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| Lord Nelson letter from H.M.S. Victory http://www.nelsonandhisworld.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1742 |
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| Author: | JustCollecting [ Mon Nov 02, 2015 4:13 pm ] | ||
| Post subject: | Lord Nelson letter from H.M.S. Victory | ||
Hi All One of our Club Members is in possession of this letter written on board The Victory. Does anyone know why the word 'duplicate' is written on it? Thanks Adrian http://www.justcollecting.com
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| Author: | raldis [ Mon Nov 02, 2015 7:44 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Lord Nelson letter from H.M.S. Victory |
All commanding admirals official letters were copied by clerks and some retained as file copies. As it is not Nelson's handwriting this is probably such an example. Ray |
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| Author: | Mark Barrett [ Tue Nov 03, 2015 1:09 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Lord Nelson letter from H.M.S. Victory |
Adrian I agree with Ray's answer above. Meanwhile does your member have any idea of the provenance of this letter? On another thread on here we established that copy letters were retained by the Admiral himself and not sent to the Admiralty as was the case with log books, muster books etc. etc. I have not seen them myself, but some of Nelson's copy letter books (?1799-1804) appear to be at the Nelson Museum at Monmouth. I am wondering if copy letters from 1805 have at some point got out into the public domain and been sold singly rather than as a collection. Hence me wondering how far back the provenance of this particular letter can be traced. I'm interested in anything you or the owner of the letter can add to the story. |
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| Author: | brian [ Tue Nov 03, 2015 9:30 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Lord Nelson letter from H.M.S. Victory |
Adrian Ray it right, but writing duplicates wasn't restricted to the correspondence of admirals - all official communications (and plenty of personal ones) were duplicated with the second (and even a third) copies sent separately. This was because of the uncertainties of the postal 'system' if you can call it that. Letters written from ships at sea, often in distant places, got to their destinations by being put into mailbags which were then entrusted to the first vessel encountered (whether warship, merchantman, large vessel or small) that was going in the right direction. There was always the possibility of capture, wreck and delay (even personal correspondence was frequently numbered so the recipient would know they were received and read in the right order) so, as insurance. duplicates were sent in other vessel. Brian |
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| Author: | Mark Barrett [ Tue Nov 03, 2015 5:03 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Lord Nelson letter from H.M.S. Victory |
Hi Brian Thanks for that info. which makes a lot of sense. As I was making my post I was trying to get my head round this and I was thinking if copy letters were made in a bound book why would there be any need to write "duplicate" on each one. If as you say more than one copy was sent out then it would make more sense. But then having said that, amongst the letters from this period I have seen (mostly written by Nelson inevitably) I can't think that I have ever seen one before with "Duplicate" written on it. Have you or anyone else? So I think we have given Adrian some good info. and I think this letter most likely comes from one of those sources. But still I have the nagging feeling that there is more about this system of letter writing and copying and filing that I don't understand!! Mark |
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| Author: | JustCollecting [ Tue Nov 03, 2015 5:38 pm ] | ||
| Post subject: | Re: Lord Nelson letter from H.M.S. Victory | ||
That's all a great help, thank you. I probably should have shown an image of the signature too, so here you go. With regards to provenance I only know that it is via the family of "a journalist who wrote a book on Nelson" Having done a bit of googling I did find similar/identical letter sold at Sotheby's in 2008 http://www.sothebys.com/ru/auctions/ecatalogue/lot.pdf.L08405.html/f/12/L08405-12.pdf, mentions 'duplicate' in the description, but unfortunately there isn't an image of the letter on Sotheby's website.
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| Author: | JustCollecting [ Tue Nov 03, 2015 5:45 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Lord Nelson letter from H.M.S. Victory |
P.S. the full letter is in The Dispatches and Letters of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson ..., Volume 6 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=A0EJAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA336&lpg=PA336&dq=nelson+letter+%22if+the+french+are+arrived+before%22&source=bl&ots=RUX3Ooh3AM&sig=D9HIAwmgpohZikUDe73TpTJAv-4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAGoVChMIxdrhm4XyyAIVCWg-Ch2hygxr#v=onepage&q=nelson%20letter%20%22if%20the%20french%20are%20arrived%20before%22&f=false |
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| Author: | Mark Barrett [ Tue Nov 03, 2015 7:34 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Lord Nelson letter from H.M.S. Victory |
Adrian Thanks for the additional information. If you go to the link in your last post and look at the very next letter - same date and same addressee - does that not answer the query? i.e. Nelson is saying that 2 days prior he had tried to send originals of letters but the frigate carrying them has made no progress and therefore he is sending duplicates - presumably by another vessel who may be able to make better headway. So there must once have been an original dated e.g. 2nd February. but it looks like Briggs never did receive it otherwise I would have thought that he would have retained the original rather than the duplicate. If correct this is very similar to the circumstances that Brian was describing in his post. |
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