328
NOTES AND QUERIES. 112 S.HI.JCW. 1917.
by Gosse in his edition, iv. 339-43. Where
is this now ? Mr. John Murray is said to
have some MSS. relating to Gray ; cf. Tovey,
' Letters,' iii. 232, n. 1. " An early corre-
spondence of Gray's which is said to throw
light upon his difference with Walpole "
was owned in 1912 by the Messrs. Quaritch.
Several letters were sold by Messrs. Sotheby,
Wilkinson & Hodge on July 8, 1915. A
number of letters lately published by Mr.
Toynbee was owned by the late Capt. Sir
Francis E. Waller, Bart., of the Royal
Fusiliers. There are some MSS. in the
Gluck Collection in the Public Library at
Buffalo, New York.
CTARK S. NORTHTJP. Ithaca, N.Y.
LETTERS FROM H.M.S. BACCHANTE
IN 1812-1813.
SOME interesting letters, written in journal form on board H.M.S. Bacchante, when commanded by Capt. William Hoste, have recently been sent to me with the object of discovering the identity of their author, who was evidently a Norfolk man. They are very neat copies, all by the same hand, and are entered in a parchment-bound volume with their dates, and all are addressed to " My dear father." There is no doubt that the writer of these letters was the ship's chaplain, as he states in his first epistle (dated April, 1812) that " the gentlemen of the gunroom were cautious not to say any- thing offensive to my profession " ; and in a subsequent letter he mentions that he christened two children. He is always most enthusiastic when alluding to Capt. Hoste : " I never met with any one who possessed such real love for active service, except Lord Nelson ; there is a great resemblance between them, which I dare say will increase every day."
The ship sailed from Spithead on June 3, 1812, and arrived in the Bay of Biscay on the 5th, and, passing Cape St. Vincent on the llth, arrived off Cadiz on the following day :
" About sunset we heard a very heavy and incessant [? firing] directly ahead of us. At first it was supposed that the French Fleet had escaped from Toulon, and that it was a general action. You may guess how heartily we prayed for a fresher breeze to spring up, but in a short time we perceived some shells burst in the air, which convinced us that it proceeded from the French bombarding Cadiz, though we were at that time forty miles distant. We had the satisfaction of learning to-day that no other damage had been done than the killing an old woman ; but many of the shells did not burst, owing to the great quantity of lead with which
they are lined, to make them fly so far. It takes,
as I am told, 30 Ibs. of powder to throw a shell
from the French lines into the town
" Off Cadiz, June 15, 1812. We quitted Cadiz at daybreak, and expect to reach Gibraltar t. evening or to-morrow morning. . . .Cape Trafalgar at the moment I am writing is immediately opposite to the cabin window, and a picture of Lord Nelson is so hung that the hero appears be gazing at the well-known spot. What a different scene does it now present to him ! . .
"Port Mahon, July 2, 1812. Admiral Hallowell (one of Lord Nelson's friends, and who, you remember, gave him the coffin made of 1' Orient s mast) is here with a few line - of - battle ships, and a large fleet of transports, with a brigade o troops on board."
To understand the frequent allusions in these letters to the hero of Trafalgar, it should be explained that their writer, who was probably born at Swaffham, Norfolk, in 1785, was son of the Rev. Wm. Yonge, who died in 1845 as Archdeacon of Norwich and Rector of Swaffham for sixty years, and that in November, 1786, the latter's sister, Sarah Yonge, had married the Rev. William Nelson (b. 1757, d. 1835), Rector of Hil- borough, the elder brother of the great admiral. Hilborough was the Nelson family living during several generations, and there Sarah Yonge's only son, Horatio Nelson, was born in 1788, two years after the birth of his first cousin, the aforesaid William Johnson Yonge. After the death of the great admiral on Oct. 21, 1805, a grateful nation bestowed upon the rector of Hil- borough an earl's title, and, creating his son Horatio Viscount Trafalgar, granted a sum of money with which to purchase an estate (in Wiltshire, whither the family removed from Norfolk). Among the obituary notices of The Gentleman's Magazine for the year 1 808 is one on the " death of Viscount Trafalgar from typhu 8 fever, at the early age of nineteen. He died a Warne's Hotel in Conduit Street on the 17th o January, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedra under the centre of the dome ; that in death hi body might sleep with the remains of him whon in life he had so honoured and revered ....
" The Bey. William Yonge, Archdeacon o Norwich, his maternal uncle, acted as chic mourner, and followed in the first coach. ..."
Capt. William Hoste was also of Norfolk descent, having a family connexion with the Walpole family. His father, the Rev Dixon Hoste (b. 1750-51), was for forty-two years Rector of Titeshall in that county, where he died at the age of 75 in 1825. There are many references to " Mr. and Mrs. Hoste " in the letters from Lady Nelson to her husband the great admiral when he was afloat. Their son William Hoste> according to his biographers, entered the
