The candid friend, though seldom loved, is oftentimes the best friend. Nelson was warned of his mad infatuation for Lady Hamilton by more than one person who desired to save him from himself, but the fatal spell which she exerted upon him held him beyond reclamation. On meeting the Admiral Lady Hamilton fainted away, and we find the hero writing to his wife that “she is one of the very best women in this world; she is an honour to her sex. Her kindness, with Sir William’s, to me, is more than I can express: I am in their house, and I may now tell you, it required all the kindness of my friends to set me up.” A week or so later, he says, “The continued kind attention of Sir William and Lady Hamilton must ever make you and I love them, and they are deserving the love and admiration of all the world.” We must now return to the scene of the tragedy. Italy was in a turmoil. Berthier had appeared before Rome, the aged Pontiff had been dragged from his palace and sent into Tuscany, a Republic set up, and an offensive and defensive alliance entered into with Revolutionary France. By his placing the citadel of Turin in the hands of the all-conquering nation for “security” the King of Sardinia became a mere State-prisoner. These events in the North naturally caused trepidation in the kingdom of Naples, and Ferdinand wisely secured the assistance of Austria. The news of the French defeat at the Nile, more especially the presence of the victor, caused the war party--of which Queen Maria Carolina and Lady Hamilton were the leaders--to forget that mere enthusiasm, although a valuable asset, was not the sole requisite in a campaign, especially when the enemy to be met was one so formidable as the victorious French. Naples was for up and doing, regardless of the consequences. She sowed the storm and reaped the whirlwind by reason of her undue haste in taking up arms before everything was ready for the conflict. There is perhaps some excuse for her Majesty’s eagerness. Sister of the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, who had perished on the scaffold, and “truly a daughter of Maria Theresa,”[36] as Nelson averred, she wished to be avenged. Lady Hamilton on her part had become the confidential friend of Her Majesty and had rendered certain services to the Neapolitan and English Courts which she afterwards grossly exaggerated in an endeavour to secure a competence for herself. Nelson is not undeserving of censure for having forced the issue. He quoted Chatham’s dictum, “The boldest measures are the safest,” to Lady Hamilton, and told her that should “this miserable ruinous system of procrastination be persisted in, I would recommend that all your property and persons are ready to embark at a very short notice.”