Nelson: The Essential Hero (43 page)

Hang up thy laurel crown,

While her we sing.

No more in triumph swell,

Since that with her you dwell,

But don’t her William tell -

Nor George, your King.

During this gloomy and dispiriting period the Hamiltons and Nelson lived together in a house in Dover Street which his friend and prize agent Davison had rented for him. Nelson made no attempt at any secrecy about his feelings for Emma Hamilton and his cruel indifference - that harsh reverse of the mask of love - must have been more than intolerable to a very sensitive woman. Nelson for his part was fully occupied, sitting to painters and sculptors, taking his seat in the House of Peers, and attending the theatre - where only the classic loose draperies of the time could conceal the fact that Emma Hamilton was heavily pregnant. On one occasion when Nelson and his old father and Fanny, together with Sir William and Emma, were in the stage box at Drury Lane attending a performance by the great Kemble, Fanny, overcome one suspects more by her own griefs than by those presented on the stage, suddenly cried out and fainted. The agony of their situation was such that it could inevitably only end one way, in a permanent separation.

There is more than one account of the final scene which led to their parting. The most familiar, and one which has the ring of truth since it shows so clearly the state that Fanny’s nerves had reached, is that recounted by William Haslewood, a solicitor who was being employed by Davison in a legal tangle over prize money that had arisen between Nelson and St Vincent. According to Haslewood, he was breakfasting with the Nelsons, 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’. 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 should 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 saying 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. I believe that Lord Nelson took a formal leave of her ladyship before joining the Fleet under Sir Hyde Parker. . . .

One wonders why Fanny Nelson should, for a moment, have been expected to utter a ‘soothing word’, or make any gesture at all -except perhaps to throw something at her husband. But she remained then, and to the end, a gentle and affectionate woman who was unsuited to the storms of emotion. She was no match for her tempestuous rival.

On
17
January
1801 Nelson hoisted his flag aboard the
San Josef
, the great man-of-war which he had captured four years previously at Gape St Vincent. Despite his earlier expressed intention to retire on the grounds of health he had, immediately upon his arrival in London, expressed his wish to the Admiralty for a further appointment. On 1 January he had been promoted Vice-Admiral of the Blue. St Vincent, who was in command of the Channel fleet, now made it clear that he wanted no one but Nelson as his second-in-command.

The
San Josef
lay at Plymouth, Hardy was her captain, and Nelson had every reason to feel the greatest satisfaction at being aboard a ship which he declared would be the finest in the world. Once more in his native element he could assume the role for which nature had cast him, even though he could never forget the complexities of the shore and of his private life. Fanny had gone to Brighton to be with his old father, Round Wood was to be sold, but he had made ample provision for his wife for the rest of her life. He could never make amends, but he could at least freely admit that there was no blame attached to her: ‘I call God to witness there is nothing in you or your conduct I wish otherwise.’ But his main private concern, overlying all other things, was the fact that Emma was due to give birth in the near future. If the child survived, the problems involved would be considerable for, even if Sir William had been capable of overlooking the fact that his wife was pregnant, he could not overlook the existence of a child. While he sat in Hardy’s cabin, for his own was not yet completed, listening to the bustle of the ship as efforts were made to complete her in advance of time, he had much to preoccupy him - not least the fact that his one good eye was giving him trouble and that he needed new shades made to protect both from the glare of sun on sea.

The world beyond these private preoccupations was bleak and menacing. Tsar Paul I of Russia, affronted by the fact that the British had no intention of allowing him to annex Malta - which had now fallen - had become hostile. Although nominally at war with the French, the Tsar viewed the British blockade of the Continent as intolerable. He was not alone in this, for all the Continental countries had good reason to object to the search, control, and even seizure of their ships by the British. The latter, who could only strike at Napoleon’s France by such measures, were in the unenviable position of making enemies of the very nations whom they wished to arouse to join them against the common foe. The Danes had particular cause for complaint, and an action in the Channel in which a Danish frigate together with her convoy of six merchantmen had been fired on and captured had produced an international storm that had very nearly led to war. Tsar Paul now proposed a treaty of Armed Neutrality, similar to that of 1780, whereby the Continental powers, whose trade was adversely affected by the British blockade, would deny Britain access to the Baltic, while at the same time the neutrals would band together against Britain to protect the freedom of their trade. It was not quite a declaration of war, but what it did in effect was to nullify British seapower. Without access to the Baltic, whose timber and other naval sources of supply were essential to the maintenance of her fleet, Britain was rendered impotent. The treaty was signed in December 1800 by Russia, Prussia, Denmark and Sweden, Russia at the same time seizing 300 British merchantmen which were in her ports. Napoleon was naturally delighted, for he saw his great adversary reduced once again to having no ally at all upon the Continent except Portugal. He declared that he regarded the French Republic as already at peace with the Tsar, even though the formalities of a peace treaty had not yet been concluded. The Tsar, who also had his eye on India, was quickly in touch with the First Consul, with the suggestion that influence should be brought to bear on Portugal to bring her within the Armed Neutrality, while approaches should also be made to the United States urging them to join. England faced the spectre of the deprivation of her sources of naval supplies and of a Continent united against her navy and her trade - the only weapons she had in her armoury against the might of the land power. The Danes proved more provocative than most of the other signatories of the treaty and, on 29 March 1801, placed an embargo on all British merchantmen within Danish ports. At the same time they entered Hamburg and declared the Elbe closed to British shipping. There was nothing left for Britain to do but to send a powerful fleet into the Baltic, in the hope that its presence would be enough to bring most of the signatories of the treaty to their senses - and, if it did not, to take appropriate action to destroy their navies. In the whole course of the war to date, England never faced a graver crisis than that which now stemmed from this new treaty of Armed Neutrality.

It was under these circumstances that Nelson now took the
San Josef
up the Channel to drop anchor in Torbay, where he at once went to report to St Vincent. Shortly after arrival he was ordered to transfer his flag to the 98-gun
St George.
She was of lighter draught than the
San Josef
and therefore considered more suitable for the shallow waters of the Baltic whither he would soon be bound. It was on this same day, 1 February, that he received the letter from London which he had been awaiting with eagerness. Its contents struck him like a blow in the heart. All his life he had longed for children, and it had been with saddened resignation that he had long ago accepted the fact that Fanny was incapable of bearing any. Now he had the longed-for news - Emma had given birth to a daughter! This child, which was to be christened Horatia (though Nelson would have preferred Emma), was the result of that warm and indolent cruise in the
Foudroyant
to Malta. She had most probably been conceived while the flagship lay at anchor in the warm waters of Marsa Klokk Bay in the south of that sunny island. She was the product of their Mediterranean love and Nelson, only just returned from his first interview with St Vincent, was deliriously happy. The only trouble was that all must be concealed. The circumstances of the birth itself had been most adroitly handled by Mrs Cadogan and, after the child’s delivery on 29 January, it had been smuggled out of the house concealed in a muff, and delivered to a wet-nurse in Marylebone.

Even if Sir William knew of the event (which he probably did) the arrangements made for the delivery and subsequent care of Horatia were so discreet that the world at large never had an inkling that Emma had borne a child. Indeed, so well concealed were all the circumstances of its birth that, even many years afterwards, there was considerable dispute as to whether she had had a child and, if she had, whose it was. There can be absolutely no doubt that Nelson was the father. Letters which passed in abundance between Nelson and Emma subsequent to the birth establish quite conclusively his proud parenthood. Of necessity, for the mails were not secure, this correspondence had to be concealed under a fiction that Nelson was concerned about a young father aboard his vessel who was named Thompson or Thomson (indifferently spelled by both) whose lady love had had a baby, but whose marriage to the mother was rendered impossible by an ‘uncle’. Once this uncle was either dead or otherwise out of the way it was understood that the ill-starred lovers would get married.

Nelson’s passion for Emma was more than reinforced by the birth of his daughter : ‘My own dear wife, for such you are in my eyes and in the face of heaven ... I love, I never did love anyone else. I never had a dear pledge of love till you gave me one, and you, thank God, never gave one to anyone else.’ In this of course he was grossly mistaken (and Emma naturally would have been the last to undeceive him) for in the north of England a young woman of about nineteen named Emma Carew was still occasionally visited by Mrs Cadogan. Apart from Emma and her mother, only Charles Greville knew for certain of this daughter, Charles Greville of course having taken Emma under his protection when she had just borne the child. What Nelson’s feelings would have been had he known of her existence cannot be imagined. All that is quite clear is that at this time of his life, separated from Emma, he cherished an almost mad jealousy on her score. The news that the unprincipled Prince Regent might be going to visit the Hamiltons was enough to throw him into a paroxysm of fear and rage. ‘Does Sir William want you to be a whore to the rascal?’ he wrote. The meeting in fact never took place, but Nelson must have been subconsciously aware that a woman with an early reputation like Emma’s, and who had subsequently blatantly deceived her husband, might not be above seeking even higher favours than his own. If Emma’s feelings towards Nelson may possibly have been tempered by material considerations and by the desire to have as lover the foremost figure of the time, there can be no doubt that his were totally inspired by that blind god from whom the ancients prayed to be preserved. ‘What must be my sensations at the idea of sleeping with you ! it sets me on fire, even the thoughts, much more would the reality. I am sure my love & desires are all to you, and if any woman naked were to come to me, even as I am this moment from thinking of you, I hope it might rot off if I would touch her even with my hand.’