the wrong done him by those who, in the eyes
of men generally, seemed, and must still seem, the wronged. Of what
passed between himself and Lady Nelson, we know too little to
apportion the blame of a transaction in which she appears chiefly as
the sufferer. Nisbet, except in the gallantry and coolness shown by
him at Teneriffe, has not the same claim to consideration, and his
career had undoubtedly occasioned great and legitimate anxiety to
Nelson, whose urgency with St. Vincent was primarily the cause of a
premature promotion, which spoiled the future of an officer, otherwise
fairly promising.[41] If the relations between the two had not been
so soon strained by Nelson's attentions to Lady Hamilton, things might
have turned out better, through the influence of one who rarely failed
to make the most of those under his command.

The annual allowance made to Lady Nelson by her husband, after their
separation, was L1,800; which, by a statement he gave to the Prime
Minister, two years later, when asking an increase of pension, appears
to have been about half of his total income. On the 23d of April,
1801, when daily expecting to leave the Baltic for England, he sent
her a message through their mutual friend Davison: "You will, at a
proper time, and before my arrival in England, signify to Lady N. that
I expect, and for which I have made such a very liberal allowance to
her, to be left to myself, and without any inquiries from her; for
sooner than live the unhappy life I did when last I came to England, I
would stay abroad for ever. My mind is fixed as fate: therefore you
will send my determination in any way you may judge proper."[42] To
Lady Hamilton he wrote about the same time, assuring her, under the
assumption of mystery with which he sought to guard their relations
against discovery through the postal uncertainties of the day, that he
had no communication with his wife: "Thomson[43] desires me to say he
has never wrote his aunt[44] since he sailed, and all the parade about
a house is nonsense. He has wrote to his father, but not a word or
message to her. He does not, nor cannot, care about her; he believes
she has a most unfeeling heart."[45]

His stay with the Hamiltons in Piccadilly, though broken by several
trips to the country, convinced Nelson that if they were to live
together, as he wished to do, it must be, for his own satisfaction, in
a house belonging to him. It is clear that the matter was talked over
be