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Autograph letter signed ('Nelson & Bronte') to Admiral Alan Gardner, 1st Baron Gardner, Victory, 19 April 1805
Details
Horatio Nelson, Viscount Nelson (1758-1805)
Autograph letter signed ('Nelson & Bronte') to Admiral Alan Gardner, 1st Baron Gardner, Victory, 19 April 1805
One page, 235 x 187mm. Provenance: Christie's, 20 July 1977, lot 300.
'I hope My Dear Lord that now you will annihilate them'. Nelson warns the commander of the Cork Station in Ireland that the French fleet may be coming his way, offering to bring his own forces to help attack them:
'If the Toulon fleet with that of Cadiz is gone your Road, the ships under My present Command may be no unacceptable Sight. If you do not want our help tell us to go back again. I feel vext at their slipping out of the Med[iterranea]n as I had marked them for My own Game however I hope My Dear Lord that now you will annihilate them instead of My Dear Lord your Most faithful humble servant, / Nelson & Bronte'
The letter is written at a particularly exasperating moment: the French fleet had escaped from Nelson's blockade of Toulon on 30 March, but his frigates had lost contact with them, and it was not until 16 April that he discovered that they had slipped out of the Mediterranean altogether, and only on the day of this letter that they had joined up with the Spanish ships at Cadiz. His fear was now that they were either planning on freeing the blockaded French ships in Brest, or mounting an invasion of Ireland: it was with this second possibility in mind that he wrote the present letter to the commander of the Irish station, Lord Gardner. In the event, the Combined Fleet's destination was the West Indies, leading Nelson on a fruitless chase over the next months.
Autograph letter signed ('Nelson & Bronte') to Admiral Alan Gardner, 1st Baron Gardner, Victory, 19 April 1805
One page, 235 x 187mm. Provenance: Christie's, 20 July 1977, lot 300.
'I hope My Dear Lord that now you will annihilate them'. Nelson warns the commander of the Cork Station in Ireland that the French fleet may be coming his way, offering to bring his own forces to help attack them:
'If the Toulon fleet with that of Cadiz is gone your Road, the ships under My present Command may be no unacceptable Sight. If you do not want our help tell us to go back again. I feel vext at their slipping out of the Med[iterranea]n as I had marked them for My own Game however I hope My Dear Lord that now you will annihilate them instead of My Dear Lord your Most faithful humble servant, / Nelson & Bronte'
The letter is written at a particularly exasperating moment: the French fleet had escaped from Nelson's blockade of Toulon on 30 March, but his frigates had lost contact with them, and it was not until 16 April that he discovered that they had slipped out of the Mediterranean altogether, and only on the day of this letter that they had joined up with the Spanish ships at Cadiz. His fear was now that they were either planning on freeing the blockaded French ships in Brest, or mounting an invasion of Ireland: it was with this second possibility in mind that he wrote the present letter to the commander of the Irish station, Lord Gardner. In the event, the Combined Fleet's destination was the West Indies, leading Nelson on a fruitless chase over the next months.
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Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts