enforcing rigour could be imagined than to put the control
of events entirely in the hands of Nelson, whose sentiments were
well known, who was notoriously under the influence of Emma
Hamilton, that is to say, of the queen, and who, as a stranger,
would have no family or social attachments with the republicans,
no changes of fortune nor future revenges to fear. That he asked
Nelson to go to Naples, giving him large powers, may be considered
certain. A commission in the full sense he could not
give without the consent of the king of Great Britain, and that
was not even asked for. But Nelson had general instructions
from home to support the Neapolitan government, and though
this only meant, and could only mean, as an ally and against the
common enemy, he understood it in a much wider sense, while
he considered himself as being bound to Ferdinand in the relation
of subject to sovereign by the grant of the duchy of Bronté in
Sicily, which he had just received. He therefore sailed to
Naples resolved to act in the double capacity of English and
Neapolitan admiral, of English opponent of the Jacobins,
and of Neapolitan royalist. The general cause of Europe and
the particular revenge of the king and queen were of equal
importance to him. When he entered the Bay of Naples on the
24th of June he found that a capitulation had been agreed upon
some thirty-six hours earlier, between Ruffo, acting as
vicar-general, with the consent of Captain Foote (1767–1833) of the
“Seahorse,” the senior British naval officer present, on the
one side, and the Neapolitan republicans on the other. The
republicans had been reduced to the possession of the castles of
Uovo and Nuovo, and had been glad to secure terms which
allowed them to go into exile in France. Nelson denounced an
arrangement which would have precluded all cutting off of
heads as “infamous.” He ordered the white flag to be hauled
down on the “Seahorse,” and told Ruffo that he would not
allow the capitulation to be carried out. The same warning
was given to the republicans in the forts. There is a question
whether the capitulation had been in part already carried into
effect. Sir William Hamilton, who, together with his wife, had
accompanied Nelson from Palermo, asserts that it had, in an
official despatch to Lord Grenville dated on the 14th July.
But this letter, written only a fortnight after the transaction,
contains many inaccuracies, and can be held to prove only that
Hamilton would have seen nothing discreditable in violating
a capitulation, or that he was in his dotage, and did not know
what he was doing. Ruffo refused to be a party to a breach of
faith. On the afternoon of the 25th he had an interview with
Nelson on board the flagship the “Foudroyant,” which was conducted
through the Hamiltons and was of a very heated character.
Next morning, as Ruffo showed a determination to stand aside
and throw on Nelson the responsibility of provoking a renewal
of hostilities, messages were sent to him both by the admiral
and by Hamilton that there would be no interference with the
“armistice.” This assurance put a stop to the dispute between
them. The republicans came out of the forts and were transferred
to feluccas under the guard of British marines, where they
were kept till the king’s pleasure was known. As a matter of
course it was that they should be mostly hanged or shot. Whether
Nelson meant to deceive Ruffo into thinking that he had accepted
the capitulation when he named the armistice,—whether the
vicar-general was deceived, and then misled the garrisons in good
faith—or whether he knew perfectly well that the capitulation
was not included, and took the opportunity afforded him by
these two English gentlemen to deceive his own countrymen,
are points much discussed. The republicans in the forts did claim
that they were covered by the capitulation, and that it had been
violated. It is difficult to see in what way the service of King
George was forwarded by Nelson’s zeal for King Ferdinand.
Such discredit as fell on him would have been avoided if he had
kept to his duty as British admiral, and had not thought it
incumbent on him to prove himself a good Neapolitan royalist.
On the 29th of June Francesco Caracciolo (q.v.), a Neapolitan
naval officer who had joined the republicans, was brought to
Nelson as a prisoner. Out of his desire to make an example
of a proper head. and in the full knowledge that Caracciolo’s
death would be pleasing to the queen, Nelson, in virtue, seemingly,
of his supposed commission as Neapolitan admiral (which he
did not possess), ordered a court martial of Italian officers to sit,
on an English ship, to try the prisoner. The court could only
find him guilty, and Caracciolo was hanged. The sentence was
just, but the procedure was indecent, and Nelson’s intervention
cannot be justified.
At this period of his life it is indeed difficult to represent Nelson’s actions in a favourable light. In July he disobeyed the order of Lord Keith to send some of his ships to Minorca, on the ground that they were needed for the defence of Naples. The influence of the queen, exercised through Emma Hamilton was partly responsible for his wilfulness, but a great deal must be put down to his annoyance at finding that Keith, and not he himself, was to succeed St Vincent as commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. After the victory of the Nile he became, in fact, incapable of acting as a subordinate. Until he left for home in June 1800, except during the short interval when he acted as commander-in-chief in the absence of Keith, he was captious, querulous and avoided leaving Palermo as much as he could, and far more than he ought. When forced out he made his health an excuse for going back. He began a quarrel with Troubridge which ripened into complete estrangement. He wearied out his friends at the Admiralty, and finally extorted leave to return. As Keith would not allow him to take a line of battleship for his journey home with the Hamiltons, and indeed said plainly that Lady Hamilton had commanded the Mediterranean station long enough, he returned across Europe with his friends. Accounts of the figure they cut, and the sensation they created at Vienna and at Dresden, can be found in the Minto correspondence, and in the reminiscences of Mrs St George, afterwards Mrs Trench (1768–1827). He reached home in November.
In England he was received with the utmost popular enthusiasm, but with coldness by the king, the Admiralty, and by the great official and social world. His erratic and self-willed conduct towards Lord Keith sufficiently explains the distrust shown by My Lords of the Admiralty. Their uneasiness was not diminished by their knowledge that his renown made it quite impossible to lay him aside at a crisis. The king, a man of strict domestic habits and strong religious convictions, was undoubtedly offended by the scandals of Nelson’s life at Naples, and he cannot but have been displeased by the admiral’s openly avowed readiness to devote himself to King Ferdinand. English society as represented by the First Lord, Lord Spencer, and his wife, may not have shared the moral indignation of the pious king; but their taste was offended, and so was their self-respect, when Nelson insisted on forcing Lady Hamilton on them, and would go nowhere where she was not received. When it was discovered that he insisted on making his wife live in the same house as his mistress, he was considered to have infringed the accepted standard of good manners. After enduring insult at once cruel and cowardly, to the verge of poorness of spirit, Lady Nelson rebelled. A complete separation took place, and husband and wife never met again.
On the 1st of January 1801 Nelson became vice-admiral by seniority. The alliance of the Northern powers of which the Tsar Paul was the inspiring spirit, made it necessary for the British government to take vigorous measures in its own defence. A fleet had to be sent on a very difficult and dangerous mission to the Baltic. The Admiralty would have been unpardonable, and would not have been excused by public opinion if, when it had at its disposal such an admirable weapon as the conqueror of the Nile, it had failed to employ him. Nelson was chosen to go as a matter of course, but unfortunately, it was thought proper to put him under the command of Sir Hyde Parker (q.v.) an officer of no experience, and, as the Admiralty ought to have known, of commonplace, not to say indolent, character. Nelson bore the subordination with many bitter complaints, but on the whole with patience and tact. Sir Hyde Parker began by keeping his formidable second in command at arm’s length, but Nelson handled him with considerable diplomacy. Knowing
