WHO WAS HORATIA?

Otago Witness, Issue 3419, 26 September 1919, Page 59

WHO WAS HORATIA?

NEW NELSON THEORY

Miss Moorhouse, in her history of Nelson's Lady Hamilton, incorporates two remarkable letters, lately unearthed, from Horatia Nelson (Mrs Ward) to Sir Harris Nicholas. In the more remarkable of the letters she gives her reason for not believing Lady Hamilton to be her mother. She relates that after Nelson's death, when they were living at Richmond, Lady Hamilton had occasion to correct her for some childish fault. She did so in such exaggerated terms that Mrs Cadogan (Lady Hamilton's mother) remonstrated. "By all the fuss you are making she might be your own child," she said. Perhaps she is," was the reply. Mrs Cadogan thereupon remarked, "That won't do with me, Emma; I know better."

Miss Moorhouse dismisses this incident very' lightly. She seems to think that the "Thompson" letters are conclusive as to the parentage of Horatia Nelson Thompson. These "Thompson" letters were written by Nelson under the alias of Thompson, or pretending there was a seaman in the Fleet ofthat name who was expecting news of the birth of a child from Lady Hamilton, to be conveyed to him by Nelson. There is also another letter sent personally by a seaman named Oliver, in which all disguise is laid aside, thanking Lady Hamilton for this "dear pledge of love," and "that she had never given one to anybody else." Which proves, says Miss Moorhouse, that Nelson was very much in the dark as to the fair Emma's antecedents, as she had at least one child by Sir Harry Featherstonhaugh. But these letters prove nothing (says Mr Arthur Bullard, in the Cbrnhill Magazine), except that Nelson "thought himself Horatia's father." Mr Bullard recalls other biographical details, and adds : "The conclusion is inevitable. Lady Hamilton was not the mother of Horatia Nelson. What becomes, then, of the 'Thompson* letters, and Nelson's joy in the birth of his child by Lady Hamilton? Which brings me to my theory. Lady Hamilton, to strengthen her hold on Nelson and rivet him to herself by a firmer chain, imposed upon him a suppositious child. The arguments to support this proposition- are not far to seek. "Emma Lady Hamilton, in. spite of he* seeming ingenuousness (which, at the best, was that of the French ingenue) had a shrewd eye for the main chance. Her husband", on the completion of his ambassadorial duties at Naples, was returning to England an aged and failing man, and Emma had the prospect of a much* reduced income for the present, and a penurious widowhood in the future. As she had been the chosen companion of a Queen for many years, and used to every luxury, this vista, we may be sure, was in no wise pleasing. What more natural than that Lady Hamilton should look around for an escape from these threatening circumstances, and hitch her chariot to a star, the rising star of England's naval hero. Nelson? Her mind once decided on her course of action, Emma was not one to stick at a trifle. _ At what moment she arrived at this point is difficult to guess. Possibly before the return journey from Naples (November 6, 1800) — at any rate, soon after—she was able to measure herself with Lady Nelson. "But why, it may be said, invent a child? Was not Lady Hamilton able to hold Nelson without a tie? It is doubtful. In Nelson the love of children was an intense passion, something quite out of the common. We read of his playing with his stepson, Josiah Nisbet, finder the table, and when Horatia was still an infant Nurse Gibson told how the hero would come to the house and worship the child for hours. This trait in Nelson's character, we may be sure, did not escape the eyes of Emma. She herself was rather fond of children, and generally had some about her. She was thus the more easily able to discover Nelson's idiosyncrasy. "It is quite clear that Nelson returned to England with no intention of shaking off his wife, but 'dear Lady Hamilton' was so much in evidence that Lady Nelson became huffy and cold. Lady Hamilton had had the bad taste to intervene, in the quarrel, soon with the fixed intention of widening the breach as much as possible, and annexing the Admiral to herself for ever. The battle seems to have swung pretty evenlv between the rivals. Nelson appears to have bidden his wife good-bye before starting for Southampton, and to have written her a civil letter afterwards. Upon which Lady Hamilton plays her trumo- card, and makes Nelson the father of her supposititious child! "The state of perfervid joy into which the announcement (according to Nelson) threw the imaginary 'Thompson' demonstrated the cuteness of Lady Hamilton in this latest strategic move. The naive statement, 'And you, thank God, never gave one to anybody else,'' seems to point to the fact that Lady Hamilton may have

f excused herself for not knowing of her condition at an earlier stage, by the fact that it was her first child. "In ordinary, everyday matters not connected with his profession Nelson was as simple as a babe, and, as has been be* fore stated, Lady Hamilton could have made him believe anything. At any rate, from this moment Nelson definitely broke with his wife, and, in reply to a letter from her seeking reconciliation, he wrote in a very harsh and unfeeling manner from Copenhagen on March 4, just over a month after Horatia's birth, saying that all he wanted was t» be left.to himself."