1801.] THE LAWSUIT WITH LORD ST. VINCENT. 403 was actuated entirely by the judgment of other men, not lawyers, who were by no means unfriendly to Lord Nelson: although what passed between you, Mr. Booth, and Mr. Tucker, must be fresh in your memory. At my desire, the latter has collected all the material points, which are enclosed, and I have only to add, that I would forfeit all I am worth rather than have a dispute with Lord Nelson : at the same time there is something due to the profession we are both in." I CHAPTER XIX. PERSONAL III.: NELSON AT HOME AND ABROAD. (1801 to 1805.) Nelson's private life at home and abroad-The rupture with his wifeHazlewood's account--Mrs. St. George's account of Nelson and the Hamiltons at Dresden-Mr. Matcham's account of Nelson's life at Merton-His adopted child Horatia-Lady Hamilton and the ninth codicil. O those who may remember how Nelson's great contemporary, Wellington, was libelled, not only by foreign journalists, but by English newspapers, it will seem only natural that Nelson should fare the same from Jacobin writers, and from those of his own countrymen who were envious of his successes and his popularity. Whilst at Naples and Palermo the first of this class of writers declared that so outraged were the feelings of Sir W. Hamilton by Nelson's behaviour to his wife, that he had challenged and fought him-that his immorality was obvious, and that the whole party gambled. Believing as I do, after the most careful consideration. of all the reliable evidence available that, as his chaplain Dr. Scott, and his most intimate friends held, there was no criminality in his friendship-that as Lord St. Vincent used to call them "they were a pair of sentimental fools" -1 pass by these Jacobin stories. In his continued absence from England after the day of the Victory of the Nile, it is not surprising that Lady Nelson began to believe in them, and that on his return home the exaggerated |