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Lot 92
ST VINCENT (JOHN JERVIS, Earl) Two autograph letters signed ("St Vincent"), the first to Sir Evan Nepean, Secretary of the Admiralty, the second discussing a Trinity House appointment, [?Gibraltar] and Torre Abbey,
[?April 1799] and 9 November 1800
24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £750 inc. premium
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ST VINCENT (JOHN JERVIS, Earl)
Two autograph letters signed ("St Vincent"), the first to Sir Evan Nepean, Secretary of the Admiralty ("My Dear Nepean"), confessing himself "disgusted with your sending out a broken silver smith of Plymouth, to be naval storekeeper at Port Mahon with a Clerk as ignorant as himself"; and continuing to lambast the Admiralty in the same tone: "I have been witness to more jobs, in your righteous Board, than were done by that Mammon of unrighteousness, John Earl of Sandwich. The appointment of Mr Masden is the more unfortunate, because of the painful necessity poor Coffin [Jervis's equally splenetic protégé Isaac Coffin] is in, to fly to England... This lust and misapplication of Patronage, disseminated throughout Your pious Board, will ultimately destroy the Profession, already grown so difficult to govern, that without vanity, I am clear, no other Admiral, on your List, even as it now stands could have carried on what has been executed in these Seas, which you will disable me from continuing, by these ill judged appointments, for Gods sake send me out authority to go to England in the Ville de Paris, for between the absurdity of Sir Sidney Smith and other very grating inconstancies, my command is become intolerable: and in addition, Lord Keith is serving under very great disappointment, having clearly understood that he was to command in Chief, and I fear will ere long apply to go home, in which Event, I shall be completely nicked"; the second letter discussing a Trinity House appointment, 4 and 2 pages, the second letter lightly stained, guards, 4to, [? Gibraltar] and Torre Abbey, [?April 1799] and 9 November 1800
Footnotes
ʻTHIS LUST AND MISAPPLICATION OF PATRONAGE, DISSEMINATED THROUGH YOUR PRECIOUS BOARD' – St Vincent lambasts the Admiralty for not joining in his crusade against corruption. Early in his career Nepean, the long-standing Secretary at the Admiralty, had served under Jervis (as he then was) in the Foudroyant and in his turn did much to promote his erstwhile commander's career. The first of these letters appears to date from St Vincent's period of service as commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, when he had Admiral Lord Keith serving as his second-in-command (and an uncooperative Nelson loitering in the wings). The letter has a postscript referring to the "arrival here" of General [Sir Charles] Stuart being "hourly expected en route to England", which suggests that it may have been written that April. (The "Mr Chiene the Master Attendant at Lisbon" whom he here recommends for the Mahon posting is indeed soon to be found holding the post of Master Attendant of the dockyard at Minorca, where he died in 1802.)
Two years later, St Vincent was to be made First Lord of the Admiralty and was able to apply these same principles to the navy at large, eventually exhausting even his old friend's patience: ʻDriven by implacable prejudices, including... a seaman's contempt for the efficiency of landlubbers and a conviction that the whole civil branch of the navy was rotten to the core, the first lord initiated a series of damaging "reforms". Relations between the Admiralty on the one hand and the Navy Board, dockyards and commercial contractors on the other deadlocked, dockyard resources were depleted and the supply and repair of ships retarded. As the navy was slowly pulled to pieces, Nepean, the Admiralty secretary, resigned' (John Sugden, Nelson: The Sword of Albion, 2012, p. 569). The letter to Nepean is not published in J. S. Tucker's Memoirs of Admiral the Rt Hon the Earl of St Vincent (1844).