Patriotic Lady

It has been impossible to write this study of Emma, Lady Hamilton,
without touching upon subjects which are extremely controversial. It is
not within the scope of this book, however, to attempt to revive disputes
and arguments which have long since been worn threadbare, and which
concern not so much matters of fact as matters of opinion. Many writers
who have dealt with the career of Emma, Lady Hamilton, have set
themselves the task, not of discovering the truth, but of making out a
case according to personal prejudice. The works given in the bibliography
at the end of this volume cover the whole range of opinions held, and
judgments given, by Italian, French, Austrian and English writers on the
end of the Revolution in Naples in 1799. Any reader who doubts the
accuracy or fairness of the present writer's version of this event is
referred to the works of these authorities, all of which are easily
procurable.

It must be added, however, that these writers differ considerably in
their points of view and their knowledge, are often confused by passion,
or are deliberately inaccurate through prejudice; therefore all, or
nearly all, the evidence must be read, if an impartial judgment is to be
formed on matters that have caused such bitter emotions and such fierce
differences of opinion.

It is useless, for instance, to read _Nelson and the Neapolitan
Jacobins_ by H. C. Gutheridge, without reading _Lady Hamilton et la
Révolution de Naples_ by Joseph Turquan and Jules d'Auriac, in which
the English author's points are carefully dealt with, and his arguments
often refuted. Further, it is impossible to understand the situation and
sentiments of the Patriots of Naples and the Italian point of view
without being acquainted with the Jacobins' own statements and the
opinions of Italian historians, which may be found embodied in the
writings of Vincenzo Cuoco, Francesco Lomanaco, Carlo Botta, P. Colletta,
and G. M. Arrighi, and in those of two modern Italian scholars of the
first rank, who have made impartial and patient researches into the
history of the _Novantanove_; Benedetto Croce and Pasquale Villari.
The latter, in his _Nelson, Caracciolo, la Rivoluzione di Napoli_,
published in _Discussioni critiche Discorsi_, gives a masterly
summing up of the whole controversy and of the works of all the writers
who have discussed the questions raised by the part played by the English
in the Bourbon reaction.

Another cool and detached account of the affair is given by Professor
Huefer in his article _La fin de la Republique Napolitaine_,
published in Nos. 83-84 of _La Revue Historique de Paris_, and a
useful book is that published under the same title as Professor Villari's
essay, by F. Lemmi, Florence, 1898.

Mr. David Hannay, in his edition of Southey's _Life of Nelson_, is
conspicuous for his fairness in dealing with the Neapolitan episode,
while the chapter on Caracciolo, in J. Cordy Jeafferson's _Lady
Hamilton and Lord Nelson_, may be cited as an example of the kind of
writing that has too often misled the English reader as to the characters
and events of Naples in 1799.

In conclusion, some words of personal explanation may be added. As very
little is known of Emma Hamilton before 1782, this account of her life
begins in that year, and references to her early youth are given as
rumours or gossip only. It is most likely that there was much truth in
these tales--some such life as they indicate Amy Lyon must have led--but
the evidence for this part of her career is flimsy and contradictory and
many of the well-known anecdotes of her early life rest on very doubtful
authority.