do only by dwelling upon 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 between Lady Hamilton and himself; for, immediately upon joining his command in the Downs, he began writing about the search for a house, as a matter already decided, in which she was to act for him.  “Have you heard of any house?  I am very anxious to have a home where my friends might be made welcome.”  As usual, in undertakings of every kind, he chafed under delays, and he was ready to take the first that seemed suitable.  “I really wish you would buy the house at Turnham Green,” he writes her within a week.  The raising of the money, it is true, presents some difficulty, for he has in hand but L3,000.  “It is, my dear friend,” he moralizes, “extraordinary, but true, that the man who is pushed forward to defend his country, has not from that country a place to lay his head in; but never mind, happy, truly happy, in the estimation of such friends as you, I care for nothing.”