Our father has received direction how to proceed in sending to the stage coach for Horace Susanna Bolton is to go to buy Maps in St Paul's Churchyard to amuse his children. Our good father's love to you and Blessing. God Bless and Protect my Dearest Husband
Believe me your affec. Wife
Frances H Nelson
FIRST PAGE OF A.L.S. OF LADY NELSON TO HER HUSBAND, DECEMBER 10, 1799.
NAVAL COMMISSION SIGNED BY LORD NELSON, APRIL 25, 1781.
The tone of Lady Nelson's letter to her husband presents a striking contrast to that in which, little more than a year later, he speaks of her in a letter to Lady Hamilton, for which I paid a very large sum early in 1905. As might be expected, the demand for Nelson autographs became more urgent as the centenary of Trafalgar approached, but, on the whole, the rise of price was not quite as marked as might be expected, although one particular letter to Lady Hamilton, apparently little more striking than the one now given, was sold for £1,050. The great Nelson sensation (as far as the autograph market is concerned) came off some five months later, viz., on March 14, 1906, when the unique Nelson document described as follows was disposed of at Christie's:—
NELSON'S FAMOUS MEMORANDUM TO THE FLEET ON THE EVE OF TRAFALGAR.
133. NELSON (ADMIRAL LORD) "GENERAL MEMORANDUM," in the Autograph of the Famous Admiral, in which he Foreshadowed the Plan of Attack at Trafalgar, and which he actually Carried Out. "Victory," off Cadiz, 9 Oct. 1805, 8 pp. 4to.