Collection of manuscripts and printed ephemera, principally relating to the Royal Navy during the Nelson era, including a group of five earlier letters by 'Master' [i.e. Captain's servant or volunteer] Steynsham to his uncle, written while serving on the Tryumph, Royall Anne and Ormond during the War of Spanish Succession, 1702-1714; a group of six memoranda, mostly in the hand of the Admiralty Secretary Sir Evan Nepean, one signed by St Vincent, to Admiral Sir John Duckworth, as Commander-in-Chief, Jamaica, 1803 (subjects covered including negotiations with "the Black General Lapoix Commanding the District of Port au Paix"); a group of documents directed to Captain Henry Darby (later Captain of the Bellerophon at the Nile), including the Admiralty circular abolishing the rating of Servant, 1794; an account of stores shipped to Antigua in the Lord Hood, 1801; a note respecting the largest ship built at Chichester, 1785; an Admiralty commission appointing a lieutenant to the Thalia, 1806; items of postal history; and autograph letters, letters signed or memoranda by: Admiral Lord Howe (issued two months before the Glorious First of June, concerning medical issue of wine, to Captain Hope of the Bellerophon, Queen Charlotte at Spithead, 28 March 1794), Sir Thomas Troubridge (1799), Admiral Earl St Vincent (to Captain John Duckworth, from the Ville de Paris off Cadiz, 17 June 1798, and an autograph letter to his brother, 1806), Admiral Sir Francis Drake (to the Nile Captain Henry Darby, 1782), Admiral Lord Gambier (to Duckworth, 1808 with a table of the disposition of Gambier's Channel fleet), Midshipman Edward Augustus Down (from Spithead, to his parents, 1795: "The Captain has me & two more in the Cabin under the School Master every day learning Geometrical Problems & Theorems & has had a berth built up for us & the School Master. I know very well how to keep a reckoning at Sea..."), Midshipman C. Farquharson (from HMS St Domingo in 1812: "I am sorry to say it has never yet been my luck to get alongside of a Frenchman, nor indeed have I so much as ever seen one...while I remain in this ship I shall never see anything but the Coast of Holland for the Summer and those of England (I mean lying in the Downs) for the winter..."), etc, 1702-1812