“Vanguard, off the Mouth of the Nile,
“2nd August, 1798.“The Admiral most heartily congratulates the Captains, Officers, Seamen, and Marines of the Squadron he has the honour to command, on the event of the late Action; and he desires they will accept his most sincere and cordial Thanks for their very gallant behaviour in this glorious Battle. It must strike forcibly every British Seaman, how superior their conduct is, when in discipline and good order, to the riotous behaviour of lawless Frenchmen.
“The Squadron may be assured the Admiral will not fail, with his Dispatches, to represent their truly meritorious conduct in the strongest terms to the Commander-in-Chief.
“HORATIO NELSON.”
On the morning of the 3rd, the Timoléon was set fire to, and Le Tonnant had cut her cable, and drifted on shore; but that active officer, Captain Miller, of the Theseus, soon got her off again, and secured her in the British line. The British force engaged consisted of twelve ships of seventy-four guns, and the Leander of fifty.
I have often wondered if Buonaparte, who was with the army landed from that fleet, witnessed the battle from the shore. I cannot recall that he makes mention anywhere of having done so; but I cannot conceive a general who took such minute note of every little incident in his own battles resting content without seeing a battle which he knew to be in progress, and certain to affect his fortunes in such a wonderful way. If he did, he must have been impressed by the knowledge that there was one element which he could not command, and which might always mar his fondest schemes.
Chapter IX.—How the Admiral began his friendship with Lady Hamilton.
A Letter from Lady Hamilton to the Admiral.
“Naples, September 8th, 1798.
“My dear, dear Sir,—How shall I begin? What shall I say to you? ’Tis impossible I can write, for since last Monday I am delirious with joy, and assure you I have a fever caused by agitation and pleasure! Good God! what a victory! Never, never has there been anything half so glorious, so complete! I fainted when I heard the news, and fell on my side, and am hurt. But what of that? I should feel it a glory to die in such a cause. No, I would not like to die till I see and embrace the victor of the NILE. How shall I describe to you the transports of Maria Caroline? ’Tis not possible. She fainted, and cried, kissed her husband, her children, walked frantic with pleasure about the room, cried, kissed and embraced every person near her, exclaiming—‘Oh, brave Nelson! Oh, God bless and protect our brave deliverer! Oh! Nelson! Nelson! what do we owe to you! Oh, victor, saviour of Italy! Oh, that my swollen heart could now tell him personally what we owe to him!’
“You may judge, my dear sir, of the rest; but my head will not permit me to tell you half of the rejoicing. The Neapolitans are mad, and if you was here now you would be killed with kindness. Sonnets on sonnets, illuminations, rejoicing. Not a French dog dare show his face. How I glory in the honour of my country and my countryman! I walk and tread in the air with pride, feeling that I was born on the same land with the victor Nelson and his gallant band. But no more. I cannot, dare not, trust myself, for I am not well.
“Little dear Captain Hoste will tell you the rest. He lives with us in the day, for he will not sleep out of his ship, and we love him dearly.
“He is a fine good lad. Sir William is delighted with him, and says he will be a second Nelson. If he is only half a Nelson he will be superior to all others.
“I send you two letters from my adorable Queen. One was written to me the day we received this glorious news; the other yesterday. Keep them, as they are her own handwriting. I have kept copies only; but I feel that you ought to have them. If you had seen our meeting after the battle—but I will keep it all for your arrival; I could not do justice to her feelings or my own, with writing it. We are preparing your apartment against you come. I hope it will not be long, for Sir William and I are so impatient to see and embrace you.
“I wish you could have seen our house the three nights of the illuminations: it was covered with your glorious name; there were three thousand lamps, and there should have been three millions if we had had time. All the English vied with each other in celebrating this most gallant and ever-remarkable victory. Sir William is ten years younger since the happy news, and he now only wishes to see his friend to be completely happy. How he glories in you when your name is mentioned! He cannot contain his joy. For God’s sake come to Naples soon!
“We receive so many sonnets and letters of congratulations. I send you some of them, to show you how your success is felt here. How I felt for poor Troubridge! He must have been so angry on the sandbank—so brave an officer! In short, I pity all those who were not in the battle. I would have been rather an English powder-monkey or a swab in that great victory than an emperor out of it. But you will be tired of all this. Write or come soon, to rejoice your ever sincere and obliged friend,”
THE man we brought up from the albergo near the Castel Nuovo to the Ambassador’s palace in an Embassy coach, softened with a mountain of cushions, did not, to the ordinary onlooker, give much idea of the man who, as darkness was falling, hesitated not a moment to sail without a pilot or a chart between the French line of battle and a shoaling shore. But we, who were privileged to see that extraordinary man during every hour of his daily life, were well accustomed to the spectacle of him prostrated with sickness—from which, however, the chance of a battle would rouse him, like the sound of a trumpet, into the martial, alert little figure that seemed to the men who were to follow his orders to death, like the angel who came down to smite the hosts of Sennacherib.
In spite of his prostration from fever and wounds, he had insisted on donning his full Admiral’s uniform—he was going to visit the Representative of his Sovereign, and to the day of his death he never spoke of King George III. save as Our Good and Great King.
Will and I were of his party—Will was in his own coach: his touch soothed the Admiral more than any in the ship, though it was not to be in requisition so much thereafter. I was to do kind of orderly’s work, which would in ordinary cases be performed by some one before the mast; but the Admiral, with the kindness which never failed, judged that Will, being away from the ship, would like to have a mate, and that I should serve best.
The palace was hardly like the generality of palaces of that date, for the great state staircase of red marble which conducted to the principal rooms—they, as is the wont in Italy, being on the first floor and not level with the ground as in England—was inside the palace instead of winding round the courtyard outside the inner face of the quadrangle. Perhaps I should hardly call the palace a quadrangle, for on the bottom, or sea-side, the buildings were only the height of a garden wall, and used, I think, for horses. The stables were certainly under the palace on this and the adjoining side towards the town.