Full text of Memoirs of Emma, lady Hamilton, the friend of Lord Nelson and the court of Naples;

by Yelena Kopylova

  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