In 1784 the ambassador visited England. His stay was brief. But an incident which occurred during this visit gave its colour to the rest of his life.

In 1791 Sir William Hamilton was made a Privy Councillor, and in the same year (nine years after the death of his first wife) he married Emma Harte, whom he had first met in the house of his nephew, Colonel Greville, in 1784. In September, 1793, his eventful acquaintance with Nelson was formed.

Hamilton’s first acquaintance with Nelson.

In that month, Nelson had been sent to Naples with despatches from Admiral Lord Hood, in which Sir William Hamilton was pressed to procure the sending of some Neapolitan troops to Toulon. After his first interview with Lord Hood’s messenger, he is said to have remarked to his wife: ‘I have a little man to introduce to you who will become one of the greatest men England has ever had.’ The favourable impression was reciprocal, it seems. The ambassador gave such good furtherance to the object of Nelson’s mission, that the messenger, we are told, said to him, ‘You are a man after my heart. |Clarke and McArthur, Life, &c., of Nelson, vol. i, p. 133; and Nicolas, vol. i, p. 326.| I’m only a captain, but, if I live, I shall get to the top of the tree;’ while, of the too-fascinating lady into whose social circle he was presently brought, Nelson wrote to his wife, ‘She is a young woman of amiable manners, who does honour to the station to which she is raised.’ Several years, however, were yet to intervene before the events of the naval war and the political circumstances of Naples itself brought about a close connexion in public transactions between the great seaman and the British ambassador, whose long diplomatic career was drawing to its close.

Hamilton, after the manner of Collectors, had scarcely parted with the fine Museum, which he had sold to the Public in 1772, before he began to form another. The explorations of the buried cities gave some favourable opportunities near home, and his researches were spread far and wide. In amassing vases he was especially fortunate. And, in that particular, his second Collection came to surpass the first. He became anxious to ensure its preservation in integrity. With that view he offered it to the King of Prussia.

The Second Hamilton Collection of Vases.

‘I think,’ he wrote to the Countess of Lichtenau, in May, 1796, ‘my object will be attained by placing my Collection, with my name attached to it, at Berlin. And I am persuaded that, in a very few years, the profit which the arts will derive from such models will greatly exceed the price of the Collection. The King’s [porcelain] manufactory would do well to profit by it.... For a long time past I have had an unlimited commission from the Grand Duke of Russia [afterwards Paul the First], but, between ourselves, I should think my Collection lost in Russia; whilst, at Berlin, it would be in the midst of men of learning and of literary academies.

‘There are more,’ he continues, ‘than a thousand vases, and one half of them figured. If the King listens to your proposal, he may be assured of having the whole Collection, and I would further undertake to go, at the end of the war, to Berlin to arrange them. |Sir W. Hamilton to the Countess of Lichtenau, 3 May, 1796.| On reckoning up my accounts,—I must speak frankly (il faut que je dise la vérité),—I find that I shall needs be a loser, unless I receive seven thousand pounds sterling for this Collection. That is exactly the sum I received from the English Parliament for my first Collection....[[59]] As respects Vases, the second is far more beautiful and complete than the series in London, but the latter included also bronzes, gems, and medals.’ But the negotiation thus opened led to no result. And some of the choicest contents of this second Museum were eventually lost by shipwreck.

When the correspondence with Berlin occurred, the Collector’s health was rapidly failing him. The political horizon was getting darker and darker. Victorious France was putting its pressure upon the Neapolitan Government to accept terms of peace which should exact the exclusion of British ships from the Neapolitan ports. The ambassador needed now all the energies for which, but a few years before, there had been no worthy political employment. They were fast vanishing; but, to the last, Sir William exerted himself to the best of his ability. It was his misfortune that he had now to work, too often, by deputy.

The later events at Naples, 1796–1799.