In a codicil annexed to his will, and made by Nelson as he was about to enter into action at Trafalgar, the Admiral, with a strong feeling that death was near him, asked two favours of his King and Country in whose defence he was about to offer up his own life--one was, protection and provision for Lady Hamilton, whose late husband was the King’s foster-brother; the other, goodwill for his ‘adopted daughter.’ He solemnly bequeathed both to his sovereign and his fellow-countrymen. When the will was proved, this codicil was held back by the Rev. William Nelson, although he and his family had been partaking of Lady Hamilton’s hospitality for months. Indeed, during six years, she was a second mother to his children, to whom he recommended Lady Hamilton as an example and enjoined obedience to her as an instructress. ‘The Earl (says Dr. Pettigrew--for the reverend gentleman was created an earl) fearful that Lady Hamilton should be provided for in the sum Parliament was expected to grant to uphold the hero’s name and family, kept the codicil in his pocket until the day 120,000_l._ was voted for that purpose. On that day he dined with Lady Hamilton in Clarges Street, and, hearing at table what had been done, he brought forward the codicil, and, throwing it to Lady Hamilton, coarsely said she might now do with it as she pleased. She had it registered the next day at Doctors’ Commons, where it is now to be seen.’ With insufficient means to live in her old dignity at Merton, and with little knowledge of how to make the best of those means, accustomed to find others her stewards and unused to provide for hours of necessity, she at length found herself compelled to make an assignment of the home which Nelson had established for her and their child. She removed to Richmond, and, subsequently, had lodgings in Bond Street. Pursued by creditors, without her child for whom she had no home--and for whom such protection as she could give was not that which a child most needed--she led a miserable life, which was hardly rendered more miserable by her incarceration, in 1813, in the King’s Bench. She passed ten months in this captivity, and was only relieved at last by the humanity of Alderman Smith. With freedom came no measure of happiness: utterly destitute, and abandoned by those who in the days of her prosperity professed to be her slaves, she fled the country that would not aid her, and sought succour in a foreign land. She found shelter, and nothing more, in Calais, in a miserable house, kindly lent her, however, by a Monsieur de Rheims. That it was only shelter, and nothing else, may be inferred from the following account handed to Dr. Pettigrew by the lady who enacts in it so graceful a part:--