Too Great a Lady by Amanda Elyot

Author:Amanda Elyot
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Twenty-seven

See, the Conquering Hero Comes

So, yes, I was half in love with him then, but then it was the glossy infatuation that men and women alike feel for heroes or saviors. Their deeds elevate them in your esteem and from there is it but a short journey to the heart. It was easier for me to keep my head by writing to Nelson of others’ admiration for him. Everybody here prays for you. The Neapolitans say mass for you, but Sir Wm. and I are so anxious that we neither eat, drink, nor sleep; and till you are safely landed and come back we shall feel mad. All the hopes and fears for the future of England, as well as Naples, rested on Nelson’s golden epaulets.

Then, on September 1, news of the grandest and most glorious victory reached our ears. A month earlier, Nelson had engaged the French fleet in Aboukir Bay near the mouth of the Nile. It had been a magnificent engagement, culminating in the spectacular explosion of the French flagship L’Orient. I was enraptured, dizzy beyond all measure with triumph. And to know that I myself had played some little part in this tremendous success—by securing the permission for our ships to be watered and restocked in Syracuse—filled every fiber of my being with euphoria. I could not wait to hear every last detail from Nelson himself—yet all I received was a cryptic note, reading, My dear Lady Hamilton, you will soon be able to see the wreck of Horatio Nelson. May it count for a kindly judgement if scars are a mark of honor.

So great was my excitement that my hand shook as I wrote to Nelson of our collective reaction to his brave and brilliant conquest. My words tumbled forth as if I were speaking them; my emotions could not be contained on a mere scrap of paper, nor controlled by the mean servants of quill and ink.

Naples, 8 September, 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 delerious with joy, and assure you I have a fevour caused by agitation and pleasure. God, what a victory! Never, never has there been anything half so glorious, so compleat. I fainted when I heard the joyfull news and fell on my side and am hurt, but well of that. I shou’d feil it a glory to die in such a cause. No, I wou’d not like to die till I see and embrace the Victor of the Nile. How shall I describe to you the transports of Maria Carolina, ’tis not possible.

The Neapolitans are mad with joy, and if you wos here now, you wou’d be killed with kindness. Sonets on sonets, illuminations, rejoicings; not a French dog dare shew his face. How I glory in the honner of my Country and my Countryman! I walk and tread in the air with pride, feiling I was born in the same land with the victor Nelson and his gallant band.

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