Lot 196: NELSON (HORATIO)

Autograph letter signed ("Nelson & Bronte"), to John W. Willet of Grosvenor Square, regretting that he has not, in peace time, room to employ an old Vanguard lieutenant: "The conduct of Mr Adye was irreproachable and he certainly exerted himself on every occasion as much as a wretched state of health would allow and solely on account of his bad health he left the Vanguard. But from that period I have been so much employ'd and at the Peace having left a set of L[ieutenan]ts it is I am sorry to say entirely out of my power to receive Lt Adye into my ship at present, for I have near twenty that look up to Me"; and apologising for not having returned his last kind visit but he had been very much unwell and "as You may believe fully occupied"; with autograph address panel, signed with initials ("N&B"), with later note in pencil "lent by Sir John Adye" (see note below), 2 pages, integral blank, the latter tipped onto the remains of an album leaf with the address panel tipped on, one or two minor stains, but overall in fine and attractive condition, 4to, [Piccadilly or Merton], 15 March 1803

"I HAVE NEARLY TWENTY THAT LOOK UP TO ME": Nelson confesses himself unable to help a Nile veteran. John Adye had served as lieutenant on board Nelson's own ship, the Vanguard, at the Battle of the Nile, and is listed in Nelson's returns as wounded (Nicolas, Dispatches and Letters, iii, p.60; where this letter is not published). Adye came from a distinguished military family, being third son of the military author Major Stephen Payne Adye RA, with three brothers serving in the artillery (see the entry for his father and his nephew Sir John Miller Adye in the ODNB; as well as the latter's Recollections of a Military Life, 1895, where Lieutenant Adye's place in the family, ignored by the ODNB, is correctly given). The nephew, Sir John, appears to have inherited the present letter.