The Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievement of Horatio Nelson by Roger Knight

Author:Roger Knight [Knight, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, Europe, Great Britain, History, Military, Naval, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9780465037643
Google: V2xnAAAAMAAJ
Amazon: 046503764X
Publisher: Allen Lane
Published: 2005-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

21

Separation

8 November 1800–March 1801

I want neither nursing, or attention, And had you come here, I should not have gone on Shore, Nor would you have come afloat. I fixed as I thought a proper allowance to enable you to remain quiet, and not to be posting from one end of the Kingdom to the other. Neither I live, or die, am Sick or Well I want from no-one, the sensation of pain or pleasure. And I expect no comfort till I am removed from this World.

Nelson to Fanny, quoted by Fanny in a letter to

Alexander Davison, 24 February 1801

I am just returned from receiving the Sacrament – and I now say if atany future time My husband will make My house his home – I willreceive him with joy; and whatever has passed shall never pass my lips – I pray God he may return to us, bound with laurels, and an Easy Mind.

Fanny to Alexander Davison, 15 March 1801

The carriage drew up outside Nerot’s Hotel in King’s Street, St James’s, on 8 November 1800. ‘The noble Admiral,’ the Naval Chronicle recorded, ‘dressed in full uniform, with three stars on his breast, and two gold medals, was welcomed by repeated huzzas from the crowd, which the illustrious tar returned with a low bow. Lord Nelson looked extremely well, but in person very thin.’ Nelson, with Sir William and Lady Hamilton on hand, met Fanny and his father in the hall of the hotel. It was a very public meeting, with no time for private talk; the first well-wisher, the duke of Queensberry, arrived ten minutes later and stayed for an hour. After dinner that night with the Hamiltons, which can only have been strained, Nelson and Fanny visited Lord and Lady Spencer.

While all was joy and congratulations on the surface, widespread knowledge of Nelson and Emma’s affair had long preceded their arrival. St Vincent, in command of the Channel fleet, had not seen Nelson since May 1798; he called Nelson and Emma ‘a pair of sentimental fools’. Writing from Devon to Nepean on 9 November, he felt that Nelson was ‘doubtful of the propriety of his conduct. I have no doubt he is pledged to getting Lady H. received at St James’s and everywhere, and that he will get into much brouillerie ab[ou]t it.’ At the levee on 12 November the king barely acknowledged Nelson; this was unsurprising in view of the fact that he had been outmanoeuvred by Pitt and Spencer into giving Nelson a peerage. Nelson told Cuthbert Collingwood that ‘His Majesty merely asked him if he had recovered his health; and then, without waiting for an answer, turned to General —, and talked to him in great good humour … not very flattering,’ Collingwood commented, ‘after having been the adoration … of Naples’.

Nelson orchestrated his public appearances in London in the same fashion as he had in Naples: by defiantly wearing full-dress uniform. Displaying foreign orders en masse was not popular. After the Battle of the Nile,

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