Nelson (75 page)

The bay of Naples was wide, open and awesome, the deep blue of the sea, spotted with fishing boats, contrasting with the green and yellow of the hills above with their olive groves and fields of wheat. The city, a loud, brassy, indulgent metropolis only a little smaller than Paris, seemed from the sea to be dominated by the Castel St Elmo, and it was flanked a few miles to the right by Mount Posillipo, and to the left by the towering twin peaks of Vesuvius. Even then the rugged heights of the volcano coursed with burning lava, and it spat red fire and black ash into an eerily illuminated sky. On either side the extremities of the bay disintegrated into beautiful craggy islands, Ischia and Procida in the north and Capri to the south. Arriving on 10 September, Nelson thought the volcanic exhibition ‘grand’. The next day he wrote to Fanny that ‘we are now in sight of Mount Vesuvius which shows a fine light to us in Naples Bay, where we are laying to for the night . . . We were in the bay all night becalmed and nothing could be finer than the views of Mount Vesuvius.’
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The
Agamemnon
anchored close to four Neapolitan ships, the
Guiscardo
ship of the line and three frigates. Soon an officer from one of the frigates came alongside. He offered the Neapolitan admiral’s compliments, granted permission to remain in the bay, and most remarkably passed an invitation to Captain Nelson to come aboard and meet the King of Naples himself, who was present. Ordering out his barge, Nelson clambered into it to the shrill of pipes and was rowed out for the first of many meetings with the famous Ferdinand IV. He was a Bourbon, Nelson knew, the brother of Charles, King of Spain. Maria Carolina, his queen, was the daughter of Marie Theresa (late Empress of Austria), and the sister of the present emperor, Leopold II, and also of the unfortunate Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, who then lay incarcerated in a French prison awaiting execution. The Neapolitan royal family was related through blood to two of Britain’s allies, and had its own reasons to hate the republicans.

Horatio did not find His Majesty physically prepossessing.
Ferdinand was a coarse, powerfully-built man, ugly and pig-eyed, with the grossest manners. He was ignorant, bullying and buffoonish, a man who knew little of the affairs of state, but much about gambling, billiards, ogling women and gratuitously butchering huge quantities of wildlife. In any one of the king’s hunts hundreds of animals might be slain, deer, pigs, wolves, and even his own dogs – the more the merrier, for Ferdinand wallowed in the butchery and boasted of the thousands of creatures he had done to death. His abuse effortlessly extended to people, whether chasing servants with the contents of his chamber pot or forcing coachmen to swallow live frogs. Yet none of this boorish brutality deterred the clergy and the Neapolitan mob, the
lazzaroni
, from supporting him. The king’s rule was corrupt, inefficient and did little to improve the condition of his subjects, but at least he mixed with them, talking to them in a language they understood, and developing a rough-hewn camaraderie.

Though Ferdinand ruled the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the largest of the Italian states, embracing Sicily and the southern half of the peninsula, he was not its prime policy maker. That was largely in the hands of his far abler and forceful queen, Maria Carolina, and the principal minister, John Acton. Guaranteed a place in the councils of state by her marriage settlement, it was Maria Carolina who steadily extricated Naples from the orbit of Spain and strengthened its links with Austria. She cemented the relationship by marrying off two Neapolitan princesses to the Austrian crown prince and his younger brother, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Incapacitated by one of her frequent pregnancies, the queen was temporarily out of circulation when Nelson arrived, but even Ferdinand appreciated the significance of his visit.

In Naples the antics of the French had aroused fear and horror, but the Kingdom was wide open to Jacobin aggression, and not all its subjects were ignorant of the desperate need for political reform. For some time the country had shrunk from outright hostilities with France, but it had prevaricated about recognising the new republic in 1792. That December a French squadron had arrived in the bay and intimidated the Kingdom, and it was not until 12 July 1793, when the war appeared to be tilting against the Jacobins, that the king finally committed himself to an alliance with Britain. He undertook to supply six thousand soldiers and a dozen ships if required. In short, Naples was throwing in with what seemed to be the stronger side, and became largely dependent upon the Royal Navy for its security. Only British
ships could prevent another French squadron from menacing their capital. Nelson, therefore, was an important visitor.
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Speaking through interpreters, Nelson quickly learned that the capture of Toulon had been known in Naples for five days, although their information made the feat a joint accomplishment of British and Spanish arms. Standing firmly for national honour, Nelson quickly disabused the king of his misconception, and Ferdinand amicably agreed that the credit belonged to Hood alone, ‘and that the Spaniard had “
Trompe Trompe
”’. Well might Ferdinand rejoice, for the list of captured French ships flourished by Nelson virtually assured the temporary security of his country. Dwarfed by the burlesque figure of the sovereign, the little captain then pressed his advantage with a request for troops. It should have been made through Britain’s man in Naples, but the king had no reason to refuse. The news of the occupation of Toulon had warmed his heart, and Naples had already contracted to supply the men in their treaty during the summer. Without committing himself on the spot, Ferdinand waxed positive. No one admired Hood more than he, the king said, and the British ‘were the saviours of Italy and of his kingdom in particular’. When Nelson left he was not only elated by the warmth of his royal reception, but satisfied that the current was running in his favour.
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The captain then directed his barge ashore, where for the first time he saw that jumble of narrow, bustling alleys and colourful street life that characterised central Naples. The houses rose large and gloomy, storey upon storey, as if striving for light, peering down into narrow, paved streets and innumerable little courtyards, where ragged urchins ran wild and townspeople scattered before the footmen running ahead of the carriages of the wealthy. This was a lax resort of lethargic nobles, idling while their estates were worked by small leaseholders; of assignations between married ladies and their
cicisbei
; and of the famous but dishevelled
lazzaroni
, scratching a living on the streets where they could. Sometime in the afternoon Nelson reached his destination – the Palazzo Sessa, a white, three-storey residence on the hill beneath the Castel St Elmo, overlooking the bay. This, leased from the Marchese di Sessa, was the residence of His Britannic Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the court of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

There, in an office on the lower floor, Captain Nelson was received by an old, stick-thin, frail, stooped man, his deep-set eyes glinting beneath craggy brows and his nose curved like a beak, as if he was
some emaciated bird of prey. But when he spoke it was fluently and to the point, and Nelson felt that here was a man who could show him how business was done in this exotic place. As Sir William Hamilton himself once said, though sixty-three, he had spent many years hobbling in and out of scrapes.
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Hamilton read Hood’s letter of 25 August and Conway’s, and listened patiently as Nelson spoke. He knew there would be no difficulty in meeting the admiral’s wishes. The English were riding on the crest of a wave in Naples. The mob had ripped the arms of the French republic from outside the house of its representative and destroyed them, while the king had just concluded his treaty with Britain and feted her every visiting officer. Hamilton was having few difficulties getting what he wanted. The previous month Ferdinand had agreed that the Neapolitan navy might be put at the disposal of Lord Hood, provided the security of his kingdom was not compromised. ‘I will answer for this court’s readiness to supply your lordship whatever you may stand in need of,’ Hamilton wrote to the British admiral. Indeed, the very day Nelson arrived in the bay Hamilton was taking steps to provide soldiers for Hood. ‘I think it highly probable that Lord Hood may have occasion for the six thousand Neapolitan troops stipulated in the late convention to garrison Toulon,’ Sir William told his political masters in England. ‘They have been ordered to hold themselves in readiness to embark at a moment’s warning.’
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Although Nelson liked to attribute the speedy reinforcements to his own entreaties, we can see that Hamilton had already prepared the ground. Sir William had put everything in hand. All the captain did was fire the starting gun.

Sir William escorted Nelson straight to the leading minister of the country at his office in the Segretario, opposite the royal palace, probably taking him along the mole and past the stark walls of the Castel d’Ouvo that grimly guarded the foreshore. Nelson was pleasantly surprised to find that Sir John Francis Edward Acton, though born in France fifty-seven years before, was of English ancestry and by profession a naval man. He was decidedly pro-English, and enjoyed the confidence and patronage of the queen. Acton had served in the navies of France and Tuscany before coming to Naples in 1779 to organise the Kingdom’s fleet as minister of marine. His reforms were by no means universally applauded, but he expanded the country’s fleet, and advanced in stature, becoming in addition minister of war and minister of finance. In all but name he was the prime minister, and played a
key role in breaking the influence of Spain upon the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and developing a British orientation.

Acton was pressed by business but received Nelson cordially and read the letters he had brought. They agreed to meet again at nine that evening. When the captain arrived, shepherded again by Hamilton, Acton was able to inform him that Hood’s request for troops would be ‘immediately’ granted. However, he worried that if the soldiers were sent at once, before their provisions could be assembled, they would ‘be a trouble to Lord Hood instead of a service’. Perhaps the reinforcements should wait until they could be fully victualled. Before Nelson could reply Hamilton had his answer. Two thousand men sent now would be of more use than six thousand in two weeks. Sir John thereupon declared that two thousand soldiers would sail in the space of three or four days, and the rest would follow as soon as possible.

That night Nelson returned to his ship exhilarated. In one day the king, Hamilton and Acton had successively received and complimented him, and Hood’s every wish had been met. Never had he felt more valued or more instrumental. Hamilton, who rushed a cutter to Hood with the news, would give Nelson his due for the result. The captain, he said a few days later, ‘has been very useful to me in urging the necessity of immediately sending off the succours for your lordship’.
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The next few days raced from one high to another. On the 12th Nelson and Hamilton were invited to dine with Acton, and the guests took their seats after receiving the welcome tidings that the king had ordered Hood’s troops to be prepared that same day. After dinner, Nelson suggested to Hamilton that a personal letter from the king to Hood would be appreciated. Immediately Sir William put it to Acton, and before the night was out Nelson heard that the boon would be granted. Sir John had another surprise for them the following day. Nelson and Sir William were to dine that evening with the king at Portici. Easily flattered, Nelson proudly recorded in a detailed journal he had begun to keep that Ferdinand was ‘attentive’ and complimentary at dinner. The king said he would personally visit the
Agamemnon
the coming Sunday, and that afterwards Nelson would dine with him again at his royal palace at Caserta, north of Naples.

Constantly in demand, Nelson bunked ashore with the Hamiltons at the Palazzo Sessa, bringing his young stepson with him to trouble Lady Hamilton. It was an extraordinary residence, in which Sir William’s remarkable collection of art, antiquities and curiosities followed Nelson up every staircase and through every room, all of
them capable of inducing the host to expound with an enthusiasm that quite defeated a naval captain. The upper apartments, where Nelson stayed, commanded fine views. A room on the southwest corner of the house was circular, and its balconied window offering a vast panorama over the bay was reflected in a wall of mirrors opposite to create the illusion that its occupants were entirely surrounded by water.
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Sir William Hamilton, whose destiny would inextricably entwine with Nelson’s, was an unusual man. The backgrounds of the two could not have been more different. Sir William was a Scottish aristocrat to his toes, a grandson of the third Duke of Hamilton and the sixth Earl of Abercorn. His father, Lord Archibald Hamilton, had been a lord of the Admiralty, the governor of Greenwich Hospital and a governor of Jamaica; his mother a favourite of the Prince of Wales; and Sir William himself had been equerry to George III. To Nelson it seemed that there were few members of the British upper crust with whom his host was unacquainted.

Sir William had served in the army, an experience he seems to have regretted, and been a Member of Parliament. He had waited on the court of Naples for nearly thirty years, with efficiency if not enthusiasm. Sometimes he longed for a more prestigious diplomatic post in Vienna, but he was by no means unsuited to the lazy life of a backwater like Naples. For above all Sir William was a connoisseur and antiquary. A virtuoso of the violin, member of the Society of Arts, man of science and avid collector of art and antiquities, he knew that nowhere offered more opportunities for study than Naples. Here he enjoyed an immense amount of leisure time, with the remains of the Classical world he admired so much on his doorstep. There were the ash-covered ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum to explore, as well as the volcano itself. Many people feared Vesuvius, but not Sir William. He confessed himself ‘much pleased’ whenever it spat out its ‘vast’ columns of ash or punctuated the air with noisy flashes of ‘lightning’. Occasionally when the shocks rattled his villa below, the ageing philosopher would hike up the mountain and spend nights within range of its fury, merely to observe its dazzling manifestations at first hand. In quieter moments he visited the crater, sampling the cinders and lava, or made pilgrimages to Etna and Stromboli to inform his pioneer publications in vulcanology. Sir William’s first wife, Catherine Barlow, had been an heiress; her remains now lay in her native Wales awaiting a final reunion with a beloved husband. She had often urged
him to embrace religion but never successfully, for at heart Hamilton responded to logic and reason rather than faith. He remained stubbornly philosophical and secular.