torment her . . . too much Sensibility " ; he hoped Nelson was not " fretting " his " guts to fiddle-strings." Emma shrank from the turbid scenes that
she would be called upon to interpret and to encounter ; she also dimly dreaded the results of constant association with her hero. But her knowledge of men, cir-
cumstances, and language would be indispensable on
this fateful errand, and already on June 12 she thus, as Queen's advocate, besought Nelson:
" Thursday evening, June 12.
" I have been with the Queen this evening. She is
very miserable, and says, that although the people of
Naples are for them in general, yet things will not be
brought to that state of quietness and subordination
till the Fleet of Lord Nelson appears off Naples. She
therefore begs, intreats, and conjures you, my dear
Lord, if it is possible, to arrange matters so as to
be able to go to Naples. Sir William is writing for
General Acton's answer. For God's sake consider it,
and do! We will go with you if you will come and
fetch us.
"Sir William is ill; I am ill: it will do us good.
God bless you! Ever, ever, yours sincerely."
The Queen's insistence, Emma's mediation, per-
meate every line. Just after this manner, some thir-
teen years earlier, the mimic Muse had echoed Greville
276 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
in her answer to the invitation that first lured her to
Naples.
Her heart was heavy with forebodings. She would
have much to do and perhaps to suffer. She was
charged with a triple task : to rehabilitate the Queen, to single out the traitors from the true amongst the
notables, to assist Nelson in his " campaign." She knew that the risk would be great and the nervous
strain severe. Privately, as well as publicly, she feared the uncertain upshot. Her phases of mind and mood
and memory all joined in bodying forth the future.
For thirteen years not a breath of scandal had sullied
her name. She had long, indeed, been held up as a.
pattern of conjugal virtue. Yet Josiah Nisbet, the
boy whom both she and his stepfather had generously
helped and forgiven, far more and oftener indeed than
his own mother, was already tattling to that mother of
the Calypso who was detaining Ulysses. Hitherto she
could honestly acquit herself of the imputation. So
much that was glorious had happened in so few
months, that her tender friendship had been absorbed
by memories and reveries of glory. And for her,
glory meant honour. This is the clue to her nature.
To honour she fancied that she, like Nelson, was
dedicating existence. And now, even while she justi-
fied to herself the chances in relation to her own hus-
band by the thought of a past debt amply repaid, she
paused on the threshold of the irreparable, as the pale
face of Nelson's unknown wife rose up before her.
She had been only stiff and condescending to Emma's
warm-hearted advances immediately after the battle
of the Nile. Was this cold partner jealous then, and
spiteful without an overt cause? Let her covert sus-
picions dare their worst; Emma would brave them
out. And another and higher feeling mixed with her
agitations. She was quitting her much-loved mother,
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 277
by whom she had always stood loyally, even when
most to her disadvantage ; by whom she was always to
stand; whom, if that French navy fell in with them,
she might possibly never see again. " My mother,"
she wrote when all was over, " is at Palermo, longing to see her Emma. You can't think how she is loved
and respected by all. She has adopted a mode of liv-
ing that is charming. She has good apartments in our
house, always lives with us, dines, etc. etc. Only when
she does not like it (for example at great dinners)
she herself refuses, and has always a friend to dine
with her; and the Signora Madre dell' Ambasciatrice
is known all over Palermo, the same as she was at
Naples. The Queen has been very kind to her in my
absence, and went to see her, and told her she ought to
be proud of her glorious and energick daughter, that
has done so much in these last suffering months."
Other chords in her being might be snapped asunder
and replaced, but at least this pure note of daughterly
devotion would never fail.
And if Emma was at once happy and tormented, so
now was Nelson. He was racked alike by hopes and
fears. His love for her was gradually vanquishing
his allegiance to his wife, and his heart was fast tri-
umphing over his conscience. He had not yet per-
suaded himself that his love accorded with the scheme
divine, that his formal marriage was no longer con-
secrated, and that to profane it was not to profane
a sacrament. It was barely a year since Captain Hal-
lowell had presented him with the coffin framed out
of his Egyptian spoils a memento mori indeed.
Every one remembers the strain of dejection about this
date in his home letters, which have been constantly
cited from Southey. " There is," he wrote, " no true happiness in this life, and in my present state I could
quit it with a smile." He protested the same to his 278 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
old friend Davison, adding that his sole wish was to
" sink with honour into the grave." On the one side beckoned the French enemy and Emma, on the other
the offended Fanny, his pious father, and the call of
God.
While, however, both the cause of his heart and the
voice that it loved were thus pleading with its doubts
and anxieties, vexation also spurred him into ir-
retrievable decision. Lord Keith's interfering sum-
mons to Minorca had reached him. These orders he
resented and disobeyed, as he had so often disobeyed
unwarrantable orders before. Minorca was a baga-
telle compared with the big issues now at stake, and
Minorca, moreover, was by this time comparatively
safe. " I will take care," he was soon to write, " that no superior fleet shall annoy it, but many other countries are entrusted to my care." Jacobinism, the
French fleet these were the dangers for Britain and
for Europe. His reply was that the " best defence "
was to " place himself alongside the French." He appealed from Lord St. Vincent's meddlesome successor
to Lord St. Vincent. " I cannot think myself justi-
fied in exposing the world I may almost say to be
plundered by these miscreants ... I trust your lord-
ship will not think me wrong . . . for agonised in-
deed was the mind of your lordship's faithful and af-
fectionate servant." These were no sophistries, and
" wrong " St. Vincent certainly never held him. It was not long before he learned that Lord Keith himself had sailed in search of the fleet which unluckily he never found. Nelson still believed Naples to be that
fleet's objective, and in this conviction many private
advices supported him. But more than all, his resolve
to vindicate royalty against Jacobinism was strength-
ened by the
fact that at this very moment his own,
and Emma's, grave suspicions concerning Cardinal
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 279
Ruffo's misuse of his powers were being strikingly
confirmed by new and startling reports; while at the
same time another Austrian success at Spezzia had
fortified afresh the cause of loyalty. He discerned the
moment for reclaiming the hotbed of Jacobinism. His
mind was fixed. He would go.
On June 13, then, he embarked the young Crown
Prince in the Foudroyant and hastened off once again,
while the Hamiltons remained behind. The King had
apparently forbidden the Queen to revisit the scene of
disgrace, and reserved his own appearance for the
necessity which Ruffo's double-dealing, that he still
half-discredited, might entail. But on learning definite news near Maritime that the French fleet in full force
had at length got out of Toulon, and was now actu-
ally bound for the south coast, Nelson at once tacked,
and once more returned to Palermo to gain time for
Ball's and Duckworth's further reinforcements. He
arrived the next day, and, to the Queen's infinite sur-
prise, landed her son, who was at once taken by her to
his father at Colli. Though Nelson still feared for
Sicily, he had hoped to have re-departed immediately,
but calms and obstacles intervened. Now that he was
certain of his mission, he welcomed the company and
invaluable aid of the Hamiltons, whose entreaties had
overborne his consideration for their health and safety.
Yet even now he would not receive them until he had
made a fourth cruise of hurried survey and final
preparation to the islands of Maritimo and Ustica. He
started, therefore, on June 16, but five mornings after-
wards he again heard from Hamilton the momentous
certainty that Ruffo had dared to conclude a definite
armistice with the Neapolitan rebels ; while he also
learned that the Jacobins were bragging that his re-
turn to Palermo was due to fear of the French fleet.
The policy of the Cardinal and the insolence of the
280
rebels allowed not a moment to be lost. Forthwith
he left his squadron once more and reached Palermo in
the afternoon. A council was immediately held.
Ruffo, who, despite the despatches heralding Nelson's
voyage, had probably counted on his many false starts,
received warning of his imminent approach; the Ham-
iltons, in the full flush of excitement, were conveyed on board the Foudroyant; Nelson, still longing for that
unconscionable fleet and reinvested by the King with
unlimited powers, started at once to cancel the in-
famous compact. That same evening he had rejoined
his command off Ustica. By noon on the 22nd the
united squadron weighed anchor for Naples " stealing on," wrote Hamilton to Acton, "with light winds,"
and " I believe the business will soon be done."
These dates and details have been minutely followed,
as tending to establish that what really decided Nel-
son's movements was the dearest wish of his heart
the honour and interest of Great Britain. After sup-
pressing the enemies of all authority and order, he
still hoped to fall in with the long-hunted French fleet, and to deal a death-blow to the universal enemy. All
along, his convictions and motives must be taken into
account before the tribunal of history. It would never
have been insinuated that he was a renegade to duty in
making Palermo the base of his many operations, and
the Neapolitan dynasty the touchstone of his country's
cause, if Lady Hamilton had not been in Sicily; in
Sicily he neither tarried nor dallied. To estimate his
conduct, one should inquire if his policy could have
been called dereliction supposing her to have been
eliminated from its scene. And what applies to him in
these matters henceforward applies to Emma, whose
whole soul is fast becoming coloured by his. For a
space she must now act a minor, though by no means,
as will soon appear, a supernumerary part, as his col-
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 281
league in the real tragedy that now opens before
us.
Thus at last he, with the Hamiltons, set sail on an
errand which has constantly been described as tarnish-
ing his fame.
Mr. Gutteridge's scholarlike and impartial review of
all the intricate facts and documents has proved that
Nelson neither exceeded his powers nor violated his
conscience. In championing the royal house of Naples
he was as entirely consistent with the declared policy of his country as with his own convictions. His error,
if any, was one of judgment. In rebellions clemency
is often the best policy, and proscription is always the worst. Happy indeed would it have been for Naples,
and for Nelson, if during the next two months the
King had not intervened as director, inquisitor, and
hangman, if Cardinal Ruffo had not favoured the
nobles and wished to restore the feudal system.
Before the Foudroyant proceeds further, let us
glance at the intervening events in Naples.
In that citadel of turbulence much had again hap-
pened, and was happening to the court's knowledge,
ere Nelson weighed anchor at Palermo. Before May
even, the successful blockade of Corfu by the Russians
and Turks had largely cleared Ruffb's conquering
course. The Austrians and Russians had prepared to
drive the French from Upper Italy. In May, General
Macdonald had already beaten a skilful retreat to the
Po, leaving only a small detachment behind him to gar-
rison the Neapolitan and Capuan castles. Benvenuto
had welcomed the loyalists. By early June the Car-
dinal, close to the city, had succeeded in intercepting
all communications by land. Schipani, a royalist of-
ficer of distinction, had disembarked his troops at
Torre Annunziata. The Republican fleet, commanded
by Caracciolo, now a rebel against his sovereign, had
282 EMMA, LADY HAMILTON
avoided close quarters; while that traitor, by compul-
sion as he pleaded, who two months ago had quitted
Sicily in favour with his master, had even "fired on the flag of the frigate Minerva.
By the I3th of June amid the solemn rites of the
Lazzaroni's other patron, St. Antonio Ruffo, with
his miscellaneous forty thousand, gave battle on the
side of Ponte Delia Maddalena, and won. Duke Roc-
caromana, the people's old favourite, was now one
of his generals, and the populace, tired of bloodshed
and the " patriots," rejoiced at the hope of a royal restoration. The young Pepe, a boy-prisoner, has left
an account of the terrible scenes that he witnessed.
He saw the wretched captives, stripped and streaming
with blood, being dragged along to confinement in the
public granary by the bridge. He heard the Lazza-
roni, " who used to look so honest, and to melt as
their mountebanks recited the woes of ' Rinaldo,'
shrieking and
howling." He watched the clergy whip-
ping the rabble with their words, till they threw stones at the miserable prisoners. Some of them Ruffo had
to protect from brutal assaults. These were thrown
into hospitals, all filth and disorder; while others
feigned insanity to gain even this doubtful privilege.
He beheld Vincenzo Ruvo, the " Cato " of the " patriots," and Jerocades, their " Father," bruised and bound; and he marked, huddled and draggled among
their comrades, the " four poets," feebly striving to animate their starved spirits by snatches of broken
song. He learned that the Castellamare garrison had
also succumbed, but, above all, that Ruffo and
Micheroux, a most intriguing agent for his Russian
allies, were at last ready to grant a demand expressed
by some of the " patriots " for a " truce " so as to end this pandemonium, and to arrange some terms of " capitulation " for the castles still in rebel occupation.
EMMA, LADY HAMILTON 283
Terms of any kind the Lazzaroni, on their side, ve-
hemently resisted ; Ruffo was even accused of caballing
to place his own brother on the throne. Nelson's own
views of such unsanctioned capitulation had already
been strikingly exemplified by his manifesto at Malta
in the previous October a point to which special at-
tention should be drawn. Capitulation the French still
stoutly rejected. Mejean, commandant of the French
garrison in St. Elmo, still defended the dominating
fortress, from which Ruffo would now have to dislodge
him at the risk of the town's destruction. Their single
hope was for a glimpse of the French fleet, which was
as. much the object of their yearning as Nelson's.
Counting on this, in their sore straits they had refused every conciliatory overture. Counting on this again,
Mejean's aim was to gain time by the threat that he
would fire on the town unless Ruffo forbore to attack
him. When on June 24 the first sight of Nelson's
ships was descried in the distance, the " patriots "
cheered to the echo. They deemed it was St. Louis to
the rescue. To their dismay it proved St. George.
Micheroux's name, Ruffo's truce, and Nelson's ar-
rival must recall us to what Captain Foote of the
Seahorse had been doing in the interval. He appears
as no diplomatist, but a most humane and honourable
seaman. His powers had been strictly limited. He,
like Troubridge, was a suppressor of rebellion. He was
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