The Life of Nelson, Volume 2

Lady Hamilton, of course, could not have any social acceptance, but even towards Nelson himself, in all his glory, a marked coldness was shown in significant quarters. "The Lady of the Admiralty," wrote he to his friend Davison, "never had any just cause for being cool to me;" an allusion probably to Lady Spencer, the wife of the First Lord. Coldness from her must have been the more marked, for after the Nile she had written him a wildly enthusiastic letter, recognizing with gratitude the distinction conferred upon her husband's administration by the lustre of that battle. "Either as a public or private man," he continued, "I wish nothing undone which I have done,"—a remark entirely ambiguous and misleading as regards his actual relations to Lady Hamilton. He told Collingwood, at this same time, that he had not been well received by the King. "He gave me an account of his reception at Court," his old comrade writes, "which was not very flattering, after having been the adoration of that of Naples. His Majesty merely asked him if he had recovered his health; and then, without waiting for an answer, turned to General–, and talked to him near half an hour in great good humour. It could not be about his successes." This slight was not a revival of the old prejudice entertained by the King before the war, which had been wholly removed by the distinguished services Nelson had rendered afterwards. Eighteen months before this Davison had written to him: "I waited upon the King early last Sunday morning, and was alone with him a full hour, when much of the conversation was about you. It is impossible to express how warmly he spoke of you, and asked me a thousand questions about you … I have been again at the Queen's house, and have given the King a copy of your last letter to me, giving an account of your health, which he read twice over, with great attention, and with apparent emotion of concern. His Majesty speaks of you with the tenderness of a father." Samuel Rogers has an incidental mention of the effect produced upon Nelson by the treatment now experienced. "I heard him once during dinner utter many bitter complaints (which Lady Hamilton vainly attempted to check) of the way he had been treated at Court that forenoon: the Queen had not condescended to take the slightest notice of him. In truth, Nelson was hated at Court; they were jealous of his fame."¹⁵ People, however, are rarely jealous of those who are not rivals.

The position which Nelson had proposed to himself to establish was of course impossible. The world was no more disposed to worry about any private immoralities of his than it did about those of other men, but it was not prepared to have them brandished in its face, and it would have none of Lady Hamilton,—nor would Lady Nelson. The general public opinion at the time receives, probably, accurate expression from Sir William Hotham, a man then in London society. "His vanity, excusable as such a foible is in such a man, led him to unpardonable excesses, and blinded him to the advantages of being respected in society … His conduct to Lady Nelson was the very extreme of unjustifiable weakness, for he should at least have attempted to conceal his infirmities, without publicly wounding the feelings of a woman whose own conduct he well knew was irreproachable."¹⁶ On the other hand, Nelson could not forget the kindnesses he had accepted from Lady Hamilton, nor was he either able or willing to lessen an intimacy which, unless diminished, left the scandal unabated. He was not able, for a man of his temperament could not recede before opposition, or slight a woman now compromised by his name; and he was not willing, for he was madly in love. Being daily with her for seven months after leaving Palermo, there occurs a break in their correspondence; but when it was resumed in the latter part of January, 1801, every particle of the reticence which a possible struggle with conscience had imposed disappears. He has accepted the new situation, cast aside all restraints, and his language at times falls little short of frenzy, while belying the respect for her which he asserts continually and aggressively, as though against his convictions.

The breach with Lady Nelson had in this short time become final. We have not the means—happily—to trace through its successive stages a rapid process of estrangement, of which Nelson said a few months afterwards: "Sooner than live the unhappy life I did when last I came to England, I would stay abroad forever." A highly colored account is given in Harrison's Life of Nelson, emanating apparently from Lady Hamilton, of the wretchedness the hero experienced from the temper of his wife; while in the "Memoirs of Lady Hamilton," published shortly after her death, another side of the case is brought forward, and Lady Nelson appears as rebutting with quiet dignity the reproaches of her husband for heartlessness, displayed in her unsympathetic attitude towards her rival, when suffering from indisposition. Into these recriminations it is needless to enter; those who wish can read for themselves in the works mentioned. A marked symptom of growing alienation was afforded by his leaving her on the 19th of December, in company with the Hamiltons, to spend the Christmas holidays at Fonthill, the seat of William Beckford.

During this visit occurred a curious incident, which shows that the exultant delight unquestionably felt by Nelson in battle did not indicate insensibility to danger, or to its customary effects upon men, but resulted from the pleasurable predominance of other emotions, which accepted danger and the startling tokens of its presence as the accompaniments, that only enhanced the majesty of the part he was called upon to play. Beckford tells the story as follows: "I offered to show him what had been done by planting in the course of years. Nelson mounted by my side in a phaeton, drawn by four well-trained horses, which I drove. There was not the least danger, the horses being perfectly under my command, long driven by myself. Singular to say, we had not gone far before I observed a peculiar anxiety in his countenance, and presently he said: 'This is too much for me, you must set me down.' I assured him that the horses were continually driven by me, and that they were perfectly under command. All would not do. He would descend, and I walked the vehicle back again."¹⁷ Nelson, of course, never claimed for himself the blind ignorance of fear which has been asserted of him; on the contrary, the son of his old friend Locker tells us, "The bravest man (so we have heard Lord Nelson himself declare) feels an anxiety 'circa præcordia' as he enters the battle; but he dreads disgrace yet more."¹⁸ In battle, like a great actor in a great drama, he knew himself the master of an invisible concourse, whose homage he commanded, whose plaudits he craved, and whom, by the sight of deeds raised above the common ground of earth, he drew to sympathy with heroism and self-devotion. There, too, he rejoiced in the noblest exercise of power, in the sensation of energies and faculties roused to full exertion, contending with mighty obstacles, and acting amid surroundings worthy of their grandeur; like Masséna, of whom it was said that he only found his greatest self when the balls flew thick about him, and things began to look their worst.

After his return from Fonthill Lady Nelson and himself lived together again for a time in their London lodgings, in Arlington Street, and there, according to the story told forty-five years afterwards by Mr. William Haslewood, Nelson's solicitor, the crisis of their troubles was reached. "In the winter of 1800, 1801, I was breakfasting with Lord and Lady Nelson, at their lodgings in Arlington Street, and a cheerful conversation was passing on indifferent subjects, when Lord Nelson spoke of something which had been done or said by 'dear Lady Hamilton;' upon which Lady Nelson rose from her chair, and exclaimed, with much vehemence, 'I am sick of hearing of dear Lady Hamilton, and am resolved that you shall give up either her or me.' Lord Nelson, with perfect calmness, said: 'Take care, Fanny, what you say. I love you sincerely; but I cannot forget my obligations to Lady Hamilton, or speak of her otherwise than with affection and admiration.' Without one soothing word or gesture, but muttering something about her mind being made up, Lady Nelson left the room, and shortly after drove from the house. They never lived together afterwards." Though committed to paper so many years later, the incident is just one of those that sticks to the memory, and probably occurred substantially as told. Lady Nelson's ultimatum will probably be differently regarded by different persons; it shows that she was at least living human flesh and blood. In later life, we are told by Hotham, who was in the habit of frequently seeing her, up to her death, in 1831, "she continually talked of him, and always attempted to palliate his conduct towards her, was warm and enthusiastic in her praises of his public achievements, and bowed down with dignified submission to the errors of his domestic life."

The same testimony is borne by a lady, of whom Nicolas speaks as "the personal and intimate friend both of Lord and Lady Nelson, and the widow of one of his most distinguished followers," but whose name he does not give.¹⁹ "I am aware of your intention not to touch upon this delicate subject: I only allude to it in order to assure you, from my personal knowledge, in a long and intimate acquaintance, that Lady Nelson's conduct was not only affectionate, wise, and prudent, but admirable, throughout her married life, and that she had not a single reproach to make herself. I say not this to cast unnecessary blame upon one whose memory I delight to honour, but only in justice to that truly good and amiable woman … If mildness, forbearance, and indulgence to the weaknesses of human nature could have availed, her fate would have been very different. No reproach ever passed her lips; and when she parted from her Lord, on his hoisting his flag again, it was without the most distant suspicion that he meant it to be final, and that in this life they were never to meet again. I am desirous that you should know the worth of her who has so often been misrepresented, from the wish of many to cast the blame anywhere, but on him who was so deservedly dear to the Nation."

The latter years of Lady Nelson's life were passed partly in Paris, where she lived with her son and his family. Her eldest grandchild, a girl, was eight or ten years old at the time of her death. She remembers the great sweetness of her grandmother's temper, and tells that she often saw her take from a casket a miniature of Nelson, look at it affectionately, kiss it, and then replace it gently; after which she would turn to her and say, "When you are older, little Fan, you too may know what it is to have a broken heart." This trifling incident, transpiring as it now does for the first time, after nearly seventy years, from the intimate privacies of family life, bears its mute evidence to the truth of the last two witnesses, that Lady Nelson neither reproached her husband, nor was towards him unforgiving.²⁰ Nelson's early friend, the Duke of Clarence, who had given her away at the wedding, maintained his kindly relations with her to the end, and continued his interest to her descendants after his accession to the throne.

Thus abruptly and sadly ended an attachment which, if never ardent, had for many years run undisturbed its tender course, and apparently had satisfied Nelson's heart, until the wave of a great passion swept him off his feet. "I remember," writes Miss Knight, "that, shortly after the Battle of the Nile, when my mother said to him that no doubt he considered the day of that victory as the happiest in his life, he answered, 'No; the happiest was that on which I married Lady Nelson.'" On the 13th of January, 1801, Nelson took formal and final leave of her before hoisting his flag at Torbay. "I call God to witness," he then said, "there is nothing in you, or your conduct, that I wish otherwise." His alienation from her was shared by most of his family, except his father, who said to him frankly, that gratitude required he should spend part of his time with Lady Nelson. Two years before, he had written of her: "During the whole war [since 1793] I have been with Lady Nelson, a good woman, and attentive to an infirm old man," and they had continued to live together. The old man persuaded himself that there was nothing criminal in relations, the result of which, as regarded his son and daughter-in-law, he could not but deplore; but his letters to Lady Hamilton go little beyond the civility that was necessary to avoid giving offence to Nelson. Nelson's two married sisters, Mrs. Bolton and Mrs. Matcham, evidently shared their father's belief. They and their children maintained with Lady Hamilton a friendly and even affectionate correspondence, long after Trafalgar, and until the death of the parties put an end to it.

Immediately upon landing at Yarmouth, Nelson had written to the Admiralty that his health was perfectly restored, and that he wished to resume service immediately. He was soon designated to a command in the Channel fleet, under Earl St. Vincent, who had been commander-in-chief since the spring of 1800. The "San Josef," the three-decker boarded by him at Cape St. Vincent, was named to receive his flag, and on the 17th of January it was hoisted on board her, at Plymouth,—blue at the fore, he having been promoted Vice-Admiral of the Blue on New Year's Day. An arrangement, however, had already been made, that, if the impending difficulties with Denmark threatened to lead to hostilities, he should accompany the fleet sent to the Baltic, as second to Sir Hyde Parker, selected for the chief command. While he was officially reporting to St. Vincent, on the 16th, at Torbay, preparatory to hoisting his flag, a letter from Parker informed him that the armament was decided upon. This he showed at once to St. Vincent, who acquiesced of course in the disappointment, but expressed a hope that after a brief absence he would rejoin him.

By the first of February the "San Josef" had gone round to Torbay, the rendezvous of the Channel fleet under St. Vincent's command, and there it was that Nelson received the news of the birth, on the 29th or 30th of January, of the child Horatia, whose parentage for a long time gave rise to much discussion, and is even yet considered by some a matter of doubt. Fortunately, that question requires no investigation here; as regards the Life of Nelson, and his character as involved in this matter, the fact is beyond dispute that he believed himself the father, and Lady Hamilton the mother, of the girl, whose origin he sought to conceal by an elaborate though clumsy system of mystification. This might possibly have left the subject covered with clouds, though not greatly in doubt, had not Lady Hamilton, after wildly unnecessary lying on her own part, recklessly preserved her holdings of a correspondence which Nelson scrupulously destroyed, and enjoined her to destroy.

The sedulous care on his side to conceal the nature of their relations, and the reckless disregard of his wishes shown by her, is singularly illustrated by the method he took to bring the child into her charge, from that of the nurse to whom it had been intrusted. When it was somewhat over three years old, on the 13th of August, 1804, he wrote Lady Hamilton a letter, evidently to be used, where necessary, to account for its presence under his roof. "I am now going to state a thing to you and to request your kind assistance, which, from my dear Emma's goodness of heart, I am sure of her acquiescence in. Before we left Italy I told you of the extraordinary circumstance of a child being left to my care and protection. On your first coming to England I presented you the child, dear Horatia. You became, to my comfort, attached to it, so did Sir William, thinking her the finest child he had ever seen. She is become of that age when it is necessary to remove her from a mere nurse and to think of educating her.... I shall tell you, my dear Emma, more of this matter when I come to England, but I am now anxious for the child's being placed under your protecting wing." With this letter (or, possibly, with another written the same day) was found an enclosure, undated and unsigned, but in Nelson's handwriting. "My beloved, how I feel for your situation and that of our dear Horatia, our dear child … "²¹

The indifference to incidental consequences which was shown by Nelson, when once he had decided upon a course of action, was part of his natural, as well as of his more distinctively military character; but in this connection with Lady Hamilton he must have felt intuitively that not only her reputation—which probably was his first care—was involved, but his own also. The hospitality, the attention, the friendship, extended to him at Naples and Palermo, were not from Lady Hamilton only but from her husband also, in whose house he lived, and who to the end, so far as the records show, professed for him unbounded esteem and confidence. This confidence had been betrayed, and the strongest line of argument formerly advanced, by those who disputed Lady Hamilton's being the mother of the child, has become now Nelson's severest condemnation.

"However great was Nelson's infatuation," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "his nice sense of honour, his feelings of propriety, and his love of truth, were unquestionable. Hence, though during a long separation from his wife on the public service in the Mediterranean, he so far yielded to temptation as to become the father of a child, it is nevertheless difficult to believe that he should for years have had a criminal intercourse with the wife of a man of his own rank, whom he considered as his dearest friend, who placed the greatest confidence in his honour and virtue, and in whose house he was living. Still more difficult is it to believe, even if this had been the case, that he should not only have permitted every one of his relations, male and female,—his wife, his father, his brothers, his brothers-in-law, his two sisters, and all their daughters,—to visit and correspond with her, but even have allowed three of his nieces to live for a considerable time with her; have ostentatiously and frequently written and spoken of her 'virtuous and religious' character,—holding her up as an example to his family; have appointed her the sole guardian of his child; have avowedly intended to make her his wife; have acted upon every occasion as if the purity of their intimacy was altogether free from suspicion; and in the last written act of his life have solemnly called upon his country to reward and support her. An honourable and conscientious man rarely acts thus towards his mistress … Moreover, Nelson's most intimate friends, including the Earl of St. Vincent, who called them 'a pair of sentimental fools,' Dr. Scott, his Chaplain, and Mr. Haslewood, were of the same opinion; and Southey says, 'there is no reason to believe that this most unfortunate attachment was criminal.'"

This complicated and difficult path of deception had to be trod, because the offence was not one of common error, readily pardoned if discovered, but because the man betrayed, whatever his faults otherwise, had shown both the culprits unbounded confidence and kindness, and upon the woman, at least, had been led by his love to confer a benefit which neither should have forgotten.

FOOTNOTES:

CHAPTER XVI.
THE EXPEDITION TO THE BALTIC AND BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN.—NELSON RETURNS TO ENGLAND

Vice-Admiral, Lord Nelson

FEBRUARY—JUNE, 1801. AGE, 42

The trouble between Great Britain and Denmark, which now called Nelson again to the front, leading to the most difficult of his undertakings, and, consequently, to the most distinguished of his achievements, arose about the maritime rights of neutrals and belligerents. The contention was not new. In 1780 the Baltic States, Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, being neutrals in the war then raging, had combined to assert, by arms, if necessary, certain claims advanced by them to immunity from practices which international law had hitherto sanctioned, or concerning which it had spoken ambiguously. These claims Great Britain had rejected, as contrary to her rights and interests; but, being then greatly outnumbered, she temporized until the end of the war, which left her in possession of the principles at stake, although she had forborne to enforce them offensively. The coalition of the Baltic States, at that time, received the name of the Armed Neutrality.

From 1793 to 1800 Sweden and Denmark had again succeeded in maintaining their neutrality, and, as most other maritime states were at war, their freedom of navigation had thrown into their hands a large carrying trade. But, while their profit was thus great, it would be much greater, if their ships could be saved the interruptions to their voyages arising from the right of belligerents to stop, to search, and, if necessary, to send into port, a vessel on board which were found enemy's goods, or articles considered "contraband of war." The uncertainty hanging round the definitions of the latter phrase greatly increased the annoyance to neutrals; and serious disputes existed on certain points, as, for example, whether materials for shipbuilding, going to an enemy's port, were liable to capture. Great Britain maintained that they were, the neutrals that they were not; and, as the Baltic was one of the chief regions from which such supplies came, a principal line of trade for the Northern States was much curtailed.

Sweden and Denmark were too weak to support their contention against the sea-power of Great Britain. Where there is lack of force, there will always be found the tendency to resort to evasion to accomplish an end; and Denmark, in 1799, endeavored to secure for her merchant ships immunity from search by belligerent cruisers—which International Law has always conceded, and still concedes, to be within the rights of a belligerent—by sending them on their voyages in large convoys, protected by ships of war. It was claimed that the statement of the senior naval officer, that there were not in the convoy any articles subject to capture, was sufficient; and that the belligerent would in that case have no right to search. Great Britain replied that the right of search rested upon longstanding common consent, and precedent, and that it could not be taken from her against her will by any process instituted by another state. The Danish ships of war being instructed to use force against search, two hostile collisions followed, in one of which several men were killed and wounded, and the Danish frigate was taken into a British port—though afterwards released.

The latter of these conflicts occurred in July, 1800. Great Britain then sent an ambassador to Denmark, backing him with a fleet of nine ships-of-the-line, with bomb-vessels; and at the end of August a convention was signed, by which the general subject was referred to future discussion, but Denmark agreed for the time to discontinue her convoys. The importance of the subject to Great Britain was twofold. First, by having the right to seize enemy's property in neutral ships, she suppressed a great part of the commerce which France could carry on, thus crippling her financially; and, second, by capturing articles of shipbuilding as contraband of war, she kept from the French materials essential to the maintenance of their navy, which their own country did not produce. British statesmen of all parties maintained that in these contentions there was at stake, not an empty and offensive privilege, but a right vital to self-defence, to the effective maintenance of which the power to search was fundamentally necessary.

In 1800 the Czar Paul I. had become bitterly hostile to Austria and Great Britain. This feeling had its origin in the disasters of the campaign of 1799, and was brought to a climax by the refusal of Great Britain to yield Malta to him, as Grand Master of the Order, after its capture from the French in September, 1800. It had been the full purpose of the British ministry to surrender it, and Nelson, much to his distaste, had received specific orders to that effect; but, besides the fact that the Russians had contributed nothing directly to the reduction of the island, the attitude of the Czar had become so doubtful, that common prudence forbade putting into the hands of a probable future enemy the prize so hardly won from a present foe. Paul had already announced his intention of reviving the Armed Neutrality of 1780; and when, in November, he learned the fall of Malta, he seized three hundred British vessels lying in Russian ports, marched their crews into the interior, and at the same time placed seals on all British warehoused property,—a measure intended to support his demand for the restitution of the island to him.

On the 16th of December a treaty was signed at St. Petersburg by Russia and Sweden, to which Denmark and Prussia promptly adhered, renewing the Armed Neutrality, for the support of their various claims. The consenting states bound themselves to maintain their demands by force, if necessary; but no declaration of war was issued. Great Britain, in accepting the challenge, equally abstained from acts which would constitute a state of war; but she armed at once to shatter the coalition, before it attained coherence in aught but words. From first to last, until the Armed Neutrality again dissolved, though there was hard fighting, there was not formal war.

The relation of these occurrences to the life of Nelson will not be fully understood, unless the general state of Europe be recalled, and the master hand of Bonaparte be recognized, underlying and controlling previous changes and present conditions. After the Battle of the Nile, and up to a year before this, Austria, Russia, and Great Britain had been united in arms against France; and, in addition to the undisputed control of the sea by the British Navy, they were pressing in overpowering numbers upon her eastern frontiers, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. Blunders of their own had arrested the full tide of success, and the return of Bonaparte from Egypt reversed the current. Russia withdrew in anger, and Austria, beaten upon field after field, in Italy and Germany, by Bonaparte and Moreau, had finally consented to peace after the disastrous defeat of Hohenlinden, on the 3d of December, 1800. Great Britain was left without an ally; and Russia was added to the list of her active enemies by the skilful political manipulation of Bonaparte, who played upon the impulses and weaknesses of the half-mad Czar, releasing with distinguished marks of respect all Russian prisoners, and offering the vain gift of Malta, the French garrison of which was even then clutched by the throat in the iron grip of the British sea-power.

The renewal of the Armed Neutrality was thus, primarily, the work of Bonaparte. He alone had the keenness to see all the possibilities in favor of France that were to be found in the immense combination, and he alone possessed the skill and the power to touch the various chords, whose concert was necessary to its harmonious action. Although it was true, as Nelson said, that Paul was the trunk of the many-limbed tree, it was yet more true that Bonaparte's deft cajoling of the Czar, and the inducements astutely suggested by him to Prussia, were the vitalizing forces which animated the two principal parties in the coalition, in whose wake the weaker states were dragged. Through the former he hoped to effect a combination of the Baltic navies against the British; through the latter he looked to exclude Great Britain from her important commerce with the Continent, which was carried on mainly by the ports of Prussia, or by those of North Germany, which she could control. Thus, by the concerted and simultaneous action of direct weight of arms on the one hand, and of commercial embarrassment on the other, Bonaparte hoped to overbear the power of his chief enemy; and here, as on other occasions, both before and after, Nelson was at once the quickening spirit of the enterprise, and the direct agent of the blow, which brought down his plans, in ruins, about his ears.

Relaxing none of her efforts in other quarters of the world, Great Britain drew together, to confront the new danger, everything in the home waters that could float, till she had gathered a fleet of twenty sail-of-the-line, with smaller cruisers in due proportion. "Under the present impending storm from the north of Europe," wrote St. Vincent, from his perch above the waters of Torbay, "to enable us to meet such a host of foes, no ship under my command must have anything done to her at Plymouth or Portsmouth that can be done at this anchorage." "We are now arrived at that period," wrote Nelson, "what we have often heard of, but must now execute—that of fighting for our dear Country; and I trust that, although we may not be able to subdue our host of enemies, yet we may make them ashamed of themselves, and prove that they cannot injure us." "I have only to say," he wrote to Earl Spencer, who must have rejoiced to see the old spirit flaming again in undiminished vigor, "what you, my dear Lord, are fully satisfied of, that the service of my King and Country is the object nearest my heart; and that a first-rate, or sloop of war, is a matter of perfect indifference to your most faithful and obliged Nelson."

The "San Josef" being considered too heavy a ship for the Baltic service, Nelson's flag was shifted on the 12th of February to the "St. George," a three-decker of lighter draft. Hardy accompanied him as captain, and on the 17th Nelson received orders to place himself under the command of Sir Hyde Parker. A few days afterwards, the "St. George" went to Spithead, where she received on board six hundred troops, under the command of Colonel William Stewart, to whom we owe the fullest and most interesting account of the expedition in general, and of the Battle of Copenhagen in particular, that has been transmitted by an eye-witness. The ship sailed again on the 2d of March for Yarmouth, where she arrived on the 6th. The next day Nelson went to call on the commander-in-chief, who was living on shore, his flag flying on board a vessel in the roads. "I remember," says Colonel Stewart, "that Lord Nelson regretted Sir Hyde being on shore. We breakfasted that morning as usual, soon after six o'clock, for we were always up before daylight. We went on shore, so as to be at Sir Hyde's door at eight o'clock, Lord Nelson choosing to be amusingly exact to that hour, which he considered as a very late one for business."