Details
NELSON, Horatio, Viscount (1758-1805). Autograph letter signed ('ever for ever my dear Emma your most faithful and affectionate Nelson & Bronte') to Lady Hamilton ('My Dearest Emma'), Medusa, off Boulogne, 15 August 1801, 2½ pages, 4to. Provenance: Edwin Wolf 2nd Collection, Christie's sale, 21.6.1989, lot 248).
A letter of mingled domestic and naval preoccupations, written before the attack on Boulogne planned for that night. 'From my heart I wish you would find me out a good comfortable house. I should hope to be able to purchase it, at this moment I can only command 3000£ and asking Sir William I could not do it, I would sooner beg. Is the house at Chiswick furnish'd if not you may fairly calculate at 2000£ for furniture but if I can pay as you say by little & little we could accomplish it ... My Dear Emma my mind feels at what is going forward tonight it is one thing to order and arrange an attack and another to execute it but ... after they have fired their guns if one half the French do not jump overboard and swim on shore I will return to be hanged'. The concluding paragraph enquires where she will come to meet him, proposing Margate or Deal as Dover and Houly would be inconvenient.
Nelson's wish to settle with Emma led eventually to the purchase of Merton Place in Surrey. His finances were precarious, with half his salary pledged to Fanny and his considerable losses in the Baltic campaign, whereas the sale of Sir William Hamilton's collections at Christie's in the spring had raised substantial sums.
The attack on the French fleet at Boulogne was disastrous, and Nelson's protégé Edward Parker was among the numerous casualties.
A letter of mingled domestic and naval preoccupations, written before the attack on Boulogne planned for that night. 'From my heart I wish you would find me out a good comfortable house. I should hope to be able to purchase it, at this moment I can only command 3000£ and asking Sir William I could not do it, I would sooner beg. Is the house at Chiswick furnish'd if not you may fairly calculate at 2000£ for furniture but if I can pay as you say by little & little we could accomplish it ... My Dear Emma my mind feels at what is going forward tonight it is one thing to order and arrange an attack and another to execute it but ... after they have fired their guns if one half the French do not jump overboard and swim on shore I will return to be hanged'. The concluding paragraph enquires where she will come to meet him, proposing Margate or Deal as Dover and Houly would be inconvenient.
Nelson's wish to settle with Emma led eventually to the purchase of Merton Place in Surrey. His finances were precarious, with half his salary pledged to Fanny and his considerable losses in the Baltic campaign, whereas the sale of Sir William Hamilton's collections at Christie's in the spring had raised substantial sums.
The attack on the French fleet at Boulogne was disastrous, and Nelson's protégé Edward Parker was among the numerous casualties.
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