TO WILLIAM LOCKER, ESQ. [Autograph, in the Locker Papers: The Boreas arrived at Madeira on the 1st of June 1784, and sailed on the 8th of that month for Barbadoes.] My dear Friend, Boreas, Madeira, June 7, 1784. The opportunity that offers of a Vessel's sailing for London, makes me embrace the opportunity of writing to my friends; therefore you are sure of hearing, or I must be an ingrate indeed. I have received on board a quarter cask of wine for you from our friend Mr. Higgins, who has been vastly civil. Mr. Murray, the Consul,1 I have not dined with, owing to a little etiquette about visiting. We arrived here on the 1st, after a pleasant passage, the Ladies? quite well, and satisfied with the Ship. To-morrow I sail,3 for I am tired of this place, and Lady Hughes wishes to see her husband and I shall not be sorry to part with them, although they are very pleasant good people: but they are an incredible expense. I beg the favour of Kingsmill to enclose this. By every opportunity be assured that I shall scrawl a line, for no man has a higher sense of the obligations he is under to you, than your faithful and devoted, HORATIO NELSON. I have had Scott from the Resource to dine with me, a very genteel young man he is: I wish he had been with me. Pray my compliments to Mrs. Bradley, &c. Your Dominica estate I shall be particular about. I take for granted Orde1 will be civil about it, as I have taken on board for him four casks of wine. Charles Murray, Esq. : he declined returning Captain Nelson's visit because he had not been allowed a boat by the Government to go on board Ships of War. 2 Lady Hughes and her family. The Boreas arrived at Barbadoes on the 26th of June 1784: and Nelson found himself Senior Captain, and Second in Command, on the Station. Captain John Orde was made Governor of Dominica in 1783: he was creaated a Baronet in 1790, and died an Admiral of the Red in 1824. He is frequently mentioned in Nelson's Letters after they had both attained their Flags: and is well known for his quarrel with the Earl of St. Vincent, in consequence of Nelson's having been chosen to command the Squadron which fought the Battle of the Nile. TO WILLIAM LOCKER, ESQ., WEST MALLING. [Autograph, in the Locker Papers.] My dear Friend, Boreas, English Harbour, September 24th, 1784. I was in hopes that the first letter I should write you from this country would have given you some information of your Dominica estate, but that is not in my power. I was one day in Prince Rupert's Bay to wood and water; but there, you know, I could get no information. If Sandys should go to Dominica, I shall give Bradley's letter to him, and write to Orde upon the subject. I have a right to trouble him in any business of that sort, as I took on board for him, at Madeira, four casks of wine, on purpose that I might have his hearty assistance in the business. Collingwood is at Grenada, which is a great loss to me; for there is nobody that I can make a confidant of. The little man, S, is a good-natured laughing creature, but no more of an Officer as a Captain than he was as a Lieutenant. Was it not for Mrs. Moutray," who is very very good to me, I should almost hang myself at this infernal hole. Our Admiral is tolerable, but I do not like him, he bows and scrapes too much for me; his wife has an eternal clack, so that I go near them as little as possible: in short, I detest this Country, but as I am embarked upon this Station I shall remain in my Ship. Our ears here are full of Wars in the East; is there any likelihood of a War? I am in a fine [condition] for the beginning of one; well Officered and manned. I have not heard from a single creature in England since I arrived. I have [written] to everybody, and to you from Madeira, but not a line. Give my best remembrance to Kingsmill, and my friends in his neighbourhood, not forgetting me to the Bradleys; and I 5 Captain Charles Sandys, who is often mentioned, was made a Post Captain in January 1783, and then commanded the Latona. He became a superannuated Rear-Admiral in 1805, and died in April 1814, aged 62. • Captain Cuthbert Collingwood, who then commanded the Mediator. beg also that you will rest assured, I am, your devoted faithful Friend and Servant, HORATIO NELSON. TO THE REVEREND MR. NELSON, BURNHAM. [Autograph, in the Nelson Papers.] My dear Brother, Windsor, [Antigua,] October 24th, 1784. By this time I hope you are quite recovered, and drawing very near to old England. The weather here has been so very hot since you left us, that I firmly believe you would hardly have weathered the fever which has carried off several of the Boreas's Ship's company since you left us, and a Mr. Elliot, acting Lieutenant of the Unicorn, who you may remember. I have been living here for this week past, whilst my Ship has been painting. Yesterday, for the first time, I dined at Mr. Eliot's 10 the Admiral and his family are there. They left Clarke's Hill the 15th, and come to Mr. Horsford's the 26th, where they are to remain till they sail, which is to be on the 1st of November. We are all invited to a grand dinner on the 31st, on board the Adamant, and are to go strait to Barbadoes to get bread, for there is none at this Island. From Barbadoes I am to go to the Virgin Islands to examine them, by a particular order from the Admiralty. I suppose they wish to find some good lands for the poor American loyalists. I must make my letter short, for the Zebra sails to-morrow, and I have a number of letters to write. If you went to Portsmouth in the Fury, you would find Kingsmill, who would be vastly civil, I am sure. God bless you, and rest assured I am your affectionate brother, HORATIO NELSON. 9 Mr. Nelson was obliged to leave the West Indies for England, in the Fury Sloop, on the 30th September 1784, on account of his health. 10 Apparently Samuel Eliot, Esq., of Antigua, whose second daughter, Elizabeth, married in July 1791, Thomas Lord Le Despencer, grandfather of the present Baroness Le Despencer. Mrs. Moutray desires her love to you, and I beg my best compliments to Wolterton, Wells, &c. I have seen Capt. who is a friend of Mr. Walpole's. I do not like him B at all: he is a self-conceited young man. TO WILLIAM LOCKER, ESQ., WEST MALLING. [Autograph, in the Locker Papers.] My dear Friend, English Harbour, November 23rd, 1784. Your kind letter I received yesterday upon my arrival here, and though I cannot say much, as my time is very short, being obliged to sail this morning for the Virgin's. Your wine shall certainly be bottled, nor shall I forget the Dominica estate when I go there, which will be in about a month. I am heartily glad Bradley has got a place;1 I hope it will turn out a good one. Collingwood is here; he desires to be kindly remembered. This Station is far from a pleasant one. The Admiral and all about him are great ninnies. Little S is in the L-. I am sorry to say he goes through a regular course of claret every day. Coll. desires me to say he will write you soon such a letter, that you will think it a history of the West Indies. What an amiable good man he is! all the rest are geese. I have not had a letter from Kingsmill this Packet: when you write remember me to him. I am in my way to examine a Harbour said to be situated in the Island of St. John's, capable, it is supposed, to contain a Fleet of Men of War during the hurricane seasons. It is odd this fine Harbour, if such a one there is, should not have been made use of long ago; but there is an order from the Admiralty to send a Frigate to examine it: it is said here to belong to the Danes; if so, they will not let me survey it. I must have done, for the Signal gun is fired for Domingo to carry us out. God bless you, my dear friend, and believe I am yours most affectionately, HORATIO NELSON. 1 Mr. James Bradley was appointed Secretary to the Board of Control on its formation in 1784. 2 The Chart of this Harbour, signed "Horatio Nelson," is now among the Correspondence of 1785, in the Admiralty. TO WILLIAM LOCKER, ESQ., WEST MALLING. My dear Sir, [Autograph, in the Locker Papers.] Boreas, Basseterre Road, January 15th, 1785. Your letter of the 16th November, I received a few days ago at Antigua, fortunately when I was in company with Collingwood, who is acquainted with Lieutenant-Governor Stewart. (I have not been at Dominica since the hurricane months, therefore have not been able to say anything to Governor Orde upon the subject of your estate.) He has wrote to him enclosing a letter I received in England from Mr. James Bradley, with all the particulars relative to the property; and as Collingwood is just going to Prince Rupert's Bay, he desires me to say, that if possible he will go to the spot, consequently will be able to say more upon the matter than I can at present. If the estate has not always had one family kept upon it, I fear there will be some difficulty in getting hold of it; for if it is good land, most likely some genius or other has got hold of it; and if it has never been inhabited since Admiral Parry3 was here, the buildings must be gone to ruin before this time, but as it is you shall know very soon. Coll. will have information from Lieutenant-Governor Stewart, and I shall most probably be there in a month or two, when you may be assured I shall go to the spot and take a regular survey of it. The longer I am upon this Station the worse I like it. Our Commander has not that opinion of his own sense that he ought to have. He is led by the advice of the Islanders to admit the Yankees to a Trade; at least to wink at it. He does not give himself that weight that I think an English Admiral ought to do. I, for one, am determined not to suffer the Yankees to come where my Ship is; for I am sure, if once the Americans are admitted to any kind of intercourse with these Islands, the views of the Loyalists in settling Nova Scotia are entirely done away. They will first become the Carriers, and next have * Rear-Admiral William Parry was appointed Commander-in-Chief at Jamaica, and in the Windward Islands, in 1766, where he remained three years. He died an Admiral of the Blue on the 29th of April, 1799. His only child, Lucy, married Captain Locker, (vide p. 23, ante,) with whom he seems to have obtained the Dominica estate so often mentioned. VOL. I. I |