without waiting for an answer, turned to General----, and talked to
him near half an hour in great good humour. It could not be about his
successes." This slight was not a revival of the old prejudice
entertained by the King before the war, which had been wholly removed
by the distinguished services Nelson had rendered afterwards. Eighteen
months before this Davison had written to him: "I waited upon the King
early last Sunday morning, and was _alone_ with him a full hour, when
much of the conversation was about you. It is impossible to express
how warmly he spoke of you, and asked me a thousand questions about
you ... I have been again at the Queen's house, and have given the
King a copy of your last letter to me, giving an account of your
health, which he read twice over, with great attention, and with
apparent emotion of concern. His Majesty speaks of you with the
tenderness of a father." Samuel Rogers has an incidental mention of
the effect produced upon Nelson by the treatment now experienced. "I
heard him once during dinner utter many bitter complaints (which Lady
Hamilton vainly attempted to check) of the way he had been treated at
Court that forenoon: the Queen had not condescended to take the
slightest notice of him. In truth, Nelson was hated at Court; they
were jealous of his fame."[15] People, however, are rarely jealous of
those who are not rivals.

The position which Nelson had proposed to himself to establish was of
course impossible. The world was no more disposed to worry about any
private immoralities of his than it did about those of other men, but
it was not prepared to have them brandished in its face, and it would
have none of Lady Hamilton,--nor would Lady Nelson. The general public
opinion at the time receives, probably, accurate expression from Sir
William Hotham, a man then in London society. "His vanity, excusable
as such a foible is in such a man, led him to unpardonable excesses,