The Life of Nelson, Volume 2

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Alfred Thayer Mahan. The Life of Nelson, Volume 2

CHAPTER XIV. NELSON TEMPORARILY COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.—RELIEVED BY LORD KEITH.—APPLIES TO RETURN TO ENGLAND ON ACCOUNT OF ILL HEALTH

CHAPTER XV. NELSON LEAVES THE MEDITERRANEAN.—THE JOURNEY OVERLAND THROUGH GERMANY.—ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.—SEPARATION FROM LADY NELSON.—HOISTS HIS FLAG IN THE CHANNEL FLEET, UNDER LORD ST. VINCENT

CHAPTER XVI. THE EXPEDITION TO THE BALTIC AND BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN.—NELSON RETURNS TO ENGLAND

CHAPTER XVII. NELSON COMMANDS THE "SQUADRON ON A PARTICULAR SERVICE," FOR THE DEFENCE OF THE COAST OF ENGLAND AGAINST INVASION.—SIGNATURE OF PRELIMINARIES OF PEACE WITH FRANCE

CHAPTER XVIII. RELEASE FROM ACTIVE SERVICE DURING THE PEACE OF AMIENS.—HOME LIFE AT MERTON.—PUBLIC INCIDENTS

CHAPTER XIX. COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.—THE LONG WATCH OFF TOULON.—OCCUPATIONS OF A COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

CHAPTER XX. THE ESCAPE AND PURSUIT OF THE TOULON FLEET.—NELSON'S RETURN TO ENGLAND

CHAPTER XXI. NELSON'S LAST STAY IN ENGLAND

CHAPTER XXII. THE ANTECEDENTS OF TRAFALGAR

CHAPTER XXIII. TRAFALGAR.—THE DEATH OF NELSON

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At the time Nelson and the Hamiltons returned to Palermo, the Queen of Naples was wishing, for political reasons, to visit Vienna. To meet this wish Nelson took the "Foudroyant" and "Alexander" off the blockade of Malta, that they might carry herself and suite to Leghorn, together with the Hamiltons. He clung also to the hope that Keith would give him his powerful flagship to return to England, in which case the Hamiltons would go with him. "I go with our dear friends Sir William and Lady Hamilton," he wrote to Lord Minto; "but whether by water or land depends on the will of Lord Keith. May all orders be as punctually obeyed," alluding to the completion of the destruction of the Nile fleet by the capture of the "Guillaume Tell," "but never again an officer at the close of what I must, without being thought vain (for such I am represented by enemies), call a glorious career, be so treated!"

Keith's opinion of Nelson's obedience was probably somewhat different. The latter had written him on the 12th of May, that, being under an old promise to carry the Queen to the Continent, he proposed to take the two ships-of-the-line for that purpose, and Keith sent him a letter forbidding him to do so, and directing them to be sent back at once to Malta. Nelson, it is true, did not receive this; but it is impossible to reconcile with attention to orders the diversion of two ships of their force from the singularly important station appointed them by the commander-in-chief, without reference to him, and using them to carry about foreign sovereigns. On arriving in Leghorn, on the 14th of June, Nelson announced the fact to Keith, with apparent perfect unconsciousness that the latter could be other than charmed. "I was obliged to bring the Alexander, or the party never could have been accommodated: I therefore trust you will approve of it." "I was so displeased by the withdrawing of the ships from before Malta," wrote Keith to Paget, "and with other proceedings, that her Majesty did not take any notice of me latterly." It would seem also that some harm had come of it. "What a clamour, too, letting in the ships to Malta will occasion. I assure you nothing has given me more real concern, it was so near exhausted." "Had not Nelson quitted the blockade," he wrote a week later, "and taken the ships off the station, it might have fallen about this time."6

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"However great was Nelson's infatuation," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "his nice sense of honour, his feelings of propriety, and his love of truth, were unquestionable. Hence, though during a long separation from his wife on the public service in the Mediterranean, he so far yielded to temptation as to become the father of a child, it is nevertheless difficult to believe that he should for years have had a criminal intercourse with the wife of a man of his own rank, whom he considered as his dearest friend, who placed the greatest confidence in his honour and virtue, and in whose house he was living. Still more difficult is it to believe, even if this had been the case, that he should not only have permitted every one of his relations, male and female,—his wife, his father, his brothers, his brothers-in-law, his two sisters, and all their daughters,—to visit and correspond with her, but even have allowed three of his nieces to live for a considerable time with her; have ostentatiously and frequently written and spoken of her 'virtuous and religious' character,—holding her up as an example to his family; have appointed her the sole guardian of his child; have avowedly intended to make her his wife; have acted upon every occasion as if the purity of their intimacy was altogether free from suspicion; and in the last written act of his life have solemnly called upon his country to reward and support her. An honourable and conscientious man rarely acts thus towards his mistress … Moreover, Nelson's most intimate friends, including the Earl of St. Vincent, who called them 'a pair of sentimental fools,' Dr. Scott, his Chaplain, and Mr. Haslewood, were of the same opinion; and Southey says, 'there is no reason to believe that this most unfortunate attachment was criminal.'"

This complicated and difficult path of deception had to be trod, because the offence was not one of common error, readily pardoned if discovered, but because the man betrayed, whatever his faults otherwise, had shown both the culprits unbounded confidence and kindness, and upon the woman, at least, had been led by his love to confer a benefit which neither should have forgotten.

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