Description:

The future of Bishop of York writing as a young student at Cambridge hails the victory of Nelson at Trafalgar and mourns his death: ... the good news about the glorious victory off Cadiz. Poor Ld. Nelson his skill has brought this country to a higher pitch of excellence in naval tactics than it ever before possessed.

(HORATIO NELSON) Autograph Letter Signed "T Musgrave", 3 pages, 7.5" x 9" on two conjoined sheets with integral transmittal leaf. Richmond, Yorkshire, November 12, 1805. Addressed to William Battye in Leeds concerning a variety of matters, including the British victory at Trafalgar and the death of Admiral Horatio Nelson. Usual folds, small loss from wax seal affecting one word in text, else fine.

Musgrave writes a very chatty letter to his friend in Leeds, writing on the busy social calendar and interruptions to the academic routine which included "The King's birth-day", the commemoration of the landing of William III (which triggered the Glorious Revolution of 1688), "And on Friday last for the good news about the glorious victory off Cadiz. Poor L[or]d Nelson, his skill has bought this country to a higher pitch of excellence in naval tactics than it ever before possessed. We may sa[y] with the great epic poet of Rome, viz Virgil - O lux Dardaniae, speso fidissima Tenorum Cur ego haec volnera cerno!!! [Roughly translated: 'Oh, light of Troy, hope is most faithful to the course — Why should I see these wounds']" Reflecting a popular worry that Great Britain would lay exposed and vulnerable without her greatest naval hero, he urges "us not [to] dispair, but cheer up with confidence that we have several good sailors left yet, Sir Sidney Smith, Rir Rt Calder, Admiral Collingswood and, like the author of the Chevy - Chace, say We have — Five hundred good as he." Indeed, the Napoleonic Wars established Great Britain as the greatest sea power on earth for the next 140 years.

The balance of the letter, though not concerned with the death of the British naval hero, contains great detail on the life of a precocious young student at one of Great Britain's elite universities. Theater was one great diversion for the young Musgrave: "We have had the players here almost ever since my return. I have been very frequently to see them, they are gone to Whitby now - The theatre at Richmond is a very pretty one; Do you not remember our excursion to Wakefield, to see a play there; to the latest day I live, I shall remember that expedition, it is very pleasant to me to look back upon 'the days of former years' ..."

Offered together with an additional Autograph Letter Signed "Thomas Musgrave", 3 pages, 6.5" x 8.5", two conjoined sheets with integral transmittal leaf. Bristall Vicarge, June 8, 1804. Addressed in his hand to William Battye in Leeds concerning a variety of matters including exams, and reporting of a friend's travels "through Newark & Grantham on Monday...the inhabitants at each place had a ball, the officers at the former place were most of them drunk at the latter every one of the, a fine character!" Fine condition.

Thomas Musgrave (1788 - 1860) was the son of a wealthy tailor and woolen-draper in Cambridge and was admitted to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1804 rising to Senior Fellow in 1832. Although he was a cleric, he was a liberal in politics supporting measures to relax religious tests for admission to university. He became Dean of Bristol in 1827 and later the same year he became Bishop of Hereford and later for York in 1848.

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