“One of the main foundation stones of the Nelson legend.” [Wilson, “Nelson Apotheosised” in Cannadine [ed.] Admiral Lord Nelson p.99]. M’Arthur, a former Naval Purser, had served with Nelson in the Mediterranean and had already begun collecting material for a biography when he saw “… an advertisement in the papers announcing that the Nelson family had selected a gentleman “of high respectability and rank” to write the life, and asking all who had letters… in their possession not to make thier material available to anyone else.” [ibid.]. M’Arthur came forward claiming, groundlessly, that Nelson himself had asked him to write his life, and that he had already incurred considerable expense in preparing the book, incuding the commissioning of a set of paintings to be engraved as illustrations. An unseemly squabble ensued, the outcome of which was fairly inevitable in that Earl Nelson was under pressure from the Prince Regent who wanted his librarian and chaplain, James Stanier Clarke to write the book. It was agreed that the authors would pool their efforts, but not before they had further fallen out over whose name should come first on the title page. That we do not refer to M’Arthur & Clarke is a lasting memorial to the usefulness of a powerful patron. The finished work is wonderfully illustrated with anecdotal head-pieces and plates by Westall and battle-scenes by Nicholas Pocock.
The Subscribers List is a remarkable directory of the great and the good of Regency Britain with an inevitable emphasis on Naval Notables. William Beckford took the only copy on vellum, Sir Home Popham and Admiral Keats Proof copies, as also Admirals Cornwallis and Anson, Earl St. Vincent and Lady Hamilton. Thomas Masterman Hardy had an ordinary copy, as did the Sandwich Book Society and Leeds Circulating Library.
This copy with the bookplates of Sir Thomas Bladen Capel to the front pastedowns. Capel served on the Sans Pareil in the action against L’Orient in Aboukir Bay in 1795. In 1798 he was appointed to Nelson’s flagship the Vanguard and served as Signal-Lieutenant at the Battle of the Nile, being advanced to command the Mutine and sent home in charge of a “duplicate of despatches and the sword of M. Blanquet, the Senior French officer surviving. In his despatch to the Admiralty announcing the victory of the Nile, Nelson alludes to Capt. Capel as a “most excellent officer” and recommends him to their Lordships’ notice.” [O’Byrne]. In 1802 he was appointed to the Phoebe, in which he served in the Mediterranean for three years, “… where during Nelson’s pursuit of the combinmed fleets to the West Indies he was left with 5 frigates and 2 bombs to cover Sardinia, Sicily, and the route to Egypt, from any troops that might be sent to land in those places…” [ibid.] At Trafalgar he assisted in taking prize the French ships Swiftsure and Bahama, having “by his extraordinary exertions” saved the former from destruction. Later served under Duckworth in the Dardanelles, and on the Hogue during the War of 1812, Rear-Admiral, 1825, Commander-in-Chief East Indies, 1834-7, Admiral 1847, Commanding Officer Portsmouth, 1848-52, died 1853.
