Ned:
I knew I had read 'somewhere' that Napoleon had tried to join the Royal Navy so the comment in the letter quoted above was not a surprise to me. I searched and searched on my bookshelves to discover where I read this information and could find nothing about it. However, I finally found a mention of it - though this merely says that Napoleon had 'expressed a desire' to join the British Navy, not that he had applied to do so. It appears in a short, but extremely well-reviewed biography, 'Napoleon' by Paul Johnson (Phoenix Paperback 2003, originally published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson 2000):
'Looking outward, to the sea, as a Corsican in Ajaccio would, he formed a boyhood admiration for the Royal Navy, which rode the Mediterranean waters, so far from home, so confidently. He expressed a desire to join the British navy as a midshipman cadet, and in due course to command one of those wonderfully polished, burnished, pipe-clayed, and smartly painted - and formidable - three deckers that occasionally anchored in the harbour. But that required money, and, even more, 'interest' (influence or pull), neither of which his family possessed. So the moment passed.'
The book has no footnotes or references so there is no way of knowing where Paul Johnson found this information.
_________________ Anna
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