In the gallery of the Abbey, after the repast, the company assembled, and Lady Hamilton enchanted them with one of her remarkable personations—that of Agrippina bearing the ashes of Germanicus in a golden urn, and as presenting herself before the Roman people with the design of exciting them to revenge the death of her husband, who, after having been declared joint Emperor by Tiberius, fell a victim to his envy, and is supposed to have been poisoned by his order at the head of the forces which he was leading against the rebellious Arminians ... Lady Hamilton displayed with truth and energy every gesture, attitude, and expression of countenance, which could be conceived in Agrippina herself, best calculated to have roused the passions of the Romans in behalf of their favourite general. The action of her head, of her hands and arms, in the various positions of the urn, in her manner of presenting it to the Romans, or of raising it up to the gods in the act of supplication, was most classically graceful. Every change of dress, principally of the head, to suit the different situations in which she successively presented herself, was performed instantaneously with the most perfect ease, and without retiring or scarcely turning aside a moment from the spectators. In the last scene of this beautiful piece of pantomime, she appeared with a young lady of the company who was to personate a daughter. Her action in this part was so perfectly just and natural, and so pathetically addressed to the spectators as to draw tears from several of the company.
When the character of the Roman dress is remembered, it is difficult to believe that the representative of Agrippina was in the condition noticed by Dr. Pettigrew.
The final separation between Nelson and his wife took place in the January of 1801. The last scene between the latter is thus described by a yet living witness, Mr. Haslewood:—
In the winter of 1800-1, I was breakfasting with Lord and Lady Nelson at their lodgings in Arlington Street, and a cheerful conversation was passing on indifferent subjects when Lord Nelson spoke of something which had been done or said by ‘dear Lady Hamilton,’ upon which Lady Nelson rose from her chair and exclaimed, with much vehemence—‘I am sick of hearing of dear Lady Hamilton, and am resolved that you shall give up either her or me.’ Lord Nelson, with perfect calmness, said—‘Take care, Fanny, what you say; I love you sincerely, but I cannot forget my obligations to Lady Hamilton, or speak of her otherwise than with affection and admiration.’ Without one soothing word or gesture, but muttering something about her mind being made up, Lady Nelson left the room, and, shortly after, drove from the house. They never lived together afterwards. I believe that Lord Nelson took a formal leave of her ladyship before joining the fleet under Sir Hyde Parker.
Dr. Pettigrew cites this letter of Mr. Haslewood to show that the separation was unavoidable on Lord Nelson’s part: it appears to us to have been inevitable and necessary. Perhaps the strangest part of this incident is that Nelson’s family closely attached themselves to Lady Hamilton. We must make exception, however, of the still stranger incident—namely, the birth of Lady Hamilton’s daughter at her residence in Piccadilly, the absence of all attempt to confer the honours of paternity on Sir William, and the consequent mystification. The birth took place about the last day of January 1801. The child was conveyed to a nurse about a week or ten days afterwards, and was not the home companion of its guilty parents until 1803, after the death of Sir William Hamilton. Nelson’s daughter was recently alive, and was formerly married to Captain Ward, late of the 81st regiment.
Before the death of Sir William Hamilton, Lord Nelson had made his house their common residence. At the death of the former, he, with something of an affected decency, quitted it for private lodgings. Sir William left his widow totally unprovided for. He thought, as Nelson thought, that the Government would not hesitate to make her an ample provision for her services. In the meantime, waiting for an event that was never to occur, Lord Nelson purchased Merton. It is yet the object of many a sailor’s pilgrimage, and is about ten minutes’ walk from the Wimbledon station. Here he offered the deserted widow and the mother of his child a refuge—nay, more, a home. It was such to her; for there she enjoyed the homage and respect not only of every member of Nelson’s family, but also of the great and good of the exterior world. Never was woman placed in so anomalous a condition, in which the anomaly was so carefully concealed from herself and unheeded by the world.
It should have had the realities of the virtue of which it bore so well the semblance. That it had not was, perhaps, one of the causes why it endured so brief a space. It is most touching to read the letters of Nelson, cited by Dr. Pettigrew, and written to his child’s mother at home. The heavy responsibilities connected with Trafalgar, the anxieties coming thick and fast, the duties he had to fulfil—none of these things rendered him forgetful of his treasure. For the safety of one little life his heart beat as only a parent’s heart can beat; and while meditating the array of battle, in which his own life was to cloud the splendour of the victory, he found leisure to send home detailed instructions how a substantial netting should be raised in the grounds of Merton to preserve little Horatia from falling into a pond ambitiously called the Nile. There wanted but one thing to give holiness to Nelson’s character as a father.
To this, as to all his worldly glory, and to all the felicity that had hitherto rested upon Merton, a sudden termination was given by the fatal ball which struck him, when his glory was greatest, on the deck of the Victory, at Trafalgar. The last request of such a man, made in such an hour, and amid such a triumph, purchased by him with his heart’s blood—the dying request of such a man ought to have been held sacred by his country. For five years Lady Hamilton struggled on at Merton: she made application to every source, but she applied in vain. The recompense justly due to her for services rendered was withheld or denied under the most shabby and futile pretences. The worst of all, perhaps, was the pretence, or the plea, of the length of time that had expired since the service itself was rendered!
In a codicil annexed to his will, and made by Nelson as he was about to enter into action at Trafalgar, the Admiral, with a strong feeling that death was near him, asked two favours of his King and Country in whose defence he was about to offer up his own life—one was, protection and provision for Lady Hamilton, whose late husband was the King’s foster-brother; the other, goodwill for his ‘adopted daughter.’ He solemnly bequeathed both to his sovereign and his fellow-countrymen. When the will was proved, this codicil was held back by the Rev. William Nelson, although he and his family had been partaking of Lady Hamilton’s hospitality for months. Indeed, during six years, she was a second mother to his children, to whom he recommended Lady Hamilton as an example and enjoined obedience to her as an instructress. ‘The Earl (says Dr. Pettigrew—for the reverend gentleman was created an earl) fearful that Lady Hamilton should be provided for in the sum Parliament was expected to grant to uphold the hero’s name and family, kept the codicil in his pocket until the day 120,000l. was voted for that purpose. On that day he dined with Lady Hamilton in Clarges Street, and, hearing at table what had been done, he brought forward the codicil, and, throwing it to Lady Hamilton, coarsely said she might now do with it as she pleased. She had it registered the next day at Doctors’ Commons, where it is now to be seen.’
With insufficient means to live in her old dignity at Merton, and with little knowledge of how to make the best of those means, accustomed to find others her stewards and unused to provide for hours of necessity, she at length found herself compelled to make an assignment of the home which Nelson had established for her and their child. She removed to Richmond, and, subsequently, had lodgings in Bond Street. Pursued by creditors, without her child for whom she had no home—and for whom such protection as she could give was not that which a child most needed—she led a miserable life, which was hardly rendered more miserable by her incarceration, in 1813, in the King’s Bench. She passed ten months in this captivity, and was only relieved at last by the humanity of Alderman Smith. With freedom came no measure of happiness: utterly destitute, and abandoned by those who in the days of her prosperity professed to be her slaves, she fled the country that would not aid her, and sought succour in a foreign land. She found shelter, and nothing more, in Calais, in a miserable house, kindly lent her, however, by a Monsieur de Rheims. That it was only shelter, and nothing else, may be inferred from the following account handed to Dr. Pettigrew by the lady who enacts in it so graceful a part:—