Beschreibung:

NELSON, Horatio, Lord, (1758-1805), British Admiral, victor at Trafalgar . Autograph letter signed ("Nelson & Bronte") to Admiral Skeffington Lutwidge (d.1814), on board H.M.S. Amazon , 11 October 1801. 2 pages, 4to. In very fine condition. NELSON RAILS AGAINST "OUR MEAN, DIRTY DEGENERATE SCOUNDRELS...I BLUSH FOR MY COUNTRY...OH, DEGENERATE ENGLISH..." Six months after the Battle of Copenhagen, Nelson pens a mercurial letter to the Admiral Lutwidge, expressing his disgust over a recent incident. In 1772, as a young man, Nelson had served as coxswain to Lutwidge on the HMS Carcass during the Phipps' Arctic Expedition. "My dear Admiral, If the morning has been very very fine I intended to have paid my respects to you, but as to dining I must beg your forgiveness. I'm dancing mad to think that our mean Dirty degenerate scoundrels[--]No I am wrong it proves they are so[--] to Drag a Damned Frenchman's Carriage, so the Miscreants would have dragged Buonaparte if our glorious Navy had permitted him to have got over, although he cannot tear our King from his Throne I hope never to be drawn by the wretches again, I blush for my Country. These Miscreants are call'd Englishmen[.] I am not well and the Ad l. will not let me go on shore and this paragraph has given me a fever[.] O Degenerate English, ever my Dear Admiral your obliged & affectionate Nelson + Bronte." In a one-line postscript Nelson adds: "I hope we shall not have any fire in our fleet."