MS 18. Letter from Horatio Nelson to H. S. Blankley. March 28th, 1805.
Gift of Moss Davis, 1928.
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Transcript
To: H. S. Blankley Esq.
Victory March 28th, 1805
Dear Sir,
I received your letter from Cagliari on my arrival in this Bay and I send the first transport to receive your baggage and to carry you to Malta. Your other letters from Mahon of January 5 both by and from Gibraltar and from Cagliari I have received. I shall certainly not forget should I be in the Mediterranean the hard fate of the Gentleman you mention; your long quarantine at Cagliari must have been very irksome
I am dear Sir with great Respect
Your most obedient servant
Nelson & Bronte
Notes
When this letter was written Nelson was refitting and resupplying his ships at Pula Bay in southern Sardinia. Two days later the FrenchVice-Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve left Toulon in southern France with eleven battleships and 3000 troops. He joined up with the Spanish fleet in Carthagena and Cadiz and then began the crossing of the Atlantic. This move marked the beginning of the campaign which was to culminate in the Battle of Trafalgar.
Nelson searched for de Villeneuve first in the Mediterranean. Then, having established that the Combined Fleet had sailed for the West Indies, he sailed after them, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar in early May.
The Guardian has an interactive description of the Trafalgar campaign
- Henry Stanyford Blankley (also spelt Blanckley) had been British Consul in the Balearic Islands for nineteen years. At the time this letter was written, he was en route to his new posting as Consul-General at Algiers.
- Blanckley’s father and Nelson’s were friends. His son Edward married Nelson’s niece, Harriet Matcham.
- Cagliari. Capital of Sardinia
- Mahon. Minorca
- “the gentleman you mention”. This may be a reference to a Quaker merchant of Barcelona named Gayner who supplied Nelson with French and Spanish newspapers and other intelligence. He was imprisoned by the Spanish authorities in late 1804 shortly after Spain entered the war.
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