His stay with the Hamiltons in Piccadilly, though broken by several trips to the country, convinced Nelson that if they were to live together, as he wished to do, it must be, for his own satisfaction, in a house belonging to him. It is clear that the matter was talked over between Lady Hamilton and himself; for, immediately upon joining his command in the Downs, he began writing about the search for a house, as a matter already decided, in which she was to act for him. "Have you heard of any house? I am very anxious to have a home where my friends might be made welcome." As usual, in undertakings of every kind, he chafed under delays, and he was ready to take the first that seemed suitable. "I really wish you would buy the house at Turnham Green," he writes her within a week. The raising of the money, it is true, presents some difficulty, for he has in hand but £3,000. "It is, my dear friend," he moralizes, "extraordinary, but true, that the man who is pushed forward to defend his country, has not from that country a place to lay his head in; but never mind, happy, truly happy, in the estimation of such friends as you, I care for nothing."
Lady Hamilton, however, was a better business-man than himself, and went about his purchase with the deliberation of a woman shopping. At the end of three weeks he was still regretting that he could not "find a house and a little ece of ground, for if I go on much longer with my present command, I must be ruined. I think your perseverance and management will at last get me a home." By the 20th of August she was suited, for on that date he writes to her, "I approve of the house at Merton;" and, as the Admiralty would not consent to his leaving his station even for a few days, all the details of the bargain were left in her hands. "I entreat, my good friend, manage the affair of the house for me." He stipulates only that everything in it shall be his, "to a book or a cook," or even "to a pair of sheets, towels, &c." "I entreat I may never hear about the expenses again. If you live in Piccadilly or Merton it makes no difference, and if I was to live at Merton I must keep a table, and nothing can cost me one-sixth part which it does at present." "You are to be, recollect, Lady Paramount of all the territories and waters of Merton, and we are all to be your guests, and to obey, all lawful commands."
In this way were conducted the purchase and preparation of the only home of his own on English ground that Nelson ever possessed, where he passed his happiest hours, and from which he set out to fight his last battle. The negotiation was concluded three days before the rumors of the peace got abroad, therefore about the 27th of September, 1801; and in consequence, so Sir William Hamilton thought, the property was acquired a thousand pounds cheaper than it otherwise might have been—a piece of financial good luck rare in Nelson's experience. "We have now inhabited your Lordship's premises some days," continued the old knight, "and I can now speak with some certainty. I have lived with our dear Emma several years. I know her merit, have a great opinion of the head and heart that God Almighty has been pleased to give her; but a seaman alone could have given a fine woman full power to chuse and fit up a residence for him without seeing it himself. You are in luck, for in my conscience I verily believe that a place so suitable to your views could not have been found, and at so cheap a rate. The proximity to the capital,"—Nelson found it an hour's drive from Hyde Park—"and the perfect retirement of this place, are, for your Lordship, two points beyond estimation; but the house is so comfortable, the furniture clean and good, and I never saw so many conveniences united in so small a compass. You have nothing but to come and enjoy immediately; you have a good mile of pleasant dry walk around your own farm. It would make you laugh to see Emma and her mother fitting up pig-sties and hencoops, and already the Canal is enlivened with ducks, and the cock is strutting with his hens about the walks."
As time passed, Sir William did not realize the comfort he had anticipated from surroundings so pleasant as those he described. He was troubled in money matters, fearing lest he might be distressed to meet the current expenses of the house. "If we had given up the house in Piccadilly," he lamented to Greville, "the living here would indeed be a great saving; but, as it is, we spend neither more nor less than we did." Why he did not give it up does not appear. As Lady Paramount over the owner of the place, Lady Hamilton insisted upon entertaining to a degree consonant to the taste neither of Lord Nelson, who was only too pleased to humor her whims, nor of her husband, who had an old man's longing for quiet, and, besides, was not pleased to find himself relegated to a place in her consideration quite secondary to that of his host. "It is but reasonable," he wrote to Greville, in January, 1802, "after having fagged all my life, that my last days should pass off comfortably and quietly. Nothing at present disturbs me but my debt, and the nonsense I am obliged to submit to here to avoid coming to an explosion, which would be attended with many disagreeable effects, and would totally destroy the comfort of the best man and the best friend I have in the world. However, I am determined that my quiet shall not be disturbed, let the nonsensical world go on as it will."
Neither the phlegm on which he prided himself, nor his resolutions, were sufficient, however, to keep the peace, or to avoid undignified contentions with his wife. Some months later he addressed her a letter, which, although bearing no date, was evidently written after a prolonged experience of the conditions entailed upon himself by this odd partnership; for partnership it was, in form at least, the living expenses being divided between the two.[46] In their quiet reasonableness, his words are not without a certain dignified pathos, and they have the additional interest of proving, as far as words can prove, that, battered man of the world though he was, he had no suspicion, within a year of his death, that the relations between his host and his wife were guilty towards himself.
"I have passed the last 40 years of my life in the hurry & bustle that must necessarily be attendant on a publick character. I am arrived at the age when some repose is really necessary, & I promised myself a quiet home, & altho' I was sensible, & said so when I married, that I shou'd be superannuated when my wife wou'd be in her full beauty and vigour of youth. That time is arrived, and we must make the best of it for the comfort of both parties. Unfortunately our tastes as to the manner of living are very different. I by no means wish to live in solitary retreat, but to have seldom less than 12 or 14 at table, and those varying continually, is coming back to what was become so irksome to me in Italy during the latter years of my residence in that country. I have no connections out of my own family. I have no complaint to make, but I feel that the whole attention of my wife is given to Ld. N. and his interest at Merton. I well know the purity of Ld. N.'s friendship for Emma and me, and I know how very uncomfortable it wou'd make his Lp, our best friend, if a separation shou'd take place, & am therefore determined to do all in my power to prevent such an extremity, which wou'd be essentially detrimental to all parties, but wou'd be more sensibly felt by our dear friend than by us. Provided that our expences in housekeeping do not encrease beyond measure (of which I must own I see some danger), I am willing to go on upon our present footing; but as I cannot expect to live many years, every moment to me is precious, & I hope I may be allow'd sometimes to be my own master, & pass my time according to my own inclination, either by going my fishing parties on the Thames or by going to London to attend the Museum, R. Society, the Tuesday Club, & Auctions of pictures. I mean to have a light chariot or post chaise by the month, that I may make use of it in London and run backwards and forwards to Merton or to Shepperton, &c. This is my plan, and we might go on very well, but I am fully determined not to have more of the very silly altercations that happen but too often between us and embitter the present moments exceedingly. If realy one cannot live comfortably together, a wise and well concerted separation is preferable; but I think, considering the probability of my not troubling any party long in this world, the best for us all wou'd be to bear those ills we have rather than flie to those we know not of. I have fairly stated what I have on my mind. There is no time for nonsense or trifling. I know and admire your talents & many excellent qualities, but I am not blind to your defects, and confess having many myself; therefore let us bear and forbear for God's sake."[47]
There are other accounts by eye-witnesses of the home life at Merton, in which participated, from time to time, not only the many outside guests, of whose burden Hamilton complained, but also most of the members of the Nelson family. Lord Minto, who had returned to England from Vienna, and whose personal friendship to Nelson never slackened, wrote to his wife, in March, 1802: "I went to Lord Nelson's on Saturday to dinner, and returned to-day in the forenoon. The whole establishment and way of life are such as to make me angry, as well as melancholy; but I cannot alter it, and I do not think myself obliged, or at liberty, to quarrel with him for his weakness, though nothing shall ever induce me to give the smallest countenance to Lady Hamilton. She looks ultimately to the chance of marriage, as Sir William will not be long in her way, and she probably indulges a hope that she may survive Lady Nelson; in the meanwhile she and Sir William, and the whole set of them, are living with him at his expense. She is in high looks, but more immense than ever. The love she makes to Nelson is not only ridiculous, but disgusting: not only the rooms, but the whole house, staircase and all, are covered with nothing but pictures of her and him, of all sizes and sorts, and representations of his naval actions, coats-of-arms, pieces of plate in his honour, the flag-staff of L'Orient, &c.—an excess of vanity which counteracts its own purpose. If it was Lady Hamilton's house there might be a pretence for it; to make his own house a mere looking-glass to view himself all day is bad taste. Braham, the celebrated Jew singer, performed with Lady Hamilton. She is horrid, but he entertained me in spite of her." Of this same period, but a year later, at the time of Hamilton's death, Minto wrote: "Lady Hamilton talked very freely [to me] of her situation with Nelson, and the construction the world may have put upon it, but protested that their attachment had been perfectly pure, which I declare I can believe, though I am sure it is of no consequence whether it be so or not. The shocking injury done to Lady Nelson is not made less or greater, by anything that may or may not have occurred between him and Lady Hamilton."
On the 6th of November, 1861, Mr. Matcham, a nephew of Lord Nelson, wrote for the "Times" some reminiscences of the great admiral, as he had known him in private life, both at this period, and three years later, just before Trafalgar. His letter was elicited by the publication of the "Remains of Mrs. Trench." In this had appeared extracts from her journal, when Mrs. St. George, containing statements derogatory to Nelson's conduct in Dresden, when on the journey from Trieste to Hamburg in the year 1800; some of which have been quoted already in this work.[48] Mr. Matcham's words, so far as they relate to Nelson himself, are here given in full[49]:—
I too Sir, as well as "the Lady," had some knowledge of that person, so much honoured and so much maligned; and although I do not defend his one great error (though in that, with some palliation, there were united elements of a generous and noble nature), I venture to say that whoever forms a notion of his manners and deportment in private life from this account of him, will labour under a very great delusion.
I visited my uncle twice during the short periods in which he was on shore—once in 1802, during his journey to Wales, when he was received at Oxford and other places; and the second time at his house at Merton, in 1805, for three weeks preceding the 15th of September, when he left to embark at Portsmouth to return no more; and I can assert with truth that a more complete contrast between this lady's portrait and my thorough recollection of him could not be forced on my mind. Lord Nelson in private life was remarkable for a demeanour quiet, sedate, and unobtrusive, anxious to give pleasure to every one about him, distinguishing each in turn by some act of kindness, and chiefly those who seemed to require it most.