Memoirs of Emma, lady Hamilton, the friend of Lord Nelson and the court of Naples; (26 page)

the readiness of the Neapolitan army to march into the Romagna " ready to receive them." He hoped that Mack's imminent arrival would brace ministers into resolution. He welcomed with admiring respect a " dignified" letter from the Queen, according with his own favourite quotation from Chatham, " the boldest measures are the safest." He presented his manifesto as a " preparitive" and as " the unalterable opinion of a British Admiral anxious to approve himself a faithful servant to his sovereign by doing everything in his power for the happiness and dignity of their Sicilian Majesties." To Sir William he would write separately. He recognised the signs of revolution, and already he sounded the note of warning. He recommended that their " persons and property " should be ready in case of need for embarkation at the shortest notice. If " the present ruinous system of procrastination " persevered, it would be his " duty " to provide for the safety not only of the Ham-iltons, but of " the amiable Queen of these kingdoms and her family."

The address of this paper to Emma, the emphasis of the Queen's letter, the promise of a separate one to Hamilton, show that the document was intended for the Queen's eye alone, and point to the suggestion of it by Emma herself. We shall see that while Sir William was pushing affairs with the English Government, Emma, during Nelson's absence in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, was practically to be Ambassador at Naples.

Next day Nelson ordered Ball to Malta with the expressed objects not only of intercepting French communications with Egypt, of the island's blockade, and of co-operation with the Turkish and Russian fleets in the Archipelago, but specially of protecting the Sicilian and Neapolitan coasts. So annoyed was he at the

King's inaction, that he even told Lord Spencer that " Naples sees this squadron no more, except the King," who is losing " the glorious moments," " calls for our help." By mid-October Nelson himself had set out first for Malta, and, after a brief interval of return, for the deliverance of Leghorn. Before the month's close the King and General Mack had started on their ill-starred campaign; before the year's end a definitive Anglo-Sicilian alliance had been signed, and Gren-ville's former attitude reversed.

The very day of Nelson's departure drew from him the tribute to Lady Hamilton which was in Pettigrew's possession, and a facsimile of which accompanied the first volume of his Memoirs of Lord Nelson.

" I honour and respect you," it ran, " and my dear friend Sir William Hamilton, and believe me ever your faithful and affectionate Nelson "—the first letter, as " his true friend " Emma recorded on it, written to her " after his dignity to the peerage."

The girl who, after the bartering Greville trampled upon her affections, had been gained into grateful attachment by Hamilton, with the covert resolve of becoming his wife and winning her spurs in the political tournament, had at length carved a career. Greville's neglect of her self-sacrifice had not hardened her, but her tender care of Sir William was fast assuming a new complexion. She had twice saved his life; she had perpetually urged his activities; she still watched over him. But, under her standards of instinct and experience, she was half gravitating towards the persuasion that they might warrant her in taking her fate into her own hands. She hated "half measures"; neck or nothing, she would realise herself. Her chief cravings remained as yet unsatisfied. Womanlike, she had yearned for true sympathy. Here was one willing and eager to listen. She had long been in love with

glory. Here was a hero who personified it. She had sighed for adventures in the grand style. Here was opportunity. She wavered on the verge of a new temptation. She felt as though her wandering soul had at last found its way. Yet, in reality, she still groped in a maze of contending emotions, nor would she stop to inquire by what clue her quick steps were hurrying her: the moment was all in all. She still identified her intense friendship with her husband's. Disloyalty still revolted her in its masked approaches; and yet she struggled, half-consciously, with a " faith unfaithful " that was to keep her " falsely true."

Omitting further historical detail, we may turn at once to the part played by Emma with the Queen at Caserta as her hero's vice-gerent during his nine weeks' absence. Her heart was with the ships, and she pined to quit the villeggiatura for Naples.

It was, in her own words, with Nelson's " spirit " that Emma inflamed the Queen, from whom she was now inseparable. The King still looked to Austria, and thought of little else but his daughter-in-law's coming confinement. The Queen, who had hesitated, at last caught the promptness of Nelson's policy. General Mack had arrived, but a thousand official obstacles impeded his preparations. " He does not go to visit the frontiers," wrote Emma to Nelson, " but is now working night and day, and then goes for good, and I tell her Majesty, for God's sake, for the country's sake, and for your own sake, send him off as soon as possible, no time to be lost, and I believe he goes after to-morrow." The suppression of the Irish rebellion had removed yet another spoke from the Republican wheel. " I translate from our papers," said Emma, " to inspire her or them, I should say, with some of your spirit and energy. How delighted we both were

to speak of you. She loves, respects, and admires you. For myself, I will leave you to guess my feelings. Poor dear Troubridge stayed that night with us to comfort us. What a goo'd dear soul he is. ... He is to come down soon, and I am to present him. She sees she could not feel happy if she had not an English ship here to send off. . . . How we abused Gallo yesterday. How she hates him. He won't reign long— so much the better. . . . You are wanted at Caserta. All their noddles are not worth yours." There were affectionate mentions of Tyson and Hardy, with the hope that the " Italian spoil-stomach sauce of a dirty Neapolitan " might not hurt the invalid, but that perhaps Nelson's steward provided him " with John Bull's Roast and Boil." Then followed her enthusiasm over Nelson's honours, and her wrath at the stint of home recognition, which have been echoed already. In the same long letter, containing, as was her wont, the diary of a week, she resumes her political story. She and her Queen had been ecstatic over the Sultan's lavish acknowledgments of Nelson's victory.

"The Queen says that, after the English she loves the Turks, and she has reason, for, as to Vienna, the ministers deserve to be hanged, and if Naples is saved, no thanks to the Emperor. For he is kindly leaving his father in the lurch. We have been two days desperate on account of the weak and cool acting of the Cabinet of Vienna. Thugut must be gained; but the Emperor—oh, but he is a poor sop, a machine in the hands .of his corrupted ministers. The Queen is in a rage. . . . Sunday last, two couriers, one from London, one from Vienna; the first with the lovely news of a fleet to remain in the Mediterranean, and a treaty made of the most flattering kind for Naples. In short, everything amicable . . . and most truly honourable. T'other from their dear son and daughter, cold, un-

friendly, mistrustful, Frenchified; and saying plainly, help yourselves. How the dear Maria Carolina cried for joy at the one and rage at the other. But Mack is gone to the army to prepare all to march immediately." And here, too, is the place of that dramatic outburst, cited in the Prelude, where Emma extended her left arm, like Nelson, and " painted the drooping situation," stimulating the Queen's decision in face of those hampering obstacles on the part of Gallo and the King, which proved so unconscionable a time in dying. " In short, there was a council, and it was decided to march out and help themselves; and, sure, their poor fool of a son will not, cannot but come out. He must bring 150,000 men in the Venetian State. The French could be shut in between the two armies, Italy cleared, and peace restored. I saw a person from Milan yesterday, who says that a small army would do, for the Milanese have had enough of liberty." She depicts the horrid state of that capital, the starvation side by side with the rampant licentiousness of the Jacobins " putting Virtue out of countenance by their . . . libertin-age. . . . So, you see, a little would do. Now is the moment, and, indeed, everything is going on as we could wish." Emma has ,been hitherto and often painted as the Queen's mouthpiece. She was really Nelson's, and her intuition had grasped his mastership of the political prospect. Was she not right in declaring that she had " spurred them on " ? The Queen had been actually heartened into resolving on a regency, a new fact which reveals the political divergences between the royal pair at this period. ' The King is to go in a few days, never to return. The regency is to be in the name of the Prince Royal, but the Queen will direct all. Her head is worth a thousand. I have a pain in my head, . . . and must go take an airing. . . . May you live long, long, long

for the sake of your country, your King, your family, all Europe, Asia, Africa, and America [Emma is on her stilts once more], and for the scourge of France, but particularly for the happiness of Sir William and self, who love you, admire you, and glory in your friendship." Sir William's new name for Nelson was now " the friend of our hearts." And these hearts were certainly stamped with his image:—" Your statue ought to be made of pure gold and placed in the middle of London. Never, never was there such a battle, and if you are not regarded as you ought and I wish, I will renounce my country and become either a Mameluke or a Turk. The Queen yesterday said to me, the more I think on it, the greater I find it, and I feel such gratitude to the warrior, . . . my respect is such, that I could fall at his honoured feet and kiss them. You that know us both, and how alike we are in many things, that is, I as Emma Hamilton, she as Queen of Naples, imagine us both speaking of you. ... I would not be a lukewarm friend for the world. I ... cannot make friendships with all, but the few friends I have, I would die for them. ... I told her Majesty we only wanted Lady Nelson to be the female Tria juncta in uno, for we all love you, and yet all three differently, and yet all equally, if you can make that out." . . . And Lady Nelson, accordingly, she congratulated twice, both on the Queen's behalf and her own.

Nelson returned for a fortnight in the earlier days of November, more than ever dissatisfied with the Neapolitan succours and the Portuguese co-operation at Malta. There, with strong significance in view of next year's crisis at Naples, he had notified the French, who rejected his overtures, that he would certainly disregard any capitulation into which the Maltese General might afterwards be forced to enter. He learned the

Memoirs—Vol. 14—8

decision for definite war, and the King's reluctant consent at length to accompany the army to Rome. No sooner had Garat been dismissed, than the French declared war also. Force, then, must repel force, for the Ligurian Republic meant nothing but France in Italy. Throughout, moreover, Nelson's guiding aim was the destruction of Jacobinism, which, indeed, he regarded as anti-Christ. He collected his forces and set out for Leghorn, which soon surrendered (although Buonaparte's brother Louis escaped the blockade), landing once more at Naples in the first week of December. At first Mack and the Neapolitan troops prevailed, and Prince Moliterno's valour covered the cowardice of his troops. The King entered Rome; the Queen's mercurial hopes ran high. But her exultation was short-lived. Before the end of the first week in December Carolina wrote to her confidante that she now pitied the King intensely, and " would be with him/' " God only knows what evils are in reserve. I am deeply affected by it, and expect every day something more terrible. The good only will be the victims. . . . Mack is in despair, and has reason to be so." The French Berthier proved an abler, though not a braver, general than the Austrian, but Mack had raw and wretched levies under his command ; his officers were bribed and their men deserted. Rome was retaken; a retreat became unavoidable, and by the second week in December that retreat had already become a rout. From the close of November onwards the Queen grew more and more despondent, though Duckworth's naval success at Minorca, the promise by the Czar Paul of his fleet, and the retirement of the Republicans from Frosinone had cheered her. She was very ill, and fresh home conspiracies were in course of discovery.

Emma still lingered in her neighbourhood at Caserta.

Beseeching Nelson not to go ashore at Leghorn, and rejoicing at the unfounded rumour that his " dear, venerable father " had been made a bishop, she informed him that the King had at length issued a clear manifesto. The army had marched, the Queen had just gone to pray for them in the cathedral. She announced the King's triumphal entry into Rome from Frascati; she hoped the best from the battle of Velletri, fought even as she writes. " Everybody here," she assured Nelson, " prays for you. Even the Neapolitans say mass for you, but Sir William and I are so anxious that we neither eat, drink, nor sleep; and till you are safely landed and come back we shall feel mad." The secret of Nelson's movements and preparations she will never betray, nor would red-hot torture wrest it from her. " We send you one of your midshipmen, left here by accident; . . . pray don't punish him. Oh! I had forgot I would never ask favours, but you are so good I cannot help it." And then follows a telltale passage: " We have got Josiah. How glad I was to see him. Lady Knight, Miss Knight, Carrol, and Josiah dined to-day with us, but alas! your place at table was occupied by Lady K. I could have cried, I felt so low-spirited."

Is it a wonder that Nelson was moved? One can hear how her confidence impressed him. Shortly after his return he frankly avowed, " My situation in this country has had, doubtless, one rose, but it has been plucked from a bed of thorns." This, then, was no waxen camellia, but a rose whose fresh scent contrasted with the hot atmosphere of the court and the prickles of perpetual vexation.

The reader must judge whether such efforts and appeals, this developing energy and tenderness, were the manoeuvres of craft. It is patent from the correspondence that Emma's interjectional letters, which

think aloud, answer epistles from Nelson of even tenor. A comparison, moreover, with her girlish epistles to Greville shows a sameness of quality that will stand the same test. She remains " the same Emma."