Nelson

by John Sugden

  28. Nelson to Locker, 19/10/1782, D&L, 1, p. 66. For scurvy see Christopher Lloyd and J. L. S. Coulter, Medicine in the Navy. The man who died on the Albemarle during this period was a seaman, Robert Wild, but his death on 5 September cannot be positively linked to the scurvy.

  29. Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 76. The story is supported by the logs and the pilot’s name appears in the muster.

  30. Mrs Harrower, daughter of James Thompson, quoted by Henry H. Miles, ‘Nelson at Quebec’, p. 271; ‘Catallus’ of 1783, J. M. Le Moine, Picturesque Quebec, pp. 232–3. Alexander Davison supplied an account of Nelson’s infatuation for a Canadian girl to Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 76–7, but did not identify her. In the 1860s local Quebec historians interested themselves in the matter and eventually agreed that the object of Nelson’s attentions was Mary Simpson. See several works by Le Moine: Album Canadien, pp. 57–60; Chronicles of the St Lawrence, p. 198; Picturesque Quebec, pp. 232–5; and Historical Notes on Quebec, pp. 85–6; and particularly the paper by Miles, cited above. Following references to some of this material by Walter Sichel, Emma, Lady Hamilton, p. 157, and Carola Oman, Nelson, pp. 46–7, 684–5, several biographers have alluded to Mary Simpson without making any attempt to verify or amplify the information. For the present account the original Canadian sources were re-evaluated, and additional materials examined, to correct misstatements and shed new light on Mary’s circumstances.

  The identification of Mary as the girl to whom Nelson lost his heart is highly probable. Davison’s profile yields several key facts that fit Mary perfectly: she was North American by birth, unmarried but eligible, became friends with Nelson during his brief visit to Quebec in 1782, and subsequently married and lived in London, England. Moreover, Davison would have been well informed about Mary. He knew her in Canada, and probably also in England. See Haldimand’s diary of 1786 for social engagements involving the Davisons and Robert Mathews, later Mary’s husband, in London (Douglas Brymner, ed., Report on Canadian Archives).

  31. It is unclear where or when Mary was born. There appear to be no surviving baptismal records for the Anglican Cathedral of Quebec before 1768. On no known authority Le Moine says Mary was a mere sixteen-year-old in 1782. The only official record of her age that I have found is the certificate of death, dated 30 October 1840. Her age was then given as eighty, probably on the authority of her servant, Elizabeth Newton, who was present at her death. This age was accepted in published obituaries and would have made Mary twenty-three when she met Nelson, a year his junior. It sounds more probable. Had she been sixteen, and therefore underage, Davison would surely have mentioned this among his reasons for objecting to Nelson proposing marriage. See death certificate of Mary Mathews, 1840, subdistrict of St Luke’s, General Register Office, London; Gentleman’s Magazine (1840), p. 671. For her father’s service, James Thompson junior’s memorandum, James Thompson papers, Archives Nationales du Quebec; Le Moine, Historical Notes, p. 86; Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 6 (1987), pp. 768–70.

  32. Quebec Gazette, 5/4/1781, and the diary of James Thompson, 1781, James Thompson papers, Archives Nationales du Quebec, upon which this account is largely based. For Bandon Lodge consult Le Moine, Historical Notes, pp. 85–6, who, however, believed the house was occupied by the Prentices in 1781. The details of Bandon Lodge and Freemason’s Hall may be confused (Le Moine, Album Canadien, p. 58, and Picturesque Quebec, p. 234; Miles, ‘Nelson at Quebec’, pp. 258–9).

  33. Quebec Gazette, 12/4/1781.

  34. James Thompson diary, 29/3/1781, James Thompson papers, Archives Nationales du Quebec. Mary may have had a brother James. Certainly a James Simpson appears several times in the local newspaper, in 1823 becoming a town constable (Quebec Gazette, 26/7/1792, 15/10/1801, 25/10/1804, 21/4/1823 and 28/7/1823). However, there was more than one Simpson family in the town. A Mary Simpson was licensed to sell liquor in Quebec in 1766 (Quebec Gazette, 4, 8 and 29/12/1766) and another was married in 1787 (marriage records of the Anglican Cathedral of Quebec, 1768–95, Archives Nationales du Quebec), though this last was illiterate and apparently unrelated to our Mary.

  35. Nelson to his father, 19/10/1782, D&L, 1, p. 67.

  36. Gentleman’s Magazine (1814), ii, p. 92. A useful sketch of Mathews may be found in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 5 (1983), pp. 584–5.

  37. Mary Mathews to Thompson, 9/1/1806, James Thompson papers, Archives Nationales du Quebec; John Sugden, ‘Nelson in the St Lawrence’, which contains material from the Frederick Haldimand papers; and Nelson to the commissioners of the navy and the Navy Office, 14/10/1782, Add. MSS 34933: 5. The Davisons are treated in Dictionary of Canadian Biography and by Jim Saunders in ‘A Tribute of Record’ and ‘Alexander Davison and Horatio Nelson’.

  38. The story is recorded by Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 76–7.

  39. John H. Chapman, ed., Register Book of Marriages, 2, p. 191; Mathews to Thompson, 9/12/1803, and George Thompson to his father, 5/11/1804, both in James Thompson papers, Archives Nationales du Quebec.

  40. George Thompson to his father, 9/1/1806, and Mary Mathews to Thompson, 9/1/1806, James Thompson papers, Archives Nationales du Quebec.

  41. Will of Robert Mathews, 6/9/1813, PRO: PROB 11/1559: no. 484; Mary to Mrs Thompson, 6/12/1831, James Thompson papers, Archives Nationales du Quebec. In his will Mathews left £502 to his son, to be added to £998 the boy had already been bequeathed by Mathews’s late nephew, Simon Fraser. Mary was an executor.

  42. Nelson to Locker, 19/10/1782, D&L, 1, p. 66; Pandora log, ADM 51/668; Worth to Stephens, 26/11/1782, ADM 1/2676; Nelson to Digby, 11/11/1782, Add. MSS 34961. Mary Simpson has been the heroine of romantic fiction, especially Jean N. McIlwraith’s A Diana of Quebec (Toronto, 1912) and Anne Hollingsworth Wharton’s A Rose of Old Quebec (Philadelphia, 1913).

  43. The Digby–Hood dispute is treated in Pocock, Sailor King. For the war off mainland America see John A. Tilley, British Navy and the American Revolution, and David Syrett, Royal Navy in American Waters.

  44. Duke of Clarence account, Add. MSS 34990: 54; Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 78–9. An interesting letter Nelson is represented to have written to Charles Pilford on 13 November 1782 describes the meeting with William Henry and predicts that the prince would ‘make a good sailor’ and become a credit to the service. Strangely, there are two copies of this private letter (New York Historical Society; Monmouth MSS, E478), one of them previously owned by a collector of autographs in New York in 1869. A similar Nelson to Pilford letter, dated the following day (Add. MSS 57946) also presages the future: ‘my interest at home you know is next to nothing, the name of Nelson being little known. It may be different one of these days. A good chance only is wanting to make it so.’ Although published long ago (Notes and Queries, 8th series, 11 (1897), p. 201) and congruent with Nelson’s thought, it was believed by the British Museum to be the work of Robert Spring, an American forger. The creation of both letters may have been prompted by a study of Nelson to Locker, 17/11/1782, D&L, 1, p. 68.

  45. Digby made no reference to the disagreement when reporting Nelson’s transfer to Stephens, 16/11/1782, ADM 1/490, but Nelson’s own letters tell their own story. See also Hood to Digby, 13, 20/11/1782, NMM: Hoo/6.

  46. Nelson to Locker, 17/11/1782, D&L, 1, p. 68; Digby to Stephens, 13/9/1782, ADM 1/490; L’Aigle muster, ADM 36/9638. Peacock had been promoted to post-captain in 1780. A commemorative portrait by Rigaud shows a slim man with a sorrowful expression in a mannered wig and full-dress uniform (NMM).

  47. Nelson to Locker, 17/11/1782, D&L, 1, p. 68.

  48. Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 77–9; Nelson to Locker, 17/11/1782, D&L, 1, p. 68.

  49. Kenneth Breen, ‘George Bridges, Lord Rodney’, p. 240. For Hood see Dorothy Hood, The Admirals Hood; Michael Duffy, ‘Samuel Hood, First Viscount Hood’; Brian Tunstall and Nicholas Tracy, Naval Warfare; and Tilley, British Navy and the American Revolution.

  50. Ho
od to Jackson, 16/4/1782, David Hannay, ed., Letters Written, p. 101.

  51. Hood to Pigot, 22/11/1782, NMM: Hoo/6; Hood to Stephens, 5/12/1782, ADM 1/313.

  52. Hood to Jackson, 29/1/1783, Letters Written, p. 155; Nelson to Locker, 25/2/1783, D&L, 1, p. 71; Hood to Rowley, 17/1/1783, NMM: Hoo/6; Hood to Pigot, 1/2/1783, ADM 1/313; ‘Account of Vessels Taken’, enclosed in Hood to Stephens, 5/2/1783, ADM 1/313.

  53. Nelson to Locker, 25/2/1783, D&L, 1, p. 71; Hood to Pigot, 18/2/1793, NMM: Hoo/6.

  54. The incident is reconstructed from logs of the Albemarle, Resistance (ADM 51/777), Drake (ADM 51/238) and Tartar (ADM 51/973); Nelson to Hood, 9/3/1783, D&L, 1, p. 73; Nelson to Cunningham, 8/3/1783, ND, 1 (1984), p. 164; Christopher C. Lloyd, ed., James Trevenen, p. 56; Clarence’s account, Add. MSS 34990: 54; and Nelson to Hood, 6/4/1783, NMM: Hoo/28.

  55. The details of these final prizes are variously given, even in the logs. See also the muster; James Harrison, Life, 1, pp. 73–5; Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 82; Nelson to Locker, 26/11/1783, D&L, 1, p. 88; Nelson to William, 4/12/1783, Add. MSS, 34988; and Nelson to Pigot, 21/4/1783, NMM: Hoo/6.

  56. Nelson to Hood, 6/4/1783, NMM: Hoo/28.

  57. Hood to Nelson, 6/5/1783, ADM 1/2223.

  58. Nelson to Locker, 25/2/1783, D&L, 1, p. 71.

  59. Robert Huish, William the Fourth, pp. 12–26; Hood to Pigot, 21/4/1783, NMM: Hoo/6.

  60. Nelson to Locker, 26/6/1783, D&L, 1, p. 75.

  XI Love in St-Omer (pp. 228–48)

  1. Poor rates, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster Archives Centre, London, F582 and F584 (1783–4).

  2. Nelson to Locker, 12/7/1783, D&L, 1, p. 76; James Stanier Clarke and John McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 84; K. S. Cliff, ‘Alexander Davison’s Chambers’.

  3. Nelson to William, 4 and 23/7/1783, NMM: BRP/6 and Add. MSS 34988; Nelson to Locker, 31/7/1783, D&L, 1, p. 78.

  4. Albemarle logs, ADM 51/4110, ADM 52/2136, and NMM: ADM/L/A72.

  5. Nelson to Locker, 12/7/1783, D&L, 1, p. 76; Nelson to Keppel, 20/8/1783, ADM 1/2223; Bromwich, passing certificate, 7/8/1783, ADM 107/9.

  6. Nelson to Stephens, 9/7/1783, 18/10/1783, ADM 1/2223; Nelson to Ross, 9/8/1783, Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth; Albemarle pay book, ADM 34/67.

  7. Nelson to Ross, 9/8/1783, Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth; Nelson to William, 20/8/1783, Add. MSS 34988.

  8. Nelson to Stephens, 8/10/1783, ADM 1/2223.

  9. James Macnamara died on 1 March 1802. He has often been confused with the officer of the same name who entered the navy in 1782, fought a celebrated duel in Hyde Park in 1803, and died a rear admiral on 15 January 1826. Nelson knew both men and they may have been related. See also Victor Sharman in ND, 7 (2002), p. 776.

  10. Nelson to Locker, 2/11/1783, D&L, 1, p. 82.

  11. Nelson to William, 10/11/1783, Add. MSS 34988. This and the letter to Locker cited above are the principal authorities for Nelson’s journey.

  12. Laurence Sterne, Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, vol. 7, chap. ix.

  13. Carola Oman, Nelson, p. 56.

  14. John R. Gwyther, ‘Nelson at Saint-Omer’. This article contains valuable local research conducted by M. Bernard Level. The actual house Nelson used is unknown, but it could have been either 136 rue de Dunkerque or 5, 7 or 9 rue Hendricq.

  15. Barbara E. Rooke, ed., The Friend, 1, p. 547.

  16. Nelson to Locker, 26/11/1783, D&L, 1, p. 88.

  17. Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, 1, p. 24; London Magazine (1758), p. 315. In his letters Nelson referred only to ‘an English clergyman, Mr Andrews’, without either naming him fully or indicating his place of origin or habitation in England. His daughter, to whom Nelson proposed marriage, was also unnamed, and biographers called her ‘Miss Andrews’. It took me the summers of 1992 and 1993 to identify ‘Mr Andrews’ as the Reverend Robert Andrews, husband of Sarah (née Hawkins), and the father of at least three daughters and four sons, including Elizabeth, Charlotte, George, Henry and Hugh. These findings, with full reference to relevant naval, military, parish and probate records, were published in a series of articles: John Sugden, ‘Captain George Andrews’; John Sugden, ‘Looking for Bess’; and John Sugden and Raymond and Ann Evans, ‘More Light on George and Elizabeth Andrews’. Raymond and Ann Evans generously allowed me to use their investigations into George’s later life in Devonshire. To these must now be added John R. Gwyther, ‘Nelson at Saint-Omer’, pp. 114–15, which supplies details of Robert Andrews’s earlier stay in St-Omer.

  Tom Pocock kindly contributed two portraits to the last of my papers, both given him by a Vincent Lawford. Neither sitter is identified, though Mr Lawford felt sure that one, showing a post-captain, depicted George Andrews. He is less unequivocal about the accompanying portrait, but guessed it might have been a sister of Andrews. Though the last portrait has been published as a likeness of Elizabeth Andrews (Sugden, ‘Looking For Bess’, p. 388; Tom Pocock, Nelson’s Women) there is no real evidence to support the identification, and it is in many respects most unlikely. If the post-captain is George Andrews, the matching portrait probably showed his lady, Ann Andrews.

  There are pieces of the puzzle for future Nelson scholars to find, including the baptismal records of the Andrews children, which would provide a full listing of the family, their ages and birthplaces. Although Kelston in Somerset was the family seat of the Hawkins side of the family, I incline to the view that Elizabeth Andrews was probably born in London. Her father seems to have been a Londoner, and the pay book of the Boreas (ADM 35/242) gives London as the birthplace of George Andrews.

  18. DNB, 9, pp. 206–9, 211; B. and A. P. Burke, Peerage and Baronetage, pp. 1113–15; will of Sir Caesar Hawkins, June 1785, PRO: PROB 11/1140.

  19. This paragraph revises John Sugden, ‘Captain George Andrews’, in the light of his passing certificate, 4/10/1787, ADM 107/10. See also his memorials to the Admiralty, 26/2/1806, April 1808, and 20/5/1810, ADM 1/1451, 1/1452 and 1/1453.

  20. Nelson to Locker, 26/11/1783, D&L, 1, p. 88; Nelson to William, 4/12/1783, Add. MSS 34988. The other older daughter has not yet been identified. I suspect that she was named Sarah, after her mother, but there is no satisfactory evidence of this.

  21. For Ann Nelson’s character see M. Eyre Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 105. Her letters from Nelson are mentioned in Nelson to his father, 8/3/1783, NMM: STW/1. Her death was noticed in the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 20/11/1783; Nelson to Locker, 26/11/1783, D&L, 1, p. 88; Ron C. Fiske, Notices of Nelson, p. 7; and NMM: GIR/6. In the event of the death of her father, Ann bequeathed Horatio and Susanna £200 each; Edmund and Suckling £100 each; and Catherine £500, with the balance to be divided between all five: will of Ann Nelson, 2/11/1783, PRO: PROB 11/1111, no. 631. There is no explanation of her omission of William and Maurice, but after the Reverend Edmund’s death, William seems to have forgotten that his siblings shared unequally in Ann’s legacy (William to Nelson, 14/5/1802, Alfred Morrison, Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 2, p. 189). Additional details and documentation relating to Ann can be found in John Sugden, ‘Tragic and Tainted? The Mystery of Ann Nelson’ and John Sugden, ‘New Light on Ann Nelson’. The posthumous elaboration of Ann’s tomb and the adjacent interment of a relative, Elizabeth Matcham, suggest she was affectionately remembered by the family.

  22. Nelson to Locker, 26/11/1783, D&L, 1, 88; Nelson to William, 4/12/1783, Add. MSS 34988.

  23. Nelson to Locker, 26/11/1783, D&L, 1, p. 88; Count de Deux Ponts to Nelson, 23/3/1784, Add. MSS 34903.

  24. Nelson to William, 28/12/1783 to 3/1/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

  25. Nelson to Suckling, 14/1/1784, D&L, 1, p. 93.

  26. Nelson to William, 31/1/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

  27. Wills of Elizabeth Warne, 1836, and Roger Warne, 2/3/1842, PRO: PROB 11/1893 and 2026; death certificates of Elizabeth Warne, 25/10/1837, and Roger Warne, 22/7/1845, Central Registry Office, London; Gentleman’s Magazine (1837), ii, p. 659, and (1845), ii, p. 324; and Bath Journal, 23, 30/10/1837.
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  28. Nelson to William, 20/1/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

  29. Nelson to William, 20/1/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

  30. Hood to Jackson, 29/1/1783, David Hannay, ed., Letters Written, p. 155; Nelson to William, 20/1/1784, 2/4/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

  31. Nelson to William, 8/2/1782, 31/1/1784, 2/4/1784, Add. MSS 34988, and Nelson to Locker, 23/1/1784, D&L 1, p. 97; Esther Hallam Moorhouse, Nelson in England, p. 34. Fox held one of the two Westminster seats, although he ran in second to Hood, and his vote and influence were much reduced.

  32. Nelson to William, 31/1/1784, Add. MSS 34988; Bath Chronicle, 5/2/1784.

  33. Poor rates, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster Archives Centre, London, F 582 and F 584 (1783–4).

  34. Orders of 19/3/1784, 6/5/1784, ADM 2/115.

  35. Nelson to William, 29/3/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

  36. Howe to Hood, 2/7/1787, NMM: Hoo/2; Hood to Nelson, 26/8/1784, Add. MSS 34937. Hood had been made an Irish peer two years before. Boyle, whom Nelson thought a ‘charming’ young man, was a native of Somerset and the second son of the seventh Earl of Cork. He claimed to have been inspired to join the service by a visit to his father at Plymouth. Officially Boyle had entered the navy at ten, as captain’s servant to John Carter Allen of the Gibraltar, served Hyde Parker in the same capacity in the Latona and Goliath, and gone through a naval academy at Greenwich. Talbot was the son of Richard Talbot of Malahide Castle, County Dublin, one of the Irish gentry. Although Tatham was a twenty-year-old Londoner, he also enjoyed Hood’s patronage. After Nelson’s ship was paid off in 1787, both Talbot and Tatham were transferred to Hood’s Barfleur, while Boyle went to the flagship of Admiral Peyton. Boyle and Talbot rose to flag rank, but while Tatham was popular and competent his career was damaged by a court martial. In 1803 he commanded a brig in the English Channel. Charles Lock of Exeter, who joined Nelson at Portsmouth on 27 April 1784, may also have been a Hood man. For all of the above see Nelson to Cork, 22/7/1787, Monmouth MSS, E28; ADM 9/2: no. 54 (Boyle); ‘Biographical Memoir of the Hon. Captain Courtenay Boyle’; John Marshall, Royal Navy Biography, 2, pt I, pp. 104–7; William O’Byrne, Naval Biographical Dictionary, pp. 1156–7; J. W. Norie, Naval Gazetteer, p. 382; Marsh to Nelson, 3/12/1788, Add. MSS 34903; Richard Vesey Hamilton and John Knox Laughton, ed., Above and Under Hatches, p. 116; Hood to Alexander Hood, 8/11/1790, Add. MSS 35194; and United Service Journal 45 (1844), p. 320 (an obituary of Boyle, who died 21 May 1844 at the age of seventy-four).