Horatio, Viscount Nelson | Autograph letter signed, to Emma Hamilton, on his desire to marry her, 3 February 1801

Property from the Jean Hart Kislak Collection

Horatio, Viscount Nelson

Autograph letter signed ("Nelson & Bronte"), to Emma Hamilton under a pseudonym ("My Dear Mrs Thomson"),

on the desire of "Your good and dear friend", meaning himself, to marry her, asking her to "kiss and bless for him his dear little girl which he wishes to be called Emma out of gratitude to our dear good Lady Hamilton", but leaving her to decide the infant's name, and informing her that he has sent her £100, 3 pages, 8vo, integral address panel ("Mrs Thomson"), [HMS San Josef, Torbay, 3 February 1801], small seal tear not affecting text, splitting at folds, remains of guard

"...Your good and dear friend does not think it proper to write with his own hand but he hopes that the time may not be far distant when he may be united forever to the Object of his wishes, his only only love, he swears before heaven that he will marry you as soon as it is possible which he fervently prays may be soon..."

AN EXCEPTIONAL OUTPOURING OF LOVE ON THE BIRTH OF THEIR CHILD. Emma Hamilton had given birth four days previously, and this was one of the first letters written to her by Nelson after their child's birth. At the time Nelson was aboard ship making preparations for his expedition to the Baltic and the couple determined to disguise their most sensitive correspondence by the use of pseudonyms. Nelson claimed to be writing on behalf of a fictitious crewmember - Mr Thomson - whose pregnant wife was in the care of Lady Hamilton. The fiction did not bear much scrutiny and in some letters seems to have been treated by Nelson as little more than a joke (see next lot); for all his pride in public honour, he had little appetite for hiding his relationship with Emma, despite its obvious risk to his reputation. 

This letter has at its heart Nelson's impassioned desire to marry Emma Hamilton, a passionate call that overwhelms the would-be decorous fiction of "Mr and Mrs Thomson". Nelson had just made the final break with his wife, whilst Emma had come to an arrangement with her husband, but a marriage between the two of course remained impossible.  

This letter was dated by Thomas Joseph Pettigrew.

LITERATURE

Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton and Related Documents, ed. M. Czisnik (2020), no. 70

PROVENANCE

Edwin Wolf, 2nd; Christie's, London, 21 June 1989, lot 245; Christie's, London, 3 December 2003, lot 135