Call of Duty
When Horatio Nelson stepped aboard HMS Victory in September 1805, the great Admiral knew he had every reason to stay on dry land.
1805
King George III 1760-1820
By George Romney (1734-1802), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
Emma Hart (1865-1815) as a bacchante (maenad), painted in 1785 by Sir George Romney (1734-1802). Emma, the daughter of a Cheshire blacksmith, was christened Amy Lyon. She made her way to London in 1777, and found work as a maid, model and dancer at gentlemen’s parties. She was passed around the gentry (she had a daughter, Emma Carew, in 1782) until easy-going diplomat and widower Sir William Hamilton, thirty-four years her senior, married her and took her to Naples in 1791. It was there seven years later that Emma met Horatio Nelson, weary from his triumph in the Battle of the Nile in 1798. He had by this time lost his right eye, right arm and most of his teeth, but Emma took him home and lavished attentions on him. A passionate attachment quickly followed.
Introduction
At dawn on Sunday 15th September, 1805, Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson gave the order for his flagship HMS Victory to weigh anchor. Never had Nelson’s duty to go to sea been greater; never had his reasons to stay ashore been stronger. His diary recorded his feelings on the previous Friday night, as his chaise rattled towards towards Portsmouth, and again in the moments before the Battle of Trafalgar.
FRIDAY Night at half-past Ten drove from dear, dear Merton, where I left all which I hold dear in this World,* to go to serve my King & Country. May the Great God Whom I adore enable me to fullfill the expectations of my Country, and if it is His good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never cease being offered up to the Throne of His Mercy. If it is His good providence to cut short my days upon Earth, I bow with the greatest submission,* relying that He will protect those so dear to me that I may leave behind.*
His Will be done. Amen. Amen. Amen.
* Chief among these ties were his mistress Emma, Lady Hamilton, and their daughter Horatia. “The last minutes which Nelson passed at Merton” Robert Southey tells us “were employed in praying over this child as she lay sleeping.” On October 21st, as the Battle of Trafalgar loomed, Nelson wrote to Horatia, then aged four. “You are ever uppermost in my thoughts” he reassured her, calling her ‘my dearest angel.’ “I shall be sure of your prayers for my safety, conquest and speedy return to dear Merton.”
* Nelson’s attitude to the risks of his profession had changed over the years. In 1782 he told his father that “I got my rank by a shot killing a post-captain, and I most sincerely hope I shall, when I go, go out of [the] world the same way.” By 1801, frustrated at Admiralty policy, he was dreaming of retiring to a farm. His long absences at sea — “I went on shore” he noted on July 20th, 1805 “for the first time since the 16th of June, 1803” — were a growing trial to him, but even more so to Emma, who had little to distract her but unwanted offers of marriage.
* Nelson provided generously for his estranged wife Frances and for other members of his family in his Will. There was also provision for Emma and Horatia, but tact decreed that it must be modest. Shortly before the Battle of Trafalgar, Nelson wrote a Codicil (duly proved) in which he suggested that as she had run several diplomatic errands for the Navy, Emma deserved a civil list pension. As a way to observe the proprieties it was a happy inspiration, but Parliament did not take the hint. They did however find plenty of taxpayers’ money to award to Nelson’s already wealthy relations.
