Horatio, Viscount Nelson | Autograph letter signed, to Emma Hamilton, on christening their daughter, 5 February 1801

Property from the Jean Hart Kislak Collection

Vice Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson

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

making arrangements for christening of their "adoptive" daughter, naming her Horatia, 2 pages, 8vo, integral autograph address leaf ("Mrs Thomson | N&B"), [HMS San Josef, Torbay, 5 February 1801], seal tear to address leaf not affecting text, remains of guard, nicks at edges

This extraordinary letter forms part of the "Mrs Thomson" sequence, which attempted to disguise the true parentage of Horatia, Emma Hamilton and Nelson's daughter. Nelson here suggests to the fictitious "Mrs Thomson" that there should be an opportunity to christening her newborn before Nelson departs on his new command to the Baltic: "myself & Lady H. should be two of the sponsors, it can be Xtened at St George's Hanover Square and I believe the parents being at the time out of the Kingdom if it is necessary it can be stated born at Portsmouth or at Sea". The parents given barely credible names "Johem & Morata Etnorb" - the subterfuge here becoming little more than a joke: the names are an anagram for Emma & Horatio Bronte and Nelson even points out that "If you read the Sirname [sic] backwards and take the letters of the other names, it will make very extraordinary the name".

This letter was written as Nelson made preparations to depart to the Baltic. It was dated in The Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical Documents formed by Alfred Morrison - the Hamilton & Nelson Papers (1893). 

LITERATURE

Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton and Related Documents, ed. M. Czisnik (2020), no. 74

PROVENANCE

Thomas Joseph Pettigrew (small red ink stamp "P"); Alfred Morrison; Edwin Wolf 2nd; Christie's, 21 June 1989, lot 244