NELSON’S EMMA

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15033, 2 September 1922, Page 18 (Supplement)

NELSON’S EMMA

INTERESTING REMINISCENCES. On 10th September, 1793, Nelson, then a man of 35 years, sailed into the Bay of Naples on the 64-gun ship Agamemnon. He was in pursuit of the French fleet, and was received with great enthusiasm. He came to beg that his ships might receive all that they needed at any Mediterranean port, and it was mainly due to Lady Hamilton’s great influence with the Queen that he obtained this favour. The King was full of indecision and uncertainly. Would he join Spain or France? Would he ally himself with or against England? And it was Lady Hamilton who worked and plotted and schemed for England and the English fleet all through the years that followed. She was at the height of her friendship with the Queen, whom she consoled, served and tended with all the love of her warm heart. She wrote memorials to King George for her husband. She discovered the plot by which the King of Naples schemed to betray the English to Spain. She induced the Queen to cast in her lot with the English, and to continue the provisioning of the English fleet. Nelson and Lady Hamilton did not meet from 1793 to 1798, but during those five years he and the Hamiltons were in constant and most sympathetic correspondence. They both loved him, and rejoiced in his victories and fame. Emma adored his courage and his genius. He was her hero —her ideal. They were all working for England.

Nelson went back to Naples after the battle of the Nile. The Queen was eager to avenge the death of her sister (Marie Antionetle), and she had forced her reluctant husband to make an alliance with Austria against France. This army was promptly defeated, and a revolution broke out in Naples itself. Nelson arrived just in time to take the Royal Family and the Hamiltons to Palermo.

“What a scene you, your Sicilian King, his Queen, Lady Hamilton, and our noble -Nelson have lately gone through,” wrote Sir James Macpherson to Hamilton. “Lady Hamilton has shown, with honour to you and herself, the merit of your predilection and selection of so good a heart and so fine a mind. She is admired here from the Court, to the cottage. The King and Prince of Wales often speak of her.” In Palermo the .three set up house together, and from that time on her fame began to cloud. Sir William Hamilton loved Nelson and adored his wife. Nothing Emma could do displeased or offended him. Her love for the great hero was only equalled by his own. “It was all Emma’s sensibility, all Nelson’s loyal devotion.” But Lord Nelson’s stepson had written home to his mother, and rumour was busy, with his philandering. Lady Minto, writing to her sister, describes some of the Palermo incidents:— Nelson and the Hamiltons all lived together in a house of which he bore the expense, which was enormous, and every sort of gaming went on half the night. Nelson used to sit with large parcels of gold before him, and generally go to sleep, Lady Hamilton, taking from the heap without counting, and playing with his money to the amount of £SOO a night. Her rage is play, and Sir William says when he is dead she will be a beggar. However, she has about £30,000 worth of diamonds from the Royal Family in presents. She sits at the councils, and rules everybody and everything. For a time Nelson almost forgot his sense of duty. There was no sufficient reason for his long stay in Sicily. He was censured by the Admiralty, and allowed to resign his command. Sir William Hamilton's term of office was terminating, and they were all for England. . Yarmouth was the port chosen to receive the great admiral on his return, and when lie landed there in November of 1800 with the Hamiltons they shared in his triumphs. Emma walked down the little wooden jetty with her hand on his arm. She went with him in procession to church. She even wore on tills occasion tho dress designed for the Palermo fete in his honour —a dress of white muslin with a flounce embroidered in gold thread and coloured silks, with anchors and leaves alternating medallions containing the words, “Nelson” and “Bronte” forming the border. But these triumphs could not be repeated in London; here his wife was awaiting him, and the situation bristled with difficulties. Incredible as it seems, Nelson hoped and believed that his wife and Lady Hamilton might be friends. But lie was soon disillusioned. His infatuation for Emma at the time was so great that he could see no wrong in her. As Sir W. Hotliam said, “His treatment of his wife was the very extreme of unjustifiable weakness, for he should have at least attempted to conceal his infirmities without publicly wounding the feelings of a woman whose own conduct he well knew was irreproachable.” At last Lady Nelson forced Hie issue, insisting that she was sick of hearing of “dear Lady Hamilton," and that Nelson must choose between them. With perfect calm tie chose Emma, and Lady Nelson immediately left Hie house. They never lived together again. In January, 1801, Horalia, tiie first child of Emma and Nelson, was born, and although the birth took place in Sir William Hamilton’s house —where he was at the.moment—he apparently guessed nothing. Lady Hamilton retired lo her room with a severe cold and refused to see anyone for some days. The secret was effectively kept from everyone but her mother, and possibly a servant, and in a week the baby was placed in the care of a foster mother and Lady Hamilton was about again. Later on this child was brought constantly lo her house, on the pretext that she was the child of a friend. Strange to say, Horatia herself never believed she was Emma’s daughter, though there were letters and documents proving her parentage beyond all doubt. The Hamiltons went to live in a house in Piccadilly, where Emma meant to “profiL by the pleasures of London society, and to entertain.” The Prince of Wales, amongst others, desired to dine with them, a fact which alarmed Nelson beyond words, as lie knew the Prince’s reputation. Owing to Emma's illness this dinner never took place.

During Ibis lime Nelson was fighting the second of his great battles, was writing ardent love letters to his dearest Emma, and being congratulated by Sir William. They rushed to join him on his return, and Ibis strange trio spent nil their time together.

But Nelson was allowed no rest: in four weeks his flag was flying again, and he planned and carried out the allack on the Boulogne flotilla. IL was during this absence Ihat Emma found for him the home of his own he had always longed for —Merton Place, in

11 was to that house he returned. From then on the friends lived together, cither at Merlon Place or at the Hamilton's house in Picocadiily, till Sir William Hamilton’s death in J GOG. "His wife and Nelson were constantly with him,” we are told, “caring for his last hours with a tenderness that would be strange in view

of the facts, were human nature not capable of such strange complexities.”

Whether Sir William Hamilton ever suspected the truth will remain a mystery—he never by word or sign showed the slightest doubt of either his wife or his friend —and he felt his favourite miniature of Emma to Nelson with a touching message. Now doom crashed on the lovers. Nelson was given command of the Mediterranean fleet, and hoisted his flag for tiie first time in the fateful and glorious Victory, His heart was with Emma, hut for two years lie never set foot outside his ship. “That dear domestic happiness," as Codringlon said, “never abstracted his attention.” When she suggested comng out to him lie sternly refused. “I have not a thought except for you and the French fleet,” he wrote her, but he was adamant about her coming out. In the spring of 1804, while he was at sea, their second child,.'another daughter, was born, but died almost at once, and it was aflar this that Horatia came to Merton to live permanently.

As the war dragged on Emma’s lone liness increased, and it was not till August 19 that Nelson was free to come to Merton. A short,week or two of great happiness—but full, too, of foreboding, and then the last summons came. England needed Nelson, and he went out to his last battle. After Nelson’s death at Trafalgar the light went out of Emma; her heart was broken and her great spirit crushed. Nothing really mattered to her after that, but fate was not kind to her, and she had ten years of wretched, sordid life to live before the end came. Naples had ruined her for economy, and she could not get out of her expensive way of living. Her husband had failed to get the' pension he expected, and she was deeply in debt. In spite of Nelson’s dying wish that the country should support her—in spite of her supplications and memorials to Ministers —nothing was done, and in 1813 Merton Place had to be sold.

Again and again her friends helped her, and again and again she was in financial difficulties—till at last the final crash came, and she was arrested for debt. She eventually fleet to France, where she and Horatia lived till 1815, when she died in Calais in great poverty. But all the best of Emma died at Trafalgar, and it is kindest to remember her as the beautiful woman to whom was vouchsafed one of the greatest loves in history. As Sichel tells us : “Their love was no sacrifice to lower instincts; it was a true link of hearts. . Nelson would have adored Emma had she not been so beautiful—she worshipped him the more for never basking in court or official sunshine. And their passion was Tasting as well as deep. Not even calumny has whispered that Emma was unfaithful even to Nelson’s memory; and Nelson held their union, though unconsecrated, as wholly sacred and unalterable. If the light of their torch was not from heaven, at least its intensity was undimmed.”—John o’ London.