Details
HORATIO, VISCOUNT NELSON (1758-1805)
Autograph letter signed ('Nelson & Bronte') to Sir Richard Bickerton, Victory [off Toulon], 3 December 1804, one page, 4to, framed and glazed, with (in the reverse of the frame): NAPOLEON I (1769-1821, Emperor of the French). A small strand of hair, and a note in an unidentified early 19th-century hand describing its provenance, six lines on one page, 8vo.
Provenance (of the letter): Sir Richard Bickerton, and by descent to the present owner.
'Well, Sir John [Orde] is arrived off Cadiz, I much wonder not to have heard from him. I hear he has not commenced hostilities, it is very unaccountable to me the whole proceedings....it is 74 days since I have heard from the Admiralty'.
NELSON SHOWS PIQUE. Sir John Orde's appearance off Cadiz caused Nelson (who had repeatedly declared during the autumn that he wished to return to England) to fear that Orde was to reap the rewards, particularly the prize money, of his own control of the Mediterranean. Several letters in early December reflect his mood, in one commenting to Captain Bladen Capel that Sir John 'has not as far as the 24th Nov[ember] molested any Spanish vessels. Therefore I suppose I am the only admiral at war with Spain'. Orde's appointment was as commander-in-chief of a squadron off Cadiz, while Nelson's command was limited to the Mediterranean. When Nelson's own orders eventually arrived, he was given permission to return to England on leave, leaving Bickerton in charge during his absence.
The snippet of Napoleon's hair (approximately 15 threads of dark hair) is described in the accompanying note as a small part of a lock of hair requested from the Emperor by 'Miss E[lizabeth] Balcomb of The Briars at St Helena on her leaving it for England'. The unidentified writer ('RL') records that in 1819 he met her in London on her arrival from St Helena, and she gave it to him.
Napoleon spent the first two months of his exile on St Helena at a pavilion in the garden of 'The Briars', a small house with a 'compact pleasant estate' several miles outside Jamestown. It belonged to Mr William Balcombe, an East India Company merchant, and, ironically, Wellington had also stayed there on his return journey from India in 1805. Napoleon, to the disgust of his entourage, appeared to enjoy the company of the Balcombe children, particularly 'Betsy' 'a lively and precocious girl of fourteen'. This informal interlude ended with his move to Longwood in December 1815 (J.M. Thompson. Napoleon Bonaparte, Oxford, 1988). Betsy, (later Mrs Abell) recalled Napoleon ordering his valet to cut off the lock of hair for her in a memoir. (L.E. Abell. Recollections of Napoleon in St Helena, 1844). 'RL' to whom Betsy gave the snippet, gave it to a member of the present owner's family.
Autograph letter signed ('Nelson & Bronte') to Sir Richard Bickerton, Victory [off Toulon], 3 December 1804, one page, 4to, framed and glazed, with (in the reverse of the frame): NAPOLEON I (1769-1821, Emperor of the French). A small strand of hair, and a note in an unidentified early 19th-century hand describing its provenance, six lines on one page, 8vo.
Provenance (of the letter): Sir Richard Bickerton, and by descent to the present owner.
'Well, Sir John [Orde] is arrived off Cadiz, I much wonder not to have heard from him. I hear he has not commenced hostilities, it is very unaccountable to me the whole proceedings....it is 74 days since I have heard from the Admiralty'.
NELSON SHOWS PIQUE. Sir John Orde's appearance off Cadiz caused Nelson (who had repeatedly declared during the autumn that he wished to return to England) to fear that Orde was to reap the rewards, particularly the prize money, of his own control of the Mediterranean. Several letters in early December reflect his mood, in one commenting to Captain Bladen Capel that Sir John 'has not as far as the 24th Nov[ember] molested any Spanish vessels. Therefore I suppose I am the only admiral at war with Spain'. Orde's appointment was as commander-in-chief of a squadron off Cadiz, while Nelson's command was limited to the Mediterranean. When Nelson's own orders eventually arrived, he was given permission to return to England on leave, leaving Bickerton in charge during his absence.
The snippet of Napoleon's hair (approximately 15 threads of dark hair) is described in the accompanying note as a small part of a lock of hair requested from the Emperor by 'Miss E[lizabeth] Balcomb of The Briars at St Helena on her leaving it for England'. The unidentified writer ('RL') records that in 1819 he met her in London on her arrival from St Helena, and she gave it to him.
Napoleon spent the first two months of his exile on St Helena at a pavilion in the garden of 'The Briars', a small house with a 'compact pleasant estate' several miles outside Jamestown. It belonged to Mr William Balcombe, an East India Company merchant, and, ironically, Wellington had also stayed there on his return journey from India in 1805. Napoleon, to the disgust of his entourage, appeared to enjoy the company of the Balcombe children, particularly 'Betsy' 'a lively and precocious girl of fourteen'. This informal interlude ended with his move to Longwood in December 1815 (J.M. Thompson. Napoleon Bonaparte, Oxford, 1988). Betsy, (later Mrs Abell) recalled Napoleon ordering his valet to cut off the lock of hair for her in a memoir. (L.E. Abell. Recollections of Napoleon in St Helena, 1844). 'RL' to whom Betsy gave the snippet, gave it to a member of the present owner's family.
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