"Remember," said Horatio Nelson, as he lay dying on the quarter-deck of the Victory, "I leave Lady Hamilton as a legacy to my King and country that they will give her an ample provision to maintain her rank."
The grateful nation, which thought Emma Hamilton's rank little better than a whore's, took him at his word. To a respectable brother, the Rev. William Nelson, went an earldom, a 3,000-acre estate, Trafalgar, in Wiltshire and a pension of £5,000 yearly to be paid to his heirs forever. To Emma went nothing; she died ten years later, a raddled...
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