of your
health, which he read twice over, with great attention, and with
apparent emotion of concern. His Majesty speaks of you with the
tenderness of a father." Samuel Rogers has an incidental mention of
the effect produced upon Nelson by the treatment now experienced. "I
heard him once during dinner utter many bitter complaints (which Lady
Hamilton vainly attempted to check) of the way he had been treated at
Court that forenoon: the Queen had not condescended to take the
slightest notice of him. In truth, Nelson was hated at Court; they
were jealous of his fame."[15] People, however, are rarely jealous of
those who are not rivals.

The position which Nelson had proposed to himself to establish was of
course impossible. The world was no more disposed to worry about any
private immoralities of his than it did about those of other men, but
it was not prepared to have them brandished in its face, and it would
have none of Lady Hamilton,--nor would Lady Nelson. The general public
opinion at the time receives, probably, accurate expression from Sir
William Hotham, a man then in London society. "His vanity, excusable
as such a foible is in such a man, led him to unpardonable excesses,
and blinded him to the advantages of being respected in society....
His conduct to Lady Nelson was the very extreme of unjustifiable
weakness, for he should at least have attempted to conceal his
infirmities, without publicly wounding the feelings of a woman whose
own conduct he well knew was irreproachable."[16] On the other hand,
Nelson could not forget the kindnesses he had accepted from Lady
Hamilton, nor was he either able or willing to lessen an intimacy
which, unless diminished, left the scandal unabated. He was not able,
for a man of his temperament could not recede before opposition, or
slight a woman now compromised by his name; and he was not willing,
for he was madly in love. Being daily with her for seven months after
leaving Palermo, there occurs a break in their correspondence; but
when it was resumed in the latter part of January, 1801, every
particle of the reticence which a possible struggle with conscience
had imposed disappears. He has accepted the new situation, cast aside
all restraints, and his language at times falls little short of
frenzy, while belying the respect for her which he asserts continually
and aggressively, as though against his convictions.

The breach with Lady Nelson had in this short time become final