Horatio, Viscount Nelson | Autograph letter signed, to Emma Hamilton, entrusting Horatia to her care, 16 May 1805

Property from the Jean Hart Kislak Collection

Vice Admiral Horatio, Viscount Nelson

Autograph letter signed ("Nelson & Bronte"), to Emma Hamilton ("My Dearest Lady Hamilton"),

entrusting Horatia into her care ("...As it is my desire to take my adopted daughter Horatia Nelson Thompson [sic] from under the care of Mrs Gibson and to place her under your Guardianship in order that she may be properly educated and brought up I have therefore most earnestly to entreat that you will undertake this charge..."), 3 pages, 4to, HMS Victory "at sea", 16 May 1805, fold tears, light dust-staining and spotting

AN IMPORTANT LETTER CONCERNING THE TANGLED LIVES OF NELSON, EMMA HAMILTON, AND THEIR DAUGHTER. Nelson made this formal written request that Horatia return to her birth mother in the midst of his trans-Atlantic pursuit of Villeneuve's fleet, and was well aware that a fatal battle could ensue at any time. He settles affairs with Mrs Gibson, the nurse who had cared for Horatia at her home in Marylebone since she was just a few days old. Mrs Gibson knew the secret of her parentage and all parties were conscious of the potential for blackmail, which no doubt accounts for the generous annuity of £20 (in another letter Nelson makes clear that the pension would be forfeited if Mrs Gibson should "chatter"). The letter is written to allow Lady Hamilton to share it with third parties: Horatia is his "adopted" daughter, and Lady Hamilton is requested to be her guardian and ensure her education. This letter had major consequences as it brought Emma back together with her daughter, but maintained the fiction around her parentage. This fiction persisted longest in the mind of Horatia herself, who never accepted that Emma Hamilton was her natural mother. 

LITERATURE

Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton and Related Documents, ed. M. Czisnik (2020), no. 372

PROVENANCE

Christie's, London, 3 December 2003, lot 155