Footnotes

'ON WHOM THE WHOLE SAFETY OF THEIR SICILIAN MAJESTIES AND THESE KINGDOMS DEPEND': SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON ON NELSON AND THE WRECK OF THE COLOSSUS.

These letters were written from Hamilton's exile in Sicily during a particularly stressful period when Nelson was attempting to bring the Barbary corsairs into the anti-French coalition. Using Magra the British consul at Tunis, Nelson hoped to establish good diplomatic relations with the Bey of Tunis. In a letter of 17 March, which Hamilton alludes to in our letter to Magra of the same date, he called the French 'the enemies of God and His Holy Prophet...' (John Sugden, Nelson: The Sword of Albion, 2012, pp.204-207). In our letter of 14 April 1799, Hamilton urges Magra to do all he can to "...recover the vessel with corn for Malta that was taken by the Tunisians...", referring to Nelson's request to Magra of the same date (this letter sold in these rooms, 18 June 2014, lot 147). '...These diplomatic successes, almost unknown to Nelson biographers, made a significant difference to Malta and Italy... Relations between Britain and Tunis remained unsteady... Magra felt so unsafe that he dissuaded his family from coming out to join him in Tunis' (Sugden, pp.207-208).

Amongst the diplomatic news and negotiations, a more personal side of Hamilton is revealed in these letters. He expresses his great sorrow at the loss of his collection of antiquities ("the cream of my collection"), lost when HMS Colossus was wrecked off the Scilly Isles in December 1798. It was, in fact, his second collection of vases, the first having been sold to the British Museum. Fortunately Tischbein had recorded the collection for posterity and two thirds of the collection were salvaged from the wreck. Not only that, on his return to England, Hamilton discovered that many of the cases that contained his best pieces had been left off the Colossus by mistake and he was able to sell the remainder of his vast collection to Thomas Hope for £4,000 in 1801. He also reports here that, whilst his best vases were lost on the wreck, the rest were with paintings on a British transport in the harbour at Palermo. The paintings reached England safely and were sold by Christie's in March and April 1801.

Having endured that disappointment, and after some 35 years as British Ambassador to the court of the King of Naples and Sicily, Hamilton admits to feeling weary and wishes to return to England. He demonstrates some sympathy with Magra, also on foreign soil, who has left his family in Sicily for safety. Duty, however, takes precedent over his "private affairs" and he feels bound to remain in Sicily for the time being where Nelson, he says, needs his support, not least to navigate the language and customs of the country.

Provenance: Lady Maria Theresa Lewis (née Villiers) (1803-1865); her son Sir Thomas Villiers Lister (1832-1902); thence by descent.

Lady Lewis' collection was initially formed through the amalgamation of two significant collections of letters: royal and political correspondence from that of her mother the Hon. Theresa Villiers (1775-1856), and that of her close friend, the writer Mary Berry (1763–1852). Mary Berry's bequest included correspondence from Horace Walpole, most notably his correspondence with Thomas Chatterton and David Hume, hitherto thought lost, and three poems dedicated to her. To this inheritance Lady Lewis subsequently added her own correspondence and collection of autographs gathered through her wide circle of social, political and literary connections entertained at her home, Kent House, St James's. Not seen outside the family until now, the collection is a remarkable survival and tells the story of a family at the heart of English society. An intricate web of connections and alliances is revealed, bringing together the worlds of royalty and politics, the arts and literature. It is also a story of influential women both as collectors and as correspondents: Theresa Villiers as keeper of royal secrets, Mary Berry and her circle of intellectuals, and, importantly, Lady Lewis as collector and salonnière bringing them all together in one extraordinary collection.