NEW LIGHT ON NELSON.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 40, 16 February 1929, Page 17 (Supplement)

NEW LIGHT ON NELSON.

LOVE OF LADY HAMILTON. JEALOUS OF PRINCE OF WALES UNPUBLISHED LETTERS.

New light on the famous love intrigue of Lord Nelson and Lady Hamilton has just been revealed by the discovery of some hitherto unpublished original letter?.

Passionate declarations that his mistress was "his wife in the face of heaven," expressions of love for their illegitimate daughter, Horatia, and a violently phrased jealousy of the then Prince of Wales, whom he thought was supplanting him in the affections of Lady Hamilton, occur in this correspondence. The letters are among a bundle of Nelson documents, including some of the logs of his ships, which have been presented by Joseph Husband to the Harvard University College Library. The collection numbers over 200 and research students are now carefully going through all the documents for new discoveries. Among these documents is a will of Lady Hamilton. One of the letters proves that Nelson did not know Lady Hamilton intimately on the occasion of his first visit to Naples, as he writes quite formally to Sir William Hamilton, the husband ot the notorious Emma Lyon, who was the intimate friend of Queen Maria Carolina.

This letter is written in Nelson's right-hand caligraphy. Most of the others are written with his left hand, and there is a marked difference between the scripts. It i 3 made clear that Nelson's fatal passion for Emma Hamilton was at its height about 1798. When, in 1800. Nelson and the Hamiltons journeyed home together from Naples Lady Hamilton had become Nelson's openly acknowledged mistress. Two weeks after his own wife left him because of his liaison with Lady Hamilton, Horatia, the child of this love affair was born. We find a letter dated about this time from Nelson, in which he declares to Lady Hamilton: — "Now, my dear wife, for such you ar« in my eyes and in the face of Heaven, I can give full scope to my feelings, for I dare say Oliver will faithfully deliver this letter. You know, my dearest Emma that there is nothing in this world that I would not do for us to live together and to have our dear little child with us. I love you and never did love anyone else. I never had a dear pledge of our love until you gave me one, and you, thank God, never gave one to anyone else." A postscript asks: "Kiss and bless our dear Horatia." By this letter Nelson evidently believed that Horatia was Lady Hamilton's first child, but it is now

known that she had several illegitimate children before she met Sir William Hamilton. A later letter reveals his jealousy of the then Prince of Wales, later Cicorge IV. He declares how very sorry he is to have to leave Lady Hamilton again, and then violently breaks out: "Damn all those that would make you false, but I know that you will be true and faithful." Much gossip was going about, and Nelson had become violently jealous of his royal rival. Another indication of his feelings is shown by this extract: — "My mind is fixed that if ever the damned fellow is admitted into youi company then your Kelson is rejected, and I would sooner believe that the world was to be at an end this week." The will of Lady Hamilton contains references that demonstrate how great was her infatuation also for hei sailor lover. "If I can be buried in St. Paul's," (she wrote), "1 should be very happy to be near the glorious ' Nelson, whom I loved and admired. Sir William (her husband), Nelson, and myself had agreed we should be buried near each other "Thus it would have been that three persons who were so much attached to each other from virtue and friendship would be laid in the one grave when they quitted t';is ill-natured, slanderous world. But 'tis past, and in heaven 1 hope we shall meet. . . I hope my dear mother will live and be a mother to Nelson's child, Horatia." Seven years after penning this. Lady Hamilton died in poverty at Calais, where she bad fled to escape her pressing creditors. After her death Horatia was taken care of by Nelson's sisters. The greatest importance is also attached to some of the naval documents, as they provide solutions to many of the secrets of Nelson's orders of battle and private instructions to his commanders.