by John Sugden
65. Collingwood to Moutray, 1/11/1808, Collingwood, Correspondence, 2, p. 278. See also 2, pp. 7, 366, and Collingwood to Nelson, 13/14/1797, Add. MSS 34906.
XIII Old Officers and Young Gentlemen (pp. 282–307)
1. Shirley’s petition for a baronetcy (granted 1786), CO 152/64; address to Shirley, 1785, CO 152/64; Arthur P. Watts, ed., Nevis and St Christopher’s. Coincidentally, the absentee lieutenant governor of Antigua was then Major Robert Mathews, a Canadian acquaintance of Nelson who later married Mary Simpson.
2. Shirley to Lord North, 27/7/1783, CO 152/63; Shirley, 3/11/1781, Vere Langford Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua, 1, p. cxxv; Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, Empire Divided, p. 197.
3. For the pre-revolutionary trade of the West Indian islands see Richard Pares, Yankees and Creoles.
4. Thomas Jarvis and Rowland Burton for the assembly, 28/7/1783, CO 152/63.
5. John Luffman, 15/2/1787, Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua, 1, p. cxxxi.
6. Burton for the assembly, 9/10/1783, CO 152/63.
7. Shirley to Sydney, 9/2/1784, enclosing petition of St Kitts, CO 152/63; Shirley to Sydney, May and 30/7/1784, CO 152/63.
8. Shirley to Sydney, January 1785, CO 152/64; Sydney to Shirley, 7/11/1784, CO 152/63.
9. Shirley to Nelson, 15/1/1785, Add. MSS 34961.
10. Shirley to Presidents of Councils, 15/1/1785, CO 152/64.
11. Collingwood to Bennett, 15/1/1785 (two letters), Bennett to Collingwood, 15/1/1785, and other documents relating to the Nancy in Add. MSS 34961; Nelson to Stephens, 18/1/1785, ADM 1/2223. For the admission that Collingwood’s interpretation of the law was correct, see customs officers at St John’s, Antigua, to the collector of customs at Nevis, 3/2/1786, CO 152/64.
12. Collingwood to Shirley, 11/1/1785, Add. MSS 14272; Nelson to Shirley, 29/1/1785, Add. MSS 34961.
13. Nelson to Shirley, 29/1/1785, Add. MSS 34961.
14. Shirley to Nelson, 5 and 9/2/1785, Add. MSS 34961.
15. Nelson to Shirley, 1/3/1785, Add. MSS 34961.
16. Shirley to Nelson, 1/3/1785, Add. MSS 34961.
17. Nelson to Shirley, undated, Add. MSS 34961.
18. Sydney to Shirley, 9/4/1785, CO 152/64; Parry to Sydney, 2/4/1785, CO 28/60.
19. Nelson to William, 20/2/1785, 16/3/1785, 13/12/1785 and 29/12/1786, Add. MSS 34988; Boreas pay book, ADM 35/242. William’s servant, William Kirby, was also kept on the roll. Nelson’s ruse was unsuccessful, even though he visited the Navy Office on 20 December 1787 to persuade the government to pay the fictitious wages. He was told that William would not be paid from the day he sailed to England. See Nelson to William, 20/12/1787, NMM: BRP/6.
20. Nelson to Locker, 5/3/1786, D&L, 1, p. 156.
21. The case of the Friends/Polly can be explored in Wilfred Collingwood’s correspondence with the customs officials of St Kitts, April 1785, filed in ADM 1/312: 460–3.
22. Nelson to Sydney, 20/3/1785, D&L, 1, p. 129.
23. Martin to Collingwood, 9/5/1785, Add. MSS 14272. Collingwood had intercepted the Pollies, built in 1782. Martin argued the owners were ‘suffering Loyalists’ and accepted the (erroneous) view of Rowland Burton, the king’s counsel, that American ships built before 1783 should be deemed British. For this see the correspondence between Collingwood and Martin in the above letter book. In March 1785 Nelson found a Spanish ship unloading illegal cargo, but could not interest the customs in preventing it: Nelson to customs, 23/3/1785, Add. MSS 34961.
24. Printed sources may be found in D&L, vol. 1 and Geoffrey Rawson, ed., Letters from the Leeward Islands, but see additionally Nelson’s representation, 5/5/1785, and Nelson to the attorney general, 2 and 3/5/1785, Add. MSS 34961; and (for this and the next paragraph) ‘List of Vessels Seized’, ADM 1/312: 464.
25. For Adye’s petition see the council minutes of St Kitts, 8/1/1785, CO 241/18.
26. Hughes to Stephens, 25/5/1785, 20/10/1785, ADM 1/312.
27. Nelson to Stephens, 14/11/1785, Add. MSS 34961; Nelson, ‘account of the proceedings of Captain Nelson’, 1786, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and the Wallis narrative in Rawson, Letters from the Leeward Islands, p. 53.
28. Nelson to Adye, 12/9/1785, Monmouth MSS, E497; Ward deposition, 23/6/1786, CO 152/64.
29. Nelson to Stephens, 14/11/1785, Add. MSS 34961.
30. Nelson to Locker, 5/3/1786, D&L, 1, p. 156.
31. The ships Collingwood sent in were the Hazard, Little Tom and Neptune. Wilfred Collingwood’s prize was the St. George. See Bush to Shirley, 30/11/1785, CO 152/64; Collingwood to Martin, 2/7/1785 and Martin to Collingwood, 3/7/1785, Add. MSS 14272.
32. Captain’s log of the Boreas for 19–21 June 1785; Hughes to Stephens, 25/6/1785, ADM 1/312; Rawson, Letters from the Leeward Islands, p. 50.
33. Gill and Menzies to Nelson, 22/7/1785, Add. MSS 34961.
34. Collingwood to Niccolls, 8/10/1785, Add. MSS 14272. The ships were the Speedwell, Maria, Lovely Fanny and Friendship. See also Wilfred Collingwood’s correspondence with Grenada in 1786, enclosed in Nelson’s letters to the Admiralty, ADM 1/2223. For opinions in Barbados see the assembly meeting of 18/1/1786 (including the petition of John Brathwaite, 29/10/1785), CO 31/43.
35. Collingwood’s letter book (Add. MSS 14272) is the best source for the case of the Dolphin, especially Brandford to Collingwood, 30/7/1785; Collingwood to Brandford, 29/7/1785; Collingwood to Forbes, 12/9/1785; Hughes to Collingwood, 7/10/1785; and Collingwood to Hughes, 9/10/1785. Eventually Collingwood got his expenses for prosecuting the suit, but the appeal against the judgement failed because it was not made within the stipulated time period, and the damages and costs therefore also fell upon him: see Heseltine’s letters to Collingwood in 1788, Add. MSS 14272. Also consult ADM 1/312: 499–509, 520–3, and Collingwood’s correspondence in ADM 1/1616.
36. Sydney to Nelson, 4/8/1785, Add. MSS 34961; Sydney to Shirley, 4/8/1785, CO 152/64.
37. Nelson to Collingwood, 28/9/1785, D&L, 1, p. 143; Hughes to Collingwood, 7/10/1785 (second letter of that date), Add. MSS 14272.
38. Hughes to Stephens, 29/6/1785, ADM 1/312.
39. Nelson, ‘account of the proceedings of Captain Nelson’, 1786, William L. Clements Library; Nelson to Suckling, 14/11/1785, D&L, 1, p. 144.
40. Nelson to Sydney, 17/11/1785, CO 152/64.
41. Sidney to Shirley, 2/6/1785, CO 152/64; Shirley to Sidney, 24/6/1785 and 1/10/1785, CO 152/64; Holloway to Stephens, 23/5/1787, ADM 1/1908.
42. Oath of Seth Warner, 28/5/1784 and customs officers, Antigua, to collector of customs, Nevis, 3/2/1786, CO 152/64.
43. Nelson to Sydney, 4/2/1786, CO 152/64.
44. Shirley to Sydney, 23/7/1785, 2/10/1785, CO 152/64. Shirley’s son remained with Nelson until April of the following year when he was transferred to the Maidstone.
45. Rawson, Letters from the Leeward Islands, p. 66; Rose to Stephens, 24/8/1785, enclosed in Hughes to Collingwood, 16/1/1786, Add. MSS 14272. Indeed, in a curious epilogue we find Hughes writing from retirement in Stoke House, near Cobham, Surrey, in 1796. Learning from Wallis, formerly of the Boreas, that some of the prize money was still waiting to be distributed by a ‘Mr Nesbitt’ of Nevis, he asked Nelson’s ‘kind assistance’ in getting ‘my share . . . as Commander in Chief . . .’ (Hughes to Nelson, 8/9/1796, NMM: CRK/7).
46. Nelson, ‘account of the proceedings of Captain Nelson’, 1786, William L. Clements Library; Nelson to Locker, 5/3/1786, D&L, 1, p. 156.
47. Nelson to Fanny Nisbet, 29/3/1786, 23/4/1786, Monmouth MSS, E748, E751.
48. Council minutes of St Kitts with a petition to Shirley, 10/3/1786, CO 241/18.
49. See for example Shirley to Sydney, 7/6/1787, 24/7/1787, CO 152/65.
50. James S. Clarke and John McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 113.
51. Nelson to William 12/5/1785, Add. MSS 34988. The captain’s log of the Boreas shows the ship anchoring in Nevis Road on 9 May 1785 and moving to St Kitts three days later. I presume this was the occa
sion Nelson and Fanny met.
XIV Dearest Fanny (pp. 308–37)
1. Carola Oman, Nelson, p. 686, takes the birth date of 1758 from Fanny’s sarcophagus, but I prefer the baptism record in the register of Nevis (Vere Langford Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua, 2, p. 71). See also Oliver, 2, pp. 70–1, 301–308, and 3, pp. 443–4, and Edith M. Keate, Nelson’s Wife. In view of G. P. B. Naish, Nelson’s Letters to His Wife, and the newly discovered collection of Fanny’s letters purchased by the National Maritime Museum in 2002 a fresh biography of Lady Nelson is needed.
2. For the Nisbets see also Gentleman’s Magazine (1781), p. 491; Hilda Gamlin, Nelson’s Friendships, 1, pp. 137–9; John A. Inglis, The Nisbets of Carfin, pp. 2–5; and Terry Coleman, Nelson, p. 72.
3. Richard Pares, West India Fortune, p. 102.
4. Pares, West India Fortune, p. 81; Shirley to Sydney, 12/5/1787, CO 152/65; Nelson to Suckling, 14/11/1785, 9/3/1786, Monmouth MSS, E413, D&L, 1, p. 160.
5. James S. Clarke and John McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 113–14; recollections of Lionel Goldsmid, quoted in Godfrey L. Green, Royal Navy and Anglo-Jewry, p. 87.
6. William Henry to Hood, 15/3/1787, NLTHW, p. 58; A. M. W. Stirling, ed., Pages and Portraits, 1, p. 27, and 2, p. 217; Richard Vesey Hamilton, ed., Sir Thomas Byam Martin, 1, p. 67; and Elliot to his wife, 3/10/1797, NLS, 11051, p. 122.
7. Nelson to William, 28/6/1785, Add. MSS 34988: 65.
8. Nelson to Fanny, 19/8/1785, Monmouth MSS, E743.
9. Nelson to Fanny, 11/9/1785, Monmouth MSS, E744.
10. Nelson to Suckling, 14/11/1785, Monmouth MSS, E413.
11. Nelson to Suckling, 14/11/1785, Monmouth MSS, E413. In fact, Nelson was already befriending two members of the family, descendants of William’s uncle, Robert Suckling: Maurice, midshipman of the Boreas, and his brother Robert of the Royal Artillery, then also in the West Indies. See Nelson to Robert Suckling, 15/4/1786, Monmouth MSS, E26.
12. Geoffrey Rawson, ed., Letters from the Leeward Islands, p. 66; accounts in Western MSS 3676, Wellcome Library, London; Nelson to the postmaster general, 10/10/1785, Add. MSS 34961.
13. Nelson to William, 29/12/1786, Add. MSS 34988; Foley, Nelson Centenary, p. 25.
14. Nelson to Fanny, 13/12/1785, Monmouth MSS, E745.
15. Nelson to William, 1/1/1786, Add. MSS 34988.
16. Nelson to Fanny, 3/3/1786, Monmouth MSS, E747.
17. Nelson to Suckling, 9/3/1786, NMM: MON/1.
18. Nelson to Fanny, 3–10/3/1786, Monmouth MSS, E747.
19. Nelson to Fanny, 15/3/1786, 4/5/1786, Monmouth MSS, E748, E752.
20. Nelson to Fanny, 4/5/1786, Monmouth MSS, E752.
21. Holloway to Stephens, 23/5/1787, ADM 1/1908.
22. Hughes to Sydney, 20/10/1785, 7/2/1786, 10/3/1786, ADM 1/312.
23. Parry to Sydney, 28/4/1784, 22/1/1785, 19/8/1785, CO 28/60.
24. For the Jane and Elizabeth see also Nelson’s letter of 12/11/1790, Add. MSS 34902.
25. Nelson to Hughes, March 1786, Add. MSS 34961; Nelson’s narrative, beginning 1 May 1786, Add. MSS 34961; and legal papers Nelson forwarded to the Admiralty, including his journal of the affair, ADM 1/2223. The incident also runs through the published letters and dispatches in D&L and NLTHW.
26. Brandford to Nelson, 11/4/1786, 14/4/1786, ADM 1/2223.
27. Nelson to Parry, 15/4/1786, Add. MSS 34961. Parry may have been related to the Nisbets. A daughter of one Robert Parry married Walter Nisbet of Mount Pleasant, Josiah’s brother (Inglis, Nisbets of Carfin).
28. This version of the incident comes from Nelson’s deposition before John Horsford, 28/8/1786, Nelson to Sir Charles Middleton, 28/8/1786, and Hughes to Stephens, 14/9/1786, filed in ADM 1/3682. See also the muster and pay books of the Boreas, ADM 36/19525 and ADM 35/242, and the ‘account of provisions, cask[s], iron hoops’, 1783–5, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
29. The depositions of McCormick and Mitchell, with other evidence given at the inquest, 16/4/1786, are in CO 28/60: 295–8.
30. Hughes to captains, 21/4/1786, Add. MSS 14272.
31. These depositions dated 22/4/1786 are in CO 28/60: 297.
32. Attempts to apprehend Scotland between 20 and 23 April are described in Parry to Sydney, 31/5/1786, CO 28/60, with its enclosures.
33. Sydney to Parry, 15/9/1786, CO 28/60; Nelson to Fanny, 23/4/1786, Monmouth MSS, E751. Further light might be shed on this affair by numbers of the Barbados Mercury, but I could not trace the relevant issues in London or Barbados.
34. Boreas muster, ADM 36/10525.
35. Deposition of Daniel Mills and Parry to Stephens, 31/5/1786, ADM 1/3682; lieutenants’ logs of the Boreas, NMM: ADM/L/B136; Sandys to Stephens, 11/6/1786, ADM 1/2486. The muster of the Cyrus contains the name of only one person taken on board at this time. ‘Richard Crapnell’, entered as a supernumerary on 16 March 1786, may have been John Scotland. See ADM 36/10381. Lieutenant John Johnson and John Callender, commander and master of the Cyrus, were found guilty of negligence, but the ship’s other officers were acquitted (courts martial, 22/4/1786, ADM 1/5325).
36. Depositions of James Jameson and James Balentine, 28/8/1786, ADM 1/3682.
37. N. A. M. Rodger, Wooden World, pp. 225–6. It is worth remembering that during Nelson’s lifetime the English penal code gathered in severity, and was known as ‘the bloody code’. Whereas less than twenty offences could earn the death penalty under naval discipline, the number of capital statutes in England rose from about fifty in 1688 to some two hundred by 1820. In theory, it was possible to be sentenced to hang for picking pockets of goods worth more than a shilling, for damaging Westminster or London Bridge, or impersonating a pensioner of Greenwich Hospital with a view to falsely obtaining an out-pension. Though, as at sea, there was considerable latitude in applying such statutes, and acquittals and pardons were used to spare malefactors execution in the majority of cases, the penal code still made naval discipline seem lenient. Moreover, it was not uncommon for English quarter-sessions courts to sentence women as well as men to be publicly flogged at the cart’s tail for petty larceny, or the theft of goods worth less than one shilling. The public flogging of women remained legal until 1817.
38. Nelson to Parry, 7/10/1786, Parry to Nelson, 18/10/1786, and Nelson to Sydney, 17/1/1787, CO 152/66.
39. Nelson to Parry, May 1786, Add. MSS 34961.
40. Nelson affidavit, 26/6/1786, D&L, 1, p. 181; Nelson to Hughes, 4/5/1786 and Nelson to Parry, 1/5/1786, Add. MSS 34961.
41. Nelson narrative, 1 May following, Add. MSS 34961; Brandford to Nelson, 20/5/1786, ADM 1/2223.
42. Solicitors’ opinions, 2/8/1786, ADM 7/301.
43. Council minutes of Barbados, 29/8/1786, CO 31/43.
44. Parry to Hughes, 20/5/1786, D&L, 1, p. 185; Parry to Sydney, 20/7/1786, CO 28/60.
45. Council minutes of Barbados, 4/7/1786, CO 31/43; Parry to Nepean, 22, 25/12/1787, CO 28/61; Brandford to Parry, 29/1/1787, CO 28/61; solicitors’ opinions, 5/7/1787, ADM 7/301; and legal papers in ADM 2/1062: 272, 275, 305, 427.
46. Nelson to Suckling, 5/7/1786, D&L, 1, p. 186; Nelson to Locker, 27/9/1786, D&L, 1, p. 197; Rawson, Letters from the Leeward Islands, p. 72.
47. Proctor’s bill, Nevis, 1786, and ‘an account of the difference of charges of the King’s Advocate and Proctor at Barbados’, 1786, William L. Clements Library.
48. Nelson to Stephens, 9/2/1787, ADM 1/2223; John Sugden, ‘Lord Cochrane’, pp. 194–205. For attacks on prize courts see also ‘A Friend of the Navy’, Appeal . . . Against a Late Rejection of the Petition of the Captains; John Frederick Pott, Observations on Matters of Prize; John Frederick Pott, Letter to Samuel Whitbread; Lord Cochrane, Statement Delivered by Lord Cochrane; and J. Richard Hill, Prizes of War, pp. 100–2.
49. The extortionate fees of public servants were being widely criticised at the time, partly on account of a Whig belief that the ability to offer appointments linked to lucrative fees constituted a means by which the king’s governm
ent achieved undue control of the political process. In 1785 a government ‘Commission to Enquire into the Fees, Gratuities, Perquisites and Emoluments Received in Publick Offices’ was established, reporting in 1788. Even so, it was not until 1800 that the remuneration of Admiralty clerks was shifted from its reliance upon fees and perquisites to a recognised salary structure. For the commission’s effects upon the administration of the Royal Navy see P. K. Crimmin, ‘Admiralty Relations with the Treasury’; P. K. Crimmin, ‘Financial and Clerical Establishment of the Admiralty Office’; and Bernard Pool, Navy Board Contracts. In addition, the extravagance of many fees was outraging public opinion, even in Antigua. John Luffman, for example, wrote in 1786 that ‘the [St Johns] custom-house is a good building near the bottom of St Mary’s Street, and the fees exacted there are enormous’, and the same year the home government began considering new legislation to introduce ‘proper regulations’ (Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua, 1, p. cxxix; council minutes of St Kitts, 9/8/1786, CO 241/18).
50. Nelson to Stephens, 27/8/1786, ADM 1/2223; Nelson to William, 25/9/1786, Add. MSS 34988.
51. Nelson to Swedish warship, c. 1785, Add. MSS 34961; Rayalin to Shirley, 14/7/1786 and 26/9/1786, CO 152/65.
52. Nelson to Stephens, 3/11/1786, ADM 1/2223.
53. Lewis to Collingwood, 27/8/1786, and other documents on the matter are filed in ADM 1/2223.
54. Nelson to Locker, 27/9/1786, D&L, 1, p. 197.
55. Nelson to Fanny, 17/4/1786, Monmouth MSS, E750.
56. Nelson to Fanny, 19–23/8/1786, NLTHW, p. 33.
57. Nelson to William, 3/2/1786, NMM: BRP/6; Gentleman’s Magazine (1787), i, pp. 89, 274; R. C. Fiske, Notices of Nelson, p. 26.
58. Nelson to William, 29/12/1786, Add. MSS 34988.
XV The Prince and the Post-Captain (pp. 338–72)
1. Admiralty to Hughes, 27/5/1786, ADM 2/1342; Nelson to Fanny, 27/11/1786, Monmouth MSS, E756.
2. Sketches of Holloway may be found in NC, 19 (1808), p. 353–73; John Watkins, William the Fourth, pp. 152–4; and Dictionary of Canadian Biography 6 (1987), pp. 323–4.
