Drake, Nelson and Napoleon

This letter was written on the 22nd March, 1802, and Nelson writes that Sir William Hamilton died in his arms and in Lady Hamilton's on the 6th April, 1803, passing on "without a struggle, and that the world had never lost a more upright and accomplished gentleman";[5] which, be it said, is rather a stagey performance of his wife's lover. But the mistress excels her lover in the record of the death-bed drama. "Unhappy day," says she in profusion of tears, "for the forlorn Emma. Ten minutes past ten dear beloved Sir William left me." Emma was poorly provided for; only £700 a year jointure and £100 a year for her mother for life. She and Nelson appealed to Lord Minto to urge on Mr. Addington her claim for a pension, and she vowed to Minto that her connection with Nelson was pure, and he says he can believe it, which is hardly consistent with the description he gives his wife as to "their open and disgusting proceedings," or with his comments on a visit paid to the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim, where the Duke had treated the gallant naval chief and his party as though they were mere ordinary trippers who had come to see the wonders of his possessions. He condescendingly ordered refreshments to be given to them, which sent Nelson into a fury of indignation, and Minto excuses the Duke by stating that Nelson persuaded himself that all the world should be blind because he chose to extol Emma's "virtues." Obviously, Minto was not firmly convinced of her chastity.

Nelson, with his heart full of blind adoration, had quite a simple, sailorly conviction that no one ought to question the innocence of his attachment to Emma, since he called Hamilton her "Uncle"; and, because he wished the public to believe in his innocence, he took it for granted that they would believe it. The Duke of Marlborough evidently had heard and believed in the impure tale, but that did not justify him in treating his noble guest and his friends in the snobbish and ill-mannered way he did. It is hardly likely that Nelson would have paid the visit without being asked, and in ordinary decency he should have been received or not asked at all. He was a greater figure and public servant than the Duke, and His Grace would not have suffered in dignity had he met Nelson on terms of equality. He could not have done less, at all events. On the other hand, the great Admiral showed a peevishness at the treatment which was unworthy of his fame and position; he could well afford to ignore the affront, more especially as he prided himself that the lady the Duke took exception to was "in the sight of Heaven his wife," and no one had any right to question his choice.

The views held by Hamilton and recorded in various conflicting versions give the impression that he was puzzled, and could not determine whether to believe in the fidelity of Nelson or not. Some writers think that he winked at the liaison because of the difference between his own age and that of his wife; others, that he thought the relations were innocent, and a token of high-spirited friendship for himself; but all delicately indicate their conviction that he knew what was going on. Meanwhile, Nelson steadfastly avows his unyielding fidelity to his friends, and, with this exception, I think we may conclude that his devotion to them could always be relied upon; indeed, his attachment to Hamilton was of an affectionate character, even when many people believed he was betraying him. Whether Sir William knew and believed that the association between his wife and Nelson was pure or not,[6] he evidently desired that no one else should believe it, for in a codicil to his will he bequeaths "The copy of Madam Le Brun's picture of his wife in enamel, and gives to his dearest friend, Nelson, a very small token of the great regard he has for his Lordship, the most virtuous, loyal, and truly brave character I ever met with." Then he finishes up with God's blessing to him and shame to those who do not say "Amen." This is a wonderful testimony of friendship from a man who had been wronged, and might well have shaken the belief of those who founded their opinions on the startling improprieties they had beheld between the man whom he designated "the most virtuous, loyal, and truly brave character he had ever met with" and his wife. That Sir William connived at what looked uncommonly like infidelity may or may not be doubtful, but that he saw more than would have impressed an ordinary man or woman with suspicion is unquestionable, and the best that can be said for his attitude is that he was so mentally constituted that he could only see or preferred to see in Nelson's extravagant attentions to his wife a guileless symbol of high friendship for her, which he took as a compliment to himself. On the other hand, if he not only suspected but knew that he was being betrayed, and bitterly resented the passion which no remonstrances from him could have controlled, he at any rate determined to let the world see "how a Christian could die," and refrained from uttering the unutterable. Napoleon on the rock at St. Helena acted in the same magnanimous way towards the adulterous Marie Louise, of whose faithlessness he also unguardedly let slip his opinion.

It is an odious habit, but we are apt to believe, without any reserve, disparaging stories, that may or may not be true, concerning men of distinction, and the more prominent the man or woman, the more viciously the scandal-mongers pursue their contemptible occupation. These vermin invariably belong to a class of industrious mediocrities who have been born with a mental kink, and their treachery, falsehood, and cowardice are incurable. They are merely hurtful creatures who spoil the earth, and are to be found dolefully chattering about what they conceive to be other men's and women's lapses from the paths of stern virtue. Their plan of life is to defame other people, and by this means proclaim their own superiority over other weak mortals. Give the unsexed woman a chance, and she will let fly with unrestrained industry. How many innocent people have had their names dragged into the public gaze by this vice! The report may arise from professional or political jealousy, and may grow into incredible accusations of immorality. Who can estimate the suffering caused to Lord Melbourne, the then Prime Minister, and to his relatives and friends, and even to some of his political opponents, and to the Hon. Mrs. Norton, one of Sheridan's beautiful daughters (who was the wife of as unscrupulous a scamp as was ever permitted to live), by the engineering of an accusation of infidelity that forced the Prime Minister and Mrs. Norton into the Courts to defend themselves against what was proved to be a malicious and unfounded story? The plaintiff's case, resting as it did upon a tissue of fabricated evidence, takes a fine place in history because of the judge's impartiality and sagacious charge, and the verdict of the jury for the defendants which was received with tumultuous cheers, characterized by the judge as "disgraceful in a court of justice." His Lordship's remonstrance was futile, and again and again the cheers were given, both in the court and outside, where the wildest enthusiasm prevailed. No one who took part in this disgraceful action came out of it with a higher reputation than Sir John Campbell, who acted for Melbourne. His entrance to the House of Commons that night was the occasion of an outburst of delirious cheering, the like of which had never been witnessed in the House. "The Tories" are said to have "affected to cheer." I give this as a notable case whereby two innocent people were threatened with ruin and disgrace by the poisonous slander circulated for both private and political ends and fostered by the worthless husband of a virtuous and amiable woman.

It is common knowledge that Nelson and Sir William Hamilton were assailed by the same stinging wasps as Melbourne and Mrs. Norton (if it be proper to make a comparison), but they were different types of men living in a different atmosphere and under different circumstances. It is true that Nelson had scruples about the unwisdom of his unconventional connection with Lady Hamilton, and, big-hearted fellow that he was, he would have struggled hard to avoid giving pain to his relations and friends; and who knows that he did not? For though his actions may belie that impression, his whole attitude was reckless, silly, and whimsical. To whatever extent he may have had scruples, he certainly did not possess the faculty of holding his inclinations in check. Indeed, he made no secret of the idea that "every man became a bachelor after passing the Rock of Gibraltar," and in this notion he carried out the orthodoxy of the old-time sailor.

He disliked marriage and loved glory, and being a popular hero, he was forgiven all his amorous sins, which were by many looked upon as being part of his heroism. His laughable efforts to obscure the facts might have satisfied those who wished to rely on Hamilton's benedictory absolution, had not Nelson and Emma, as I have already said, left behind them incriminating letters and documents which leave no doubt as to what they were to each other. The great Admiral industriously destroyed much of the massive correspondence, but had overlooked some of the hidden treasures. Lady Hamilton promised to destroy all hers, but failed to do so. Hence the documentary proof written by his own hand and that of Emma's cancels Nelson's childish device to throw a too critical public off the scent.

Nelson was alternately weak, nervous, careless, and defiant in his attitude in regard to public opinion concerning his private life. He at one time asserted the right of living in any way he might choose, and resented the criticism of a few cackling busybodies, even though it was not in accordance with the views of the late Mr. Edward Cocker. It was his affair, and if his ideas differed from those of his critics, it was no business of theirs. His independence in this, as well as in the practical concerns of his profession, coincided with the opinions held by Sandy Mackay in "Alton Locke," who declared that he would "never bow down to a bit of brains." But these independent views alternated with weaker ones. He was as indiscreetly lavish with his love as he was with his money; at one time he would contemptuously defy the poisoned arrows that were darted at him, and when beset by the sullen storm-cloud of scandal, he let fly with red-hot courage and audaciously upheld his honour: at another time he was timid, vacillating, and ridiculous in his attempts to avert the public eye from his love affair and its consequence. People who knew him intimately were aware that Horatia was his daughter, and in order to throw them off their guard he proceeded to invent a cock-and-bull story of how he came by the child. Here is his letter to Lady Hamilton written in the middle of 1804: "I am now going to state a thing to you and to request your kind assistance which, from my dear Emma's goodness of heart, I am sure of her acquiescence in. Before we left Italy, I told you of the extraordinary circumstances of a child being left to my care and protection. On your first coming to England, I presented you the child, dear Horatia. You became, to my comfort, attached to it, so did Sir William, thinking her the finest child he had ever seen. She is become of that age when it is necessary to remove her from a mere nurse, and to think of educating her. I am now anxious for the child's being placed under your protecting wing"; a clumsy, transparent piece of foolery, which at once confirms its intention to mislead! But we are saved the trouble of interpretation, for the father goes on to write on another piece of note-paper, "My beloved, how I feel for your situation and that of our dear Horatia, our dear child." It is almost incredible that Nelson could have written such a silly fabrication. In the early part of 1804, Emma gave birth to another child, of which he believed himself to be the father. He asked the mother to call him what she pleased (evidently he hoped and expected a boy), but if a girl, it was to be named Emma. It was a girl, so it was called after the mother, but it did not live long, and the father never saw it.

As though he thought the letter written about little Miss Thompson (Horatia, be it understood) were not sufficiently delusive, he sends an equally absurd production to his niece, Charlotte Nelson, who lived a good deal at Merton, in which he says that he is "truly sensible of her attachment to that dear little orphan, Horatia," and although her parents are lost, yet she is not "without a fortune; and that he will cherish her to the last moment of his life, and curse them who curse her, and Heaven bless them who bless her." This solemn enthusiasm for the poor orphan puts Nelson out of court as a cute letter-writer. The quality of ingenious diplomacy had been left entirely out of him, and like any one else who dallies with an art for which they have no gift, he excites suspicions, and more often than not discloses the very secret he is so anxious to keep. Every line of these letters indicates a tussle between a natural tendency to frank honesty and an unnatural and unworthy method of deception. Obviously, the recipient of this precious document would have her curiosity excited over the disingenuous tale of romance. She would ask herself first of all, "Why should my kinsman be so desirous to tell me that the orphan in whom he has so fond an interest is not without a fortune? and why should the responsibility of rearing and educating the child have been entrusted to him, the most active and important Admiral in the British Navy? And if it be true that she is an orphan, surely there could be no object in supposing that any one would 'curse her,' especially as he declared that she was 'not without fortune,' and that she was to be known as his adopted child." The niece, being a quick-witted girl, would naturally think the problem out for herself, and decide that there was something fishy involved in the mystery of these unnecessary phrases.

But whatever his ruling passion may have been, his belief in the Power that rules us all never forsook him. He believed in religious forms as of a spiritual force. He often committed himself to it, and claimed the privilege of asking for Heaven's guidance. Call it eccentricity or superstition, or what you like, but to him it was a reality. One of the many amusing instances of his devotion to religious rites was the occasion when he and Lady Hamilton stood as godfather and godmother at the christening of their daughter, Horatia Nelson Thompson,[7] by which name she was baptized. To the puritanic, orthodox mind (keeping in view all the circumstances of parentage) this will be looked upon as an act of abominable hypocrisy and sacrilege, but to him it was a pious duty.

Like all highly strung and overwrought mortals, he was often moody, depressed, and, worst of all, a victim to premonitions of his early demise. His superstitious temperament was constantly worrying him, as did his faith in the predictions of a gipsy fortune-teller who had correctly described his career up to the year 1805, and then stopping had said, "I can see no further." This creepy ending of the gipsy's tale was afflicting him with a dumb pain and depression when he unexpectedly came across his sister Catherine in London. She referred to his worn, haggard look with a tenderness that was peculiarly her own. He replied, "Ah! Katty! Katty! that gipsy!" and then relapsed into morbid silence. The foreboding bore heavily on his mind, and the story may well make one's heart throb with pity for the noble fellow who was so soon to fulfil his tragic destiny. Well may we exclaim that fame seems to be the most wretched of mockeries!

The Duke of Wellington, of whom it is said no dose of flattery was too strong for him to swallow, has left on record an interesting account of his meeting Nelson at the Colonial Office. He gives the account of it, thirty years after Nelson's death, to John Wilson Croker at Walmer, and here is what he says of Collingwood's great comrade:—

We must not be too critical of the Duke's opinions of the vanity of the Admiral, but it calls for some notice, inasmuch as the Duke himself is reputed to have had an uncommonly good amount of it himself, though it took a different form and created a different impression. Wellington showed it in a cold, haughty, unimaginative, repelling self-importance; fearful of unbending to his inferiors lest his dignity should be offended. Nelson's peculiarities were the very antithesis; it was his delightful egotism and vanity that added to his charm and made him such a fascinating personality. His direct slap-dash, unconventional phrases and flashes of naval brilliancy, whether in search of, or engaged in battle with the enemy, together with a natural kindness to his officers and men of all ranks, filled them with confidence and pride in having him as their chief. The "Nelson touch," the "drubbing" he swore in his own engaging way that Mr. Villeneuve—as he called him to Blackwood—was to have when he caught him, the putting of the telescope to his blind eye at Copenhagen when the signal was flying to leave off action, and then "No, damn me if I do," had an inspiring effect on his men and strengthened the belief in his dauntlessness and sagacity. "What will Nelson think of us?" remarked one of the men aboard one of the frigates that obeyed the signal. But Nelson went on fighting with complete success. "Luckily," says Wellington, "I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very superior man." Why "luckily"? What difference would his lack of knowledge have made? The Duke was hardly the type of man to understand the powerful personality whose style, "so vain and silly, surprised and almost disgusted" him. That view does not stand to his credit, and no one else held it.

But let us see what a greater man than either Wellington or Nelson says of both. Napoleon, at St. Helena, spoke in very high terms of Lord Nelson,[9] and indeed attempted to palliate that one stigma on his memory, the execution of Carraciolli, which he attributed entirely to his having been deceived by that wicked woman Queen Caroline, through Lady Hamilton, and to the influence which the latter had over him. He says of the Duke: "Judging from Wellington's actions, from his dispatches, and, above all, from his conduct towards Ney, I should pronounce him to be a poor-spirited man, without generosity, and without greatness of soul ('Un homme de peu d'esprit, sans générosité, et sans grandeur d'âme'). Such I know to be the opinion of Benjamin Constant and of Madame de Staël, who said that, except as a general, he had not two ideas. As a general, however, to find his equal amongst your own nation, you must go back to the time of Marlborough, but as anything else, I think that history will pronounce him to be a man of limited capacity ('Un homme borné')."[10]

"Nelson is a brave man. If Villeneuve at Aboukir and Dumanoir at Trafalgar had had a little of his blood, the French would have been conquerors. I ought to have had Dumanoir's head cut off. Do you not think more highly of Nelson than of the best engineers who construct fortifications? Nelson had what a mere engineer officer can never acquire. It is a gift of nature."

The Emperor, in his eulogy of Nelson, is not unmindful of the terrible crime he was led to commit at the instigation of that human viper, Queen Caroline, and the licentious Emma Hamilton. He, to some extent, whittles down Nelson's share of the responsibility by putting the whole blame on them. But who can read the gruesome story of the trial and hanging of the aged Prince Carraciolli without feeling ashamed that a fellow-countryman in Nelson's position should have stamped his career with so dark a crime? At the capitulation of St. Elmo, Carraciolli made his escape. He commanded a Neapolitan warship called the Tancredi, and had fought in Admiral Hotham's action on the 14th March, 1795, and gained distinction, accompanying the Royal Family to Palermo. He was given permission by the King to return for the purpose of protecting his large property. The French had entered Neapolitan territory and seized his estates, on the ground that he was a Royalist, and the only way he could recover them was by agreeing to take command of the Neapolitan fleet. The French were obliged to evacuate the country, and left their friends to settle matters for themselves as best they could. Carraciolli concealed himself, but was discovered in disguise and put on board the Foudroyant with his hands tied behind his back. Captain Hardy, who was a man with a heart, was indignant when he saw the old man subjected to such gross indignity, and immediately ordered his hands to be liberated.

Nelson committed him for trial, which commenced at ten o'clock, and at twelve he was declared guilty. At five o'clock he was hanged at the yardarm of the Neapolitan frigate Minerva. This poor old man was tried solely by his enemies without being allowed to have counsel or call witnesses. A miscreant called Count Thurn, a worse enemy than all, presided over the court. Carraciolli asked Lieutenant Parkinson to obtain for him a new trial. Nelson, who had ordered the first, could not or would not grant a second. Carraciolli asked to be shot, and this also was refused. On the grounds of former association, he sought the aid of Lady Hamilton, but she, being an approving party to the execution, only came from her concealment to enjoy the sight of the old Prince's dead body dangling at the yardarm. "Come, Bronte, come," said she, "let us take the barge and have another look at Carraciolli"; and there they feasted their eyes on the lifeless remains of their former associate, who had assuredly cursed them both with his last dying breath. It is the custom when sailors are buried at sea to weight their feet so that the body may sink in an upright position. The same course was adopted with Carraciolli; shot was put at his feet, but not sufficient, and he was cast into the sea. In a few days the putrified body rose to the surface head upwards, as though the murdered man had come again to haunt his executioners and give them a further opportunity of gazing at the ghastly features of their victim.[11] The sight of his old friend emerging again terrified Ferdinand, and he became afflicted with a feeling of abiding horror which he sought to appease by having the body interred in a Christian burial-ground. But the spirit of his executed friend worried him all his remaining days, and the act of burial did not save Naples from becoming a shambles of conflict, robbery, and revolution. Neither did Emma Hamilton escape her just deserts for the vile part she played in one of the most abominable crimes ever committed. Her latter hours were made terrible by the thought of the mockery of a trial, and the constant vision of the Prince's ghost glowering at her from the Minerva's yardarm and from the surface of his watery tomb from which he had risen again to reproach her with the inhuman pleasure she had taken in watching the dreadful act. Nor did her shrieking avowal of repentance give the wretched Jezebel of a woman the assurance of forgiveness. She sought for distractions, and found most of them in wickedness, and passed into the presence of the Great Mystery with all her deeds of faithlessness, deceit, and uncontrollable revenge before her eyes.

No doubt Nelson thought, when he had poor old Prince Carraciolli hung, that he would create a new earth by striking terror into the hearts of the Neapolitan race, but natural laws are not worked out by methods of this kind, and Nelson had the mortification of seeing his plan of regulating human affairs create a new and more ferocious little hell on earth. His judgment at this time was very much warped through the evil influence of the Court of Naples and more especially by his infatuation for Lady Hamilton.

Greville, and subsequently Sir William Hamilton, had taken great pains to educate Emma Hart. Hamilton writes to his nephew: "I can assure you her behaviour is such as has acquired her many sensible admirers, and we have good man society, and all the female nobility, with the Queen at their head, show her every mark of civility." Hamilton writes further: "Hitherto, her behaviour is irreproachable, but her temper, as you must know, unequal." Lady Malmesbury (with a decidedly sly scratch) says of her: "She really behaves as well as possible, and quite wonderfully, considering her origin and education." Sir George Elliot says: "Her manners are perfectly, unpolished, very easy, but not with the ease of good breeding, but of a barmaid; excessively good-humoured, wishing to please and be admired by everybody that came in her way. She has acquired since her marriage some knowledge of history and of the arts, and one wonders at the application and pains she has taken to make herself what she is. With men her language and conversation are exaggerations of anything I ever heard anywhere; and I was wonderfully struck with these inveterate remains of her origin, though the impression was very much weakened by seeing the other ladies of Naples." A naval lieutenant at Naples stated he "thought her a very handsome, vulgar woman." There is no stabbing with a sneer about this opinion. It expresses in a few words the candid opinion of the sailor. Mrs. St. George thinks her "bold, daring, vain even to folly, and stamped with the manners of her first situation much more strongly than one would suppose, after having represented Majesty and lived in good company fifteen years. Her dress is frightful. Her waist is absolutely between her shoulders. Her figure is colossal, but, excepting her feet, which are hideous, well shaped. The shape of all her features is fine, as is the form of her head, and particularly her ears; her teeth are a little irregular, but tolerably white; her eyes light blue, with a brown spot in one, which, though a defect, takes nothing away from her beauty or expression. Her eyebrows and hair, which, by the bye, is never clean, are dark and her complexion coarse. Her expression is strongly marked, variable, and interesting; her movements in common life ungraceful, her voice loud, yet not disagreeable." This female critic seems to have been overburdened with the weight of Emma's defects, mental and physical! Elliot says: "Her person is nothing short of monstrous for its enormity, and is growing every day. Her face is beautiful." The latter view tones down the apparent desire not to say too much in her favour.

We are inclined to place little dependence on the accuracy of people who seem to have described her according to their moods or perhaps according to the manner of her admirers towards themselves. That she was clever and attractive there can be no doubt, and it is equally certain that she won for herself the mortal enmity of many ladies who saw her powerful influence over prominent men and women whom they themselves bored. Some importance must be given to her husband's position as British representative; his influence must have been great, especially in Neapolitan circles. This would help her natural gifts of fascination, even though her breeding and education did not reach the standard of her blue-blooded critics. She had something that stood her in greater stead than breeding and education: she had the power of enslaving gallant hearts and holding them in thrall with many artful devices. They liked her Bohemianism, her wit, her geniality, her audacious slang, and her collection of droll epithets that fittingly described her venomous critics of a self-appointed nobility. When she could not reach the heights of such superior persons she proceeded to ridicule them with a tongue that rattled out vivid invective which outmatched anything they could say of her. It probably made her more enemies, but it satisfied her temper and pleased her admirers. She never appears to have been conscious of any inferiority in herself. We are inclined to agree with the opinion expressed by the naval lieutenant at Naples, who said "She was a very handsome, vulgar woman." All her portraits confirm what the sailor says about her beauty, and the most reliable records are confirmatory so far as his view of her vulgarity is concerned.

But in any case, whatever may have been her physical dimensions, they were not understated by the crowd who gave vent to their aversion in this and in many other deplorable ways. There are only a few evidences of Nelson being aware of and resenting some of the disparaging remarks made about his "wife in the sight of Heaven," and these do not seem to have diminished his infatuation for her. He was accustomed to say in connection with his professional duties that whenever he followed his own head he was in general much more correct in his judgment than by following other people's opinions. He carried this plan into his private life so far as Emma was concerned, but men and women who were his intimate friends would not support the view that by following his head in this particular case his judgment was sound. We may term the infatuation a deteriorated state of mind, but he was sustained by the belief that she was a spirit unto him while he lived, and with his last gasp, as he was passing into the shadows, he bestowed her as a legacy to his country. We shall have something to say hereafter as to how the British Government dealt with their great Admiral's dying injunction.

The Neapolitan atmosphere was vile enough, and might well have made even men and women who knew the loose side of life shrink from it, but it can never be claimed that it had a demoralizing influence on Emma, who at an early age became familiar with unspeakable vices which left her little to learn at the time Greville sold her to his uncle, who took her to a centre of sordid uncleanness, there to become his wife after a brief association as his mistress. We may have no misgiving as to her aptitude in acquiring anything she chose that was left for her to learn from a community of debauchees and parasites.

The wonder is that her brain did not succumb to the poisonous influences by which she was surrounded, and that the poor girl did not sink into the depths of that luxurious sensuality which characterized Neapolitan society at that time. It was a more distinguished and fascinating type of debauchery than that which she had known in other days in England, and from which Greville had rescued her. The temptation to plunge into the boisterous merriment of a higher order of depravity than that to which she had been accustomed must have been very great to such a temperament as hers. But she worthily kept her wild, wayward spirit under restraint, and, according to Sir William Hamilton, she conducted herself in a way that caused him to be satisfied with his reforming guidance. She adapted herself to the ways of the more select social community of her new existence, and at the time Nelson made her acquaintance she had really become a creditable member of the society in which she moved. In every respect she was congenial to him. He never lost a chance of applauding her gifts and brazenly exempting himself from all moral restrictions, except, as I have said before, when he was seized with a spontaneous fit of goodness. He would then clumsily try to conceal the passion that obsessed him. He did not brood long over trifles of this kind, merely because he had lost, if ever he possessed, the power of consecutive reasoning in matters of moral convention. His Neapolitan associates were a cunning, lying, luxury-loving, depraved lot, and however strongly his principles were fixed, there can be but one opinion—that such an atmosphere was harmful to him. He speaks of Naples himself as being a country of poets, whores, and scoundrels; and Southey does not attempt to mince words, for in vigorous terms he describes England's "alliances to superannuated and abominable governments of the Continent." These are the states that we shed British blood and squandered British money over, and in truth Southey describes them as they were!

The King of Naples was a great hero to stand up against the bravest, best-trained troops the world! He shivered at the thought of Nelson going out of his sight, and whimpered him into staying to guard him and his rotten kingdom. It was at this period of his gallant activity that Nelson became the victim of fulsome flattery and the associate of the most cunning, knavish charlatans in the world. These creatures never ceased to inveigh against the wrongs they were suffering for the uplifting of human rights, and because their great British ally was in need of their disinterested and distinguished co-ordination. Nelson was well aware of all this, but could not shake himself free. He loathed the slavering way in which flattery was extended to him, because it had a sickly resemblance to weeping. He declares of the Neapolitan officers, "They are boasters of the highest order, and when they are confronted with the duty of defending hearth and home, their courage ends in vapour." He avers that they "cannot lose honour, as they have none to lose," and yet he makes no serious effort to unshackle himself from a detestable position. Emma, the Queen, and King of Naples, and others, have a deep-rooted hold on him, and he cannot give up the cheap popularity of the Neapolitans. He persuades himself that the whole thought of his soul is "Down, down, with the French," and that it shall be his "constant prayer." Throughout the whole course of his brilliant career it was never doubted that the French were his great aversion, because they were his country's enemies. But the hysterical tears of Lady Hamilton and those of the Neapolitan Queen proved too strong for him. The King's beseeching fears were also added to an already difficult situation, which, he persuaded himself, could not be ignored without damaging the interests he was sent to protect; so his stay in the reeking cesspool of Neapolitanism was prolonged, but there is no reason for supposing that his "constant prayer" for the extinction of the French was any the less ardent. The fatal day of their catastrophe was only postponed. The praying went on all the same, with more or less belief in the Almighty's preference for Englishmen.

This is a form of cant to which those whom we regard as great men are a prey. But this pride of race is not confined to the mighty men of valour. The humble soldier and sailor, and poorest and richest of civilians, have the same inherent belief in British superiority. They talk to the Great Giver of all power in the most patronizing way, and while they profess to believe in His ordinances they treat them as though He were their vassal and not their Lawgiver. They call upon Him to break His own laws and help them to smite those whom they regard as enemies, never doubting the righteousness of their cause. The enemy, on the other hand, believe that they have a monopoly of God, and avow that their cause is His, and being His, they grimly ask Him to settle the dispute by coming down on their side; but should they win the fight, the glory of it is seldom given to the Power whose assistance is implored, but ascribed to their own genius.

Cromwell is a singular and distinguished exception. He always gave all the glory to God. Take as an example the battle of Dunbar (though there are many instances of a similar character that could be quoted during the Civil War). The battle-cry of the Parliament forces was "The Lord of Hosts," and at the opportune moment the commander of the Parliament army shouted, "Now let God arise, and His enemies shall be scattered." The Ironsides made a fearless and irresistible rush at their foes, and almost immediately Cromwell saw the Covenanters in confusion; again he shouted, "They run! I profess they run!" The quotation from the 68th Psalm was always an inspiration to these religious warriors. Old Leslie, the Scotch Covenanting general, with the patience of stupidity, had been mumbling petitions for hours to the God of the Anointed to form an alliance with him to crush the unholy rebellion against King and Covenant. "Thou knowest, O God, how just our cause is, and how unjust is that of those who are not Thy people." This moth-eaten crowd of canting hypocrites were no match for the forces who believed that they were backed by the Lord of Hosts, and they were completely routed.

Napoleon carried on warfare under a sterner and more self-reliant code. He had confidence in and depended on his own genius and on nature's laws. There are shoals of instances in his short and terrific career that indicate this belief in himself. He said to a regiment of horse chasseurs at Lobenstein two days before the battle of Jena, "My lads! you must not fear death; when soldiers brave death, they drive him into the enemy's ranks." On another occasion he said: "You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you teach him all your art of war." This is a thrilling truth which always tells in war, and yet behind all the apparent indifference to the great mysterious force that holds sway over human affairs there was a hidden belief in the power of the Deity to guide aright and give aid in the hour of need, even to men of unequalled talents like Napoleon himself. His spontaneous exclamations indicate that he did not doubt who created and ruled the universe, but how much he relied on this power he never really disclosed, and it can only be a supposition gathered from utterances recorded by some of his contemporaries that he had a devout belief in the great power of Christianity. "Ah!" said he one day, "there is but one means of getting good manners, and that is by establishing religion." At that time the spiritual life of France was at a low ebb, and the subject of religion was one of the most unpopular and risky topics to raise, but Napoleon knew that it would have to be tackled in the open sooner or later, and it is a matter of authentic history that he struggled to bring and ultimately succeeded in bringing back religious ordinances to France. He declared that no good government could exist for long without it. His traducers proclaimed him an atheist, and we hear the same claptrap from people now who have not made themselves acquainted with the real history of the man and his times. We do not say he was a saint, but he was a better Christian, both in profession and action, than most of the kings that ruled prior to and during his period. In every way he excels the Louis of France, the Georges of Great Britain and Hanover, the Fredericks of Prussia, and the Alexanders of Russia. The latter two he puts far in the shade, both as a statesman, a warrior, and a wise, humane ruler who saw far into futurity, and fought against the reactionary forces of Europe, which combined to put an end to what was called his ambition to dominate the whole of creation. He foretold with amazing accuracy that from his ashes there would spring up sectional wars for a time, and ultimately the selfsame elements of vicious mediocrity that destroyed him would bring about a world-conflict which would destroy itself.

The laws of life are simple, but at the same time very terrible in their consequences if ignored or disobeyed. What folly to imagine that any great figure or great tragedy comes into existence by chance! Napoleon was just as necessary to the world as was Cromwell. Both had the righting of wrongs and the clearing away of the accumulation of centuries of chaos and misgovernment, and it was not to be expected that they could carry out the necessary reforms without making the authors of such an intolerable state of things angry and resentful at their iron methods of discipline. Napoleon and Cromwell possessed the combined arts of war and statesmanship to a higher degree than any of their contemporaries. Cromwell excelled Napoleon in professional Christianity. The latter never paraded his ideas of religion, though he acted on them silently and gave occasional expression to the thoughts of his soul. Indeed, he was too much given to publicly disavowing the very principles he believed in privately. This plan or habit was said to be for the purpose of creating controversy. Be that as it may, when the natural spirit moved him he would declare his views in the most robust way. On one of many occasions he startled the Council of State by reminding them that a man did not risk being killed for a few pence a day or for a paltry distinction. "You must speak to the soul," he declared, "to electrify the man." Another very notable expression is here worth referring to, as it instances how practical and human were his views. "The heart," said he, "warms the genius, but in Pitt the genius withers the heart, which is a very different thing"; and so it is that Cromwell and he were not dissimilar in many of their attributes. Indeed, it is said that Napoleon never tired of quoting or having quoted to him some striking characteristic of Cromwell. We could hardly, with any degree of good judgment, put Leslie the Covenanter or Sir Jacob Astley the Royalist, or Nelson the matchless naval strategist and national hero, on a par with either Cromwell or Napoleon. They are only here referred to in connection with the two unequalled constructive statesmen and military generals as representing a type of peculiarly religious men who have occupied high military and naval positions in the service of the State.

Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, Blake in Cromwell's time, Nelson in Napoleon's, were all fire-eating religious men, always asking favours and guidance in their perilous undertakings from the great mystic Power in whom they believed. Collingwood was a great admiral and a Christian gentleman, who never mixed religion with hysterical or dramatic flashes of quarterdeck language. He was ostentatious in nothing, and seemed to observe a strictly decorous attitude. Nelson, on the other hand, resembled a restless squirrel, always swift in his instincts, with an enthusiasm which was contagious. In many ways he did not adhere to what is called cricket in sporting phrase. He was accustomed to say, "Never mind the justice or the impudence of this or that, only let me succeed." Then he would proceed to ask the Almighty in feverish zeal to aid him in the object he had in view.

He would scatter a profusion of curses about in relation to the treatment of the Admiralty towards himself, or at his disappointment in not getting to grips with the French fleet, and then proceed to ask Lady Hamilton if they had a nice church at Merton, so that they may set an example of goodness to the under-parishioners, and "admire the pigs and poultry," etc. He finds on several occasions that a picture of Emma is much admired by the French Consul at Barcelona, and feels sure it would be admired by Bonaparte, and then he continues, "I love you most dearly, and hate the French most damnably." Sometimes he said he hated the French as the devil hated holy water, which at that time was considered to be the orthodoxy of a true Briton. It was quite a pro-British attitude to patronize the maker of kings who had kept the world in awe for nearly a quarter of a century, by expecting him to admire a portrait of a loose woman to whom he referred in the most scathing manner while at St. Helena. Her reputation and Nelson's connection with her seems to have been known to him, as was also her connection with the Neapolitan Court. His indictment was terrible.

Nelson had a weary, anxious time on the Toulon station. He called it his home, and said they were in fine fighting trim and wished to God the ships were the same, but they were in a very dilapidated condition, not fit to stand the bad weather they were sure to encounter. The British Minister at Naples wished to send a Frenchman who could be relied on with information as to the whereabouts of the French fleet. Nelson replied that he would not on any account have a Frenchman in the British fleet except as a prisoner. He would be grateful to him for any information he could give, but not a Frenchman would be allowed to come to him, and adds that "his mother hated the French." He was enraged at the report spread by a fussy French Admiral named M. la Touche-Treville, who was in command at Toulon. It was said that he was sent to beat Nelson as he had done at Boulogne. But he was shy about coming out and trying a tussle. Nelson said he was a miscreant, a poltroon, and a liar. The Frenchman had boasted in a publication that he had put the British fleet to flight. The British Admiral took the charge so seriously to heart that he sent a copy of the Victory's log to the Admiralty to disprove the statement of the lying Admiral la Touche, and in a letter to his brother Nelson says, "You will have seen La Touche's letter of how he chased me, and how I ran. I keep it; and by God if I take him, he shall eat it." La Touche cheated Nelson of a sweet revenge by dying like a good Christian before the outraged British Admiral could get hold of him. The newspapers of France said he died of fatigue caused by walking so often to the signal post at Sepet, to watch the British fleet; and Nelson stated "that he was always sure that would be the death of him, and that if he had come out to fight him it would have added ten years on to his life." Poor Nelson was very sensitive when his professional qualities were assailed. He thought, and thought rightly, that the blockade at Toulon was an unparalleled feat of human patience and physical endurance. He had only been out of his ship three times from May 1803 to August 1805. We may write and speak about this wonderful devotion to duty, but it is only if we take time to think of the terrific things which the central figure who commanded, and the crews of the fleet of rickety, worn-out, leaky baskets—proudly spoken of as the "wooden walls of Old England"—had to contend with and actually did, that we comprehend the vast strain and task of it all. It was because Nelson was ever being reminded by some clumsy act of the Admiralty or thoughtless, ignorant criticism on the part of the politicians and civilian public generally that the work he and the men under him were doing was not appreciated as it should be, that he gave way to outbursts of violent resentment. But so far as the present writer has been able to discover, his love of approbation was so strong that an encouraging word of praise soon put him in love for the time being with those whom he had lately cursed.

He never shrank from disobeying the instructions of whatever authority was over him if his judgment led him to the conclusion that he would serve his country better by disobedience and by following his own judgment; whenever he was driven to do this he was right and those above him were wrong, and in each case he was so conclusively right that no authoritative power dare court-martial him, or even censure his conduct, since the public believed more in him than in them. When the spirit of well-balanced defiance was upon him, he seemed to say to the public, to himself, and to those who were responsible for his instructions, "Do you imagine yourselves more capable of judging the circumstances, and the immeasurable difficulties surrounding them, than I am, whose business it has been to watch minutely every changing phase? Or do you think my love of country or glory so incomparably inferior to yours that I would risk any harm coming to it, or to myself and the men under me, if I was not sure of my ground? For what other reason do you think I disobeyed orders? Do you suppose I did it in order that some disaster should be the result? Or do you still think that your plan, right or wrong, should have been carried out, even though it would be accompanied with appalling consequences to life and property? If these are your views, I wish to remind you that I am the Indomitable Nelson, who will stand no damned nonsense from you or from the enemy when I see that my country, or the interests that I represent, are going to be jeopardized by your self-assertive instructions, and I wish to intimate to you that there is only one way of dealing with a Frenchman, and that is to knock him down when he is an enemy. You have obviously got to learn that to be civil to a Frenchman is to be laughed at, and this I shall never submit to." The Admiralty censured Nelson for disobeying Lord Keith's orders and, as they claimed, endangering Minorca, and also for landing seamen for the siege of Capua, and told him "not to employ the seamen in any such way in future." The Admiralty were too hasty in chastising him. He claimed that his success in freeing the whole kingdom of Naples from the French was almost wholly due to the employment of British sailors, whose valour carried the day.

Nelson sent the First Lord a slap between the eyes in his best sarcastic form. He said briefly, "I cannot enter into all the detail in explanation of my motives which led me to take the action I did, as I have only a left hand, but I may inform you that my object is to drive the French to the devil, and restore peace and happiness to mankind"; and he continues, "I feel I am fitter to do the action than to describe it." And then he curtly and in so many words says to his Chief, "Don't you be troubled about Minorca. I have secured the main thing against your wish and that of Lord Keith, and you may be assured that I shall see that no harm comes to the Islands, which seems to be a cause of unnecessary anxiety to you." Incidentally, the expulsion of the French from Naples and seating Ferdinand on the throne was, as I have previously stated, not an unqualified success, nor was he accurate in his statement that he had restored happiness to millions. The success was a mere shadow. He had emancipated a set of villains. Troubridge says they were all thieves and vagabonds, robbing their unfortunate countrymen, selling confiscated property for nothing, cheating the King and Treasury by pocketing everything that their sticky fingers touched, and that their villainies were so deeply rooted that if some steps were not taken to dig them out, the Government could not hold together. Out of twenty millions of ducats collected as revenue, only thirteen millions reached the Treasury, and the King had to pay four ducats instead of one. Troubridge again intimates to his superior that Ferdinand is surrounded with a nest of the most unscrupulous thieves that could be found in all Europe. "Such damned cowards and villains," he declared, "he had never seen or heard of before."

The French did not mince matters when their opportunity came. They, too, regarded them as vermin, and treated them according to the unrestrained edicts of the Reign of Terror, organized and administered by their late compatriots Sardanapalus, Danton, Maximilian Robespierre, and their literary colleague, the execrable Marat, who, by the way, was expeditiously dispatched by the gallant Charlotte Corday.[12]

This method of bestowing the blessings of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity was received by the Neapolitans with a frenzy from which there sprang a demoniac retaliation. Societies were formed to carry out the most atrocious crimes against the Neapolitan revolutionists, whom the Royalists hated more than they did the French. The fishermen and other miscreants came to a solemn conclusion that it was clearly their duty as a Christian people to combine, and each choose one whom they should privately guillotine when the opportunity offered. With the idea of paying a high compliment to Troubridge, who had so splendidly protected the Royalists, fought the French, and subdued the revolutionists, they made him the recipient of a decapitated head which had proudly sat on the shoulders of a revolutionist. This trophy was actually sent to him with his basket of breakfast grapes. In making the present the gallant fisherman conveyed his compliments to the Admiral, and reminded him that it was a token of his high appreciation of the Admiral's brilliant services to the Royalist cause.

These allies of ours, who were joyously butchering and robbing each other, demanded a British warship to take the priests to Palermo, so that they might be degraded in a proper, Christian fashion and then brought to Naples for execution. Troubridge was audaciously requested to appoint a hangman (it may be he was asked to combine this with his other naval duties), and knowing the fine sense of noble dignity in the average sailor, we can easily imagine the flow of adjectives that accompanied the refusal, and how he would relate the outrage to which he had been subjected in quarterdeck language, that need not be here repeated, to his superior officer, Admiral Nelson, who must have felt the degradation of being selected to carry out as dirty a piece of work as ever devolved upon a public servant. To fight for his King and country was the joy of his soul, but to be selected as wet-nurse to the kingdom of Naples and the dignitaries that were at the head of it would have been an unbearable insult to his sense of proportion had it not been for the fulsome flattery, to which he was so susceptible, which was adroitly administered by the ladies of the Court, headed by the Queen and supplemented by the wife of Sir William Hamilton.

There is always some fatal weakness about a great man that lures him into littleness, and this was an overwhelming tragedy in Nelson's career. The approbation of men was gratefully received and even asked for, but the adoration of women reduced him to helplessness. He was drugged by it, and the stronger the doses, the more efficacious they were. They nullified the vision of the unwholesome task he was set to carry out until his whole being revolted against the indignity of it, when he would pour out his wrath to Lady Hamilton as he did at the time when Troubridge would report to him his own trials. No doubt this caused him to realize the chaotic condition of public affairs, for he writes to the lady that "politics are hateful to him, and that Ministers of Kings are the greatest scoundrels that ever lived." The King of Naples is, he suspects, to be superseded by a prince who has married a Russian Archduchess. This, presumably, had been arranged by the "great political scoundrels." He stands loyally by Ferdinand, but soon all the work of that part of his life that gave him socially so much pleasure and professionally so much misery is to be left for evermore, and his great talents used in other and higher spheres.

He had retaken Naples from the French, who had set up the Parthenopean Republic in 1799, and placed the tyrant King on his throne again; after a few more chequered years a treaty of neutrality was signed between France and Naples, which was treacherously broken by Naples. Ferdinand had to fly to Sicily, the French troops entered the capital, and Bonaparte, who had been marching from one victory to another, cleared out deep-rooted abuses and introduced reforms wherever he could. He had become the terror and the enemy of the misgoverning monarchs of that period, and the French nation had proclaimed him Emperor in 1804. He placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Naples in February 1806; Joseph ruled with marked moderation and distinction, sweeping away much of the foul canker of corruption and introducing many beneficent reforms during his two years of kingship. He then, much against his own wishes, became King of Spain, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Prince Joachim Murat, the dashing cavalry officer, whose decorative exterior awed friend and foe, and helped to win many a battle. His reign lasted from 1808 until 1815, and was no less distinguished than that of Joseph's. The fall of the Napoleonic régime was followed by the fall of Murat, and the despicable and treacherous Ferdinand became again the king, and brought back with him the same tyrannical habits that had made his previous rule so disastrous to the kingdom and to himself. No whitewasher, however brilliant and ingenious, can ever wipe out the fatal action of the British Government in embarking on so ill-conceived a policy as that of supporting the existence of a bloodsucking government, composed of a miscreant ruling class headed by an ignoble king, all living on the misery and blood of a semi-civilized population. It is a nauseous piece of history, with which, under sagacious administration, we should never have been connected.

The main idea was to humble the pride of France, that thenceforth there might be peace in Europe. The Neapolitan revolutionists believed that the French intention was to set up a free government and deliver them from an unbearable despotism. Quite naturally, the Court took an opposite view in believing that it foreshadowed deportation, so they lost no time in proclaiming it to be conquest and merciless plunder. Nelson urged the vacillating King to advance against the French, to trust in God's blessing being bestowed upon him, his army, and his cause, and to die like a hero, sword in hand, or lose his throne. The King, always dauntless in the absence of danger, replied that he would do this, trusting in God and Nelson. His Majesty, in tickling the Admiral's susceptible spot by associating his name with that of the Deity, doubtless made a good shot, and had Nelson's sense of humour been equal to his vanity, he might not have received the oily compliment with such delightful complacency.

We can imagine the scorn with which Troubridge would have received the potentate's reply had he given the same advice as Nelson. It is highly probable that had it been given on the quarterdeck of his ship, the King would have been treated to a vocabulary that would have impressed him with the necessity of scrambling quickly over the side. Nelson, it is stated, turned the French out of Naples, and they were subsequently overpowered by a plan put in force by Nelson and Troubridge, and carried into effect by men from the fleet. Captain Hallowell was ordered to proceed to Civita Vecchia and Castle St. Angelo to offer terms of capitulation. He reported the position to Troubridge, who ordered a squadron in command of Captain Louis to proceed and enforce the terms. The French, on the other hand, offered terms, but Troubridge, like Drake on another occasion, said that he had no time to parley, that they must agree to his terms or fight. The French Ambassador at Rome argued that the Roman territory belonged to the French by conquest, and the British commander adroitly replied "that it was his by reconquest." The inevitable alternative was impressive—capitulation. This was arranged, and the Roman States came under the control of the victors. Captain Louis proceeded in his cutter up the Tiber and planted the British colours at Rome, becoming its governor for a brief time. The naval men had carried out, by clever strategy and pluck, an enterprise which Sir James Erskine declined to undertake because of the insurmountable difficulties he persisted in seeing. General Mack was at the head of about 30,000 Neapolitan troops, said to be the finest in Europe. This, however, did not prevent them from being annihilated by 15,000 French, when General Championnet evacuated Rome. The King entered with all the swagger of an Oriental potentate. The Neapolitans followed the French to Castellana, and when the latter faced up to them they stampeded in disordered panic. Some were wounded, but few were killed, and the King, forgetting in his fright his pledged undertaking to go forth trusting in "God and Nelson," fled in advance of his valiant soldiers to the capital, where they all arrived in breathless confusion. General Mack had been introduced to Nelson by the King and Queen, the latter exhorting him to be on land what the Admiral had been on sea.

Nelson seems to have formed an adverse opinion of Mack, who was extolled by the Court as the military genius who was to deliver Europe from the thraldom of the French. He had expressed the view that the King and Queen's incomparable general "could not move without five carriages," and that he "had formed his opinion" of him, which was tantamount to saying that Mack was both a coward and a traitor. Perhaps it was undue consideration for the feelings of Caroline, sister to the late Marie Antoinette, that caused him to restrain his boiling rage against this crew of reptiles, who had sold every cause that was entrusted to their protection.

Nelson was infatuated with the charms of Caroline, and as this astute lady knew how to handle him in the interests of the Neapolitan Court, he reciprocated her patronage by overlooking misdeeds that would, under different circumstances, have justified him in blowing swarms of her noble subjects out of existence. "I declare to God," he writes, "my whole study is how to best meet the approbation of the Queen." An open door and hearty reception was always awaiting their Majesties of Sicily on board Nelson's flagship when they found it necessary to fly from the wrath of their downtrodden subjects or the aggressive invasions of the French troops. The anxiety of Nelson in conveying them to their Sicilian retreat was doubly increased by the vast treasure they never neglected to take with them, and neither the sources from which it came nor the means of spending it gave trouble to their consciences. The British Government, always generous with other person's money, fed these insufferable royal personages by bleeding the life's blood out of the British public, though it is fair to say that the Government did not carry out to the full the benevolent suggestions Nelson consistently urged in their behalf. "His heart was always breaking" at some act of parsimony on the part of the Government in so tardily giving that which he pleaded was an urgent necessity for them to have. He frankly avowed that he would prefer to resign if any distinction were to be drawn between loyalty to his rightful sovereign and that of his Sicilian Majesty, who was the faithful ally of his King. The solemn audacity of this statement reveals a mind so far fallen to pieces by infatuation that it has lost the power of discrimination.

Lady Hamilton is credited with planning (with heroic skill) means by which the Royal Family could be taken to the shore, where Nelson was to receive and convoy them in barges to the Vanguard. Lady Hamilton had explored a subterranean passage which led from the palace to the beach, and pronounced it a fairly safe and possible means of exit. The plan apparently succeeded, and the royal party, after a few days' precautionary stay in the Bay of Naples, were conveyed in safety to Palermo, notwithstanding the hurricane that was encountered and only weathered by a perfection of seamanship that was unequalled in our naval and merchant services at that period of our trying history. The voyage was not made without tragedy, for the youngest of the princes became ill, and as it is always inevitable to attach a heroine to circumstances that are sensational (when there is one at hand), their Majesties in their grief fixed on her who had braved the perils of investigating the possibilities of the subterranean tunnel which had proved a safe though hazardous passage for the conveyance of themselves and their vast treasure. Nor do they appear to have been unmindful of her devotion to themselves during the storm, which was the severest that Nelson said he had ever experienced—though this is a platitude, as sailors are always prone to regard the last storm as the most terrific of all! But that it was severe there can be no doubt. We may be assured that the royal parents were not in a condition to give succour to their stricken son, so he was vouchsafed to pass beyond the veil in the arms of Lady Hamilton, who had bravely defied the tempest and behaved with a compassion that must always stand to her credit.

They arrived at Palermo the day after the young Prince's death, and soon settled down to their gambling and other pleasures in which Nelson, as already stated, was involved. Troubridge, with touching fidelity, pleads with him to shun the temptations by which he is beset. "I dread, my Lord," he says, "all the feasting, etc., at Palermo. I am sure your health will be hurt. If so, all their saints will be damned by the Navy"; and then he goes on to say, "The King would be better employed digesting a good Government; everything gives way to their pleasures. The money spent at Palermo gives discontent here; fifty thousand people are unemployed, trade discouraged, manufactures at a stand. It is the interest of many here to keep the King away; they all dread reform."[13] Troubridge was wellnigh driven to distraction by the terrible straits he was put to at Naples. The people were faced with the ravages of famine. Already there were scenes of unspeakable misery. His appeals to the Sicilian Court to send immediate relief was ignored. Nelson, to whom he had appealed, was absorbed in his attentions to Lady Hamilton, and refused to see the vicious indifference of the Court, who were hemmed round with a set of knaves and vagabonds, if that be not too moderate a term to use of them. Troubridge beseeches him to come to the rescue in the following terms:—