Sales catalogue: Sotheby's

Date:
May 1919
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/20/394
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue: Sotheby's. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    97/120 (page 493)
    Lot 3223—continued. expressing passionate jealousy of the Prince Regent, who was to dine with the Hamiltons : ... [have read your letter, your resolution never to go where the fellow is, but you must have him at home. Oh, God! but you can- not, I suppose, help it, and you cannot turn him out of your own house. He will stay and sup and sitt up till 4 in the morning, and the fewer that stay the better. Oh, God !why dollive? But I do not blame you: it is my misfortune. I feel nobody uses me ill. I am only fit to be second, or third, or 4, or to black shoes, etc. . Knowing your determined courage ... I would have laid my head upon the block with the axe uplifted and said strike, if Emma does not say to Sir William before the fellow, ‘‘ My character cannot, shall not suffer, by permitting him to visit.” Oh! I wish I had been so placed then and there, then my head, my distracted head must have been off. Hush, hush, my poor heart, keep in my breast, be calm, Emma is true ! etc. ... Did you sit alone with the villain for a moment? No, I will not believe it. Oh, God! Oh, God! Keep mysences. Do not let the rascal in. etc. ... T hope you will have seen Troubridge last night, and he will probably tell you that he did not leave me perfectly at ease. In short, when I gave a letter for you it rushed into my mind that in 10 hours he would see you. A flood of tears followed—it was too much for me to bear. I could not help telling him what would I not have given to have been in his pocket. 3224 NELSON (Lord) A. L. s. 34 pp. 4to, Monday night, 9 0’ clock Pes 47 LOO bg LO Lady Hamilton, with address and Seal: ; Ah! my dear friend, I did remember well the 12th February, and also the two months afterwards. I shall never forget them, and never be sorry for the consequences. Say whatever you please to Mr. Denis for me, for I fear saying too much., I admire what you say of my god child. If it is like its mother it will be very handsome, for I think her one, aye, the most beautiful, woman of the age. Now do not be angry at my praising this dear child’s mother, for I have heard people say she is very like you, etc. 3225 NELSON (Lord) Four A.L.s. and an A.L., 44.pp. 8vo and 24 pp. tto, Feb. 17 (?)-Feb. 23, 1801, to Lady Hamilton as Mrs. Thomson : (5) - Your friend is at my elbow, and enjoins me to assure you that his love for you and your child is, if possible, greater than ever, and that he calls God to witness that he will marry you as soon as possible, and that it will be his delight to call you his own. He desires you will adhere to Lady H’s good advice, and, like her, keep those im- pertinent men at a proper distance. He behaves, I can assure you, incomparably well, and loves you as much as man ever loved woman, etc. Your friend, my dear Mrs. Thomson, has been very unhappy at the shocking conduct of your uncle, but your firmness and virtue has made his mind at-ease, and he desires me to tell you that if you are forced to quit his house by his shameful conduct, that then nothing should make him go to sea, even under my flag ; nor, if he could be