olitan Kingdom, was elicited by the Queen through Lady Hamilton;
but the inference derives support from the words, "I have read with
admiration the queen's dignified and incomparable letter of September,
1796,"--two years before. That his views were not the simple outcome
of his own unbiassed study of the situation is evident enough. "This
country, by its system of procrastination, will ruin itself," he
writes to St. Vincent, the very day after drawing up the letter in
question; "the queen sees it and thinks"--not as I do, but--"as _we_
do." That Lady Hamilton was one of the "we" is plain, for in the
postscript to the letter he says: "Your Ladyship will, I beg, receive
this letter as a _preparative for Sir William Hamilton,_ to whom I am
writing, with all respect, the firm and unalterable opinion of a
British admiral," etc. Certainly these words--taken with those already
quoted, and written just a week afterwards, "Lady Hamilton has been my
ambassadress to the queen"--indicate that she was the intermediary
between Nelson and the Court, as well as between him and her husband.

There is no record of any official request for this unofficial and
irregular communication of the opinion of a British admiral; and, of
course, when a man has allowed himself, unasked, though not
unprompted, to press such a line of action, he has bound himself
personally, and embarrassed himself officially, in case it turns out
badly. Nelson very soon, within a fortnight, had to realize this, in
the urgent entreaties of the Court not to forsake them; and to see
reason for thinking "that a strong wish for our squadron's being on
the Coast of Naples is, that in case of any mishap, that their
Majesties think their persons much safer under the protection of the
British flag than under any other;" that is--than under their own.
They could not trust their own people; they could not, as the event
proved, trust their army in the field; and the veteran Neapolitan
naval officer, Caracciolo, whether he deserved confidence or not, was
stung to the quick when, in the event, they sought refuge with a
foreign admiral instead of with himself. That Nelson should not have
known all this, ten days after reaching Naples, was pardonable enough,
and, if formally asked for advice without such facts being placed
before him, he could not be responsible for an error thus arising; but
the case is very different when advice is volunteered. He is more
peremptory than the minis