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The Duke of Queensberry offered her his large villa in Richmond, an expensive village on the Thames to the west of London, for a peppercorn rent. Lavish Herring House had eight bedrooms, a dressing room, a study, a bathroom, four reception rooms, a billiard room, offices, servants' quarters, and ample stabling. Emma carted over the best heavy mahogany furniture from Merton, the ornate four-poster bed she had shared with Nelson, portraits, glass, china and silver plate, wine, and Sir William's treasures and library, including an original Domesday Book. She installed all her old servants, including the elderly Dame Francis, the Merton housekeeper, her Sudanese maid Fatima, the highly paid Connor sisters, and a troupe of footmen dressed in her own exclusive red livery. Most aristocrats would cast off their staff whenever they fell into difficulties, giving them neither back pay nor a pension, just as Sir William had done to his Neapolitan valets. Emma was staunchly loyal, and her large establishment drained her purse. She was similarly softhearted toward her hangers-on. George Matcham praised Emma's laudable "plan of economy" but worried that it would have been better that "the crowd of obsequeous attendance had been entirely dismissed instead of being partially diminished."5 Dozens of former servants, distant relatives, and impoverished old friends lounged in her homes, many of them whining behind her back, others storing up rumors for future blackmail attempts. Some, like Melesina Trench, the traveling widow she had met in Dresden, visited frequently for dinners and parties while busying themselves writing bitchy accounts for their memoirs.

By July there was an offer on Merton of £13,000, exclusive of the valuable furniture and treasures. But there was also bad news. Mr. Canning, the foreign secretary, had been investigating the possibility of taking money from the Secret Service fund—perhaps up to £7,000—for Emma, but he had been unable to do so. George Rose, the treasurer to the navy, whom Nelson had begged to pursue the question of a pension for Lady Hamilton just before leaving for Trafalgar, told her he could do nothing more. "I can most truly assure you that I have most anxiously and conscientiously discharged all that Lord Nelson could have expected from me if he were now alive, & I am most sincerely grieved that I have failed of success." Rose had been a true friend to Emma, but she pushed her luck too far. William Beatty rhapsodized about Emma's "transcendent kindness" until she asked Rose to endorse his ludicrous desire to be surgeon to the Prince of Wales.6 She felt very vulnerable to the doctor's demands. As the main witness to Nelson's final words, Dr. Beatty had the power to withdraw his statement and damage her chance of help from the government.

The potential buyer of Merton pulled out, perhaps finding the kitschy decor too idiosyncratic and aggrieved that Emma had removed the mahogany furniture and all the valuables, leaving the house stuffed with old furniture and dusty Nelson knickknacks. The early 1800s was the worst time in decades to be selling. The war kept the property market sluggish, and everybody dreaded a crash in the economy. There were no longer any foreign buyers, and English people stayed put or rented. Emma wrote desperately to Queensberry:

You are the only hope I have in this world to assist and protect me, in this moment of unhappiness and distress. To you, therefore, I appeal. I do not wish to have more than what I have. I can live on that at Richmond, only that I may live free from fear—that every debt be paid. I think, and hope, £15,000 will do for everything. For my sake, for Nelson's sake, for the good I have done my country, purchase it; take it,… I beseech you, my dear Duke, to imagine that I only wish for you to do this, not to lose by it; but I see that I am lost and most miserable if you do not help me. My mind is made up to live on what I have. If I could but be free from Merton—all paid