be sub-
versive of the interest of all Europe." The English Government, the Russian, even the Prussian, felt the
same. The Queen, who had really done so much in
the teeth of sharp difficulties for the " Intellectuels,"
was beside herself. Jacobinism, at first narrowed to a
faction, afterwards, at the worst, diffused as a leaven, was by this time hydra-headed. Its disorders had
spread to Sicily, where their suppression had been sig-
nalised by the execution of the ringleaders and the im-
prisonment of three hundred. By the spring of 1795
the French had divulged their determination of at-
tacking the British squadron in the Mediterranean.
The receivers of her most generous bounty bit the hand
of their benefactress. Luigi di Medici, the young
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