Nelson, when writing to the Queen of the Two Sicilies upon the death of their common friend, made this remark on his testamentary arrangements:—‘The good Sir William did not leave Lady Hamilton in such comfortable circumstances as his fortune would have allowed. He has given it amongst his relations. |Nelson to the Queen of Naples (Nicolas, vol. iv, p. 84).| But she will do honour to his memory, although every one else of his friends calls loudly against him on that account.’ This comment, however, expresses rather a temporary feeling than a wise judgment. Sir William had settled a jointure of seven hundred pounds a year upon his widow.
During the few months of life that yet remained to the great seaman himself, the highest encomium known to his vocabulary was to say, ‘So-and-so was a great friend of Sir William Hamilton.’
The ‘Institute of Egypt;’ and its researches and acquisitions.
As the British Museum owes one choice portion of its archæological treasures to the man who was Nelson’s type of friendship, so also it owes—indirectly—another portion of them to the man who was Nelson’s favourite aversion, and whose very name, in the Admiral’s mind, served to sum up all that was most detestable. The Battle of the Nile, and the military operations which followed it in the after years, would have counted no antiquarian riches amongst their trophies, but for that ardent love of science in Napoleon which prompted him to plan the ‘Institute of Egypt’ as an essential part of the Campaign of Egypt.
The intention with which the Institute of Egypt was founded embraced every kind of study and research. The scholars of whom it was composed included within their number men of the most varied powers. What they effected was fragmentary, and yet their researches, directly or indirectly, bore much fruit.
In the end, the harvest was to France herself none the less abundant from the fact that Nelson’s achievement, and what grew thereout, set Englishmen and Germans to work with increased vigour in the same field, and divided some of the tools.
Scarcely had General Bonaparte established the military power of the French Republic in Egypt, before he was employed in organizing the Institute at Cairo. |1798–1801.| Its declared object was twofold: (1) the increase and diffusion of learning in Egypt itself; (2) the examination, study, and publication, of the monuments of its history and of its natural phenomena, together with the elucidation and improvement of the natural and industrial capabilities of the country. |Mémoires sur l’Egypt, passim.| The Institute was composed of thirty-six members, and was divided into four sections. The section with which alone we are here concerned—that of Literature, Arts, and History—was headed by Denon, and amongst its other members were Dutertre, Parseval, and Ripault. Its labours began in 1798, and were continued, with almost unparalleled activity, until the summer of 1801, when the defeat of Belliard near Cairo, and the capitulation of Menou at Alexandria, placed that part of the collections of the Institute which had not been already sent to France at the disposal of Lord Hutchinson.
Denon, on his return from Upper Egypt to Cairo, said, with French vivacity, that if the active movements of the Mamelukes now and then forced an antiquary to become, in self-defence, a soldier, the antiquary was enabled, by way of balance and through the good nature and docility of the French troops, to turn a good many soldiers into antiquaries. Had it not been for this general sympathy and readiness, one can hardly conceive that so much could have been accomplished, even under the eye of Napoleon, amidst perils so incessant. The Description de l’Egypte is for France at large, no less than for Napoleon and the men whom he set to work, a monument which might well obliterate the momentary mortification attendant on the transfer to London of a part of the treasures of the Institute. History, ancient or modern, scarcely offers a parallel instance in which war was made to contribute results so splendid, both for the progress of science and for the eventual improvement of the invaded country. To the labours initiated by Napoleon, and partially carried out by the ‘Institute of Egypt,’ the ablest of the recent rulers of that land owe some of their best and latest inspirations. Nor is it a whit less true that the most successful of our English Egyptologists have followed the track in which Frenchmen led the way. Such results, indeed, can never suffice to justify an unprovoked invasion. But they illustrate, in a marvellous way, how temporary evil is wrought into enduring good.
By the sixteenth article of the Capitulation of Alexandria, it was provided that the Members of the Institute of Egypt might carry back with them all instruments of science and art which they had brought from France, but that all collections of marbles, manuscripts, and other antiquities, together with the specimens of natural history and the drawings, then in the possession of the French, should be regarded as public property, and become subject to the disposal of the generals of the allied army.
The Convention of Alexandria.