Nelson’s Execution Order - Captain Darby’s HMS Bellerophon Pocket Book, Naples 1799

See Arch Books Website for full listing DARBY, Henry D’Esterre. Nelson’s Execution Order - Captain Darby’s HMS Bellerophon Pocket Book, Naples 1799. Pocket book of Captain Henry D’Esterre Darby of HMS Bellerophon, kept between April and October 1799, principally in June and July while serving in the Bay of Naples with Nelson’s squadron after the Battle of the Nile. A working shipboard record in several contemporary hands, containing transcripts of forty-six memoranda and orders issued by or on behalf of Nelson: thirty-five copied from originals bearing Nelson’s signature, three unsigned, seven issued by Thomas Masterman Hardy and one by Sir Edward Berry. Further orders are by Earl St Vincent, Sir John Duckworth and Sir Robert Calder. Original pebble-grain paper wrappers, stamped from an earlier use “42 Pound 1702”, upper cover inscribed “Bellerophon / 1799”. Small 4to, 8¼ × 6¼ in. Bay of Naples and elsewhere, 1799. A major Nelson discovery and an exceptionally rare command notebook from the most controversial period of his career. It preserves the practical daily reality of Nelson’s authority: court martial, execution, intelligence, prisoners in irons, censorship, casualty returns, victualling and the anniversary of the Nile. This is Nelson not in one formal letter, but in the urgent sequence of command, day by day. Nelson’s 1798-99 Public Order Book is in the British Library, and only two other Public Order Books survive, placing Darby’s pocket book in an exceptionally small group of Nelson command manuscripts. It adds some forty memoranda and orders to the surviving corpus of Nelson’s correspondence. At its centre is the court martial of William White, late boatswain’s mate of Bellerophon, followed by Nelson’s memorandum directing that the sentence be carried out the next morning. Tried while confined in irons for mutinous conduct, White was accused of seizing an officer by the collar, threatening to “split his head”, and using further mutinous language. The court sentenced him “to suffer Death by being Hang’d by the neck at the Yard Arm”; Nelson then ordered the squadron’s boats turned out and marines to attend. Sentence on one page, execution order on the next: an extraordinary survival of naval punishment in action. The volume also contains Nelson’s “Battle of the Nile” memorandum, issued from Foudroyant on 1 August 1799, the first anniversary of his victory. Declaring it “a Day so glorious to our Country by the noble exertions of British Seamen”, Nelson ordered faults forgiven “that no heart may have cause to be sad on such a Day”, and granted each man half a pint of wine to drink the King’s health. Few manuscripts more vividly capture the contrast between Nelson the celebrant of victory and the enforcer of discipline. Elsewhere are orders for intelligence on the Brest Fleet, instructions to question masters and inspect logs, reports from fighting in Italy, restrictions on letters and communication, and close supervision of men and vessels. One report records French losses of “11,000 Infantry & 1500 Cavalry”; another says “22,000 men” were left dead, with “6000” prisoners and “300 Officers of Distinction” killed or wounded. It is Naples in 1799 without hindsight, in the urgent language of working memoranda. Expertly conserved, with the textblock carefully re-sewn and original wrappers skilfully re-backed to stabilise the volume while preserving its character. Wear and handling are consistent with use aboard ship. Provenance: Bonhams, London, Nelson and the Royal Navy, 18 October 2005, lot 30. Cataloguer’s note: The Nelson entries are conservatively described as copies entered from originals bearing Nelson’s signature. Because his post-1797 hand could vary following the loss of his right arm, there remains some scope for argument that certain signatures may be autograph; the cautious description has been preferred.…