our dear child." It is almost incredible that Nelson could have
written such a silly fabrication. In the early part of 1804, Emma gave
birth to another child, of which he believed himself to be the father.
He asked the mother to call _him_ what she pleased (evidently he hoped
and expected a boy), but if a girl, it was to be named Emma. It was a
girl, so it was called after the mother, but it did not live long, and
the father never saw it.

As though he thought the letter written about little Miss Thompson
(Horatia, be it understood) were not sufficiently delusive, he sends
an equally absurd production to his niece, Charlotte Nelson, who
lived a good deal at Merton, in which he says that he is "truly
sensible of her attachment to that dear little orphan, Horatia," and
although her parents are lost, yet she is not "without a fortune; and
that he will cherish her to the last moment of his life, and _curse_
them who _curse_ her, and Heaven bless them who bless her." This
solemn enthusiasm for the poor orphan puts Nelson out of court as a
cute letter-writer. The quality of ingenious diplomacy had been left
entirely out of him, and like any one else who dallies with an art for
which they have no gift, he excites suspicions, and more often than
not discloses the very secret he is so anxious to keep. Every line of
these letters indicates a tussle between a natural tendency to frank
honesty and an unnatural and unworthy method of deception. Obviously,
the recipient of this precious document would have her curiosity
excited over the disingenuous tale of romance. She would ask herself
first of all, "Why should my kinsman be so desirous to tell me that
the orphan in whom he has so fond an interest is not without a
fortune? and why should the responsibility of rearing and educating
the child have been entrusted to him, the most active and important
Admiral in the British Navy? And if it be true that she is an orphan,