Overall: 31cm (12.2in) x 28cm (11in)
Single page in ink. An autographed note, signed and dated ‘Nelson & Bronte’ / ‘Merton Decr. 22nd: 1801’ inviting his close friend and prize agent to dine at Merton Place. ‘Dear Sir / As Mr Portis’s family dine with us today, although it is so late will you do me the favour of coming with them which will truly oblige / Nelson & Bronte / Alexdr Davison Esq’. Note: 22.5cm x 18.5cm. Framed and glazed.
Alexander Davison (1750–1829) maintained a London residence on the south side of St. James's Square, with his office at the other end of the house in Pall Mall. It was one of Nelson's most frequent haunts and almost certainly the destination of the present note. In December 1801 Davison was acting an intermediary between Nelson and his wife Fanny during the breakdown of his 14 year marriage due to his affair with Emma Hamilton. To compound matters Davison was simultaneously trying (unsuccessfully) to improve Nelson’s finances by the sale of jewels and plate presented in respect of his naval victories.
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James Portis Esq (1759-1807), sometime of Gate Street, Lincoln’s Inn, was a prosperous stockbroker, known to Davison since at least 1793 when they were members of a charitable endeavour supplying winter clothing to the Duke of York’s army in Flanders. When Davison first met Nelson in Quebec City in 1782 during the American War of Independence, Davison was already well on his way to becoming an important government contractor, albeit a corrupt one. He would go on to serve prison time for fraud in 1804 and 1809.
In 1783 Portis moved his growing family from the throng of the City of London to the nearby rural Surrey village of Mitcham, where for nine years The Rectory served as his country seat. In 1792 he sold the remaining portion of his lease from the lord of the manor for £3,700, and became a proprietor in the parish on his own account. The ease of the commute to the stock exchange in Sweeting’s Alley combined with the area’s plantations, shrubberies, walled gardens, glasshouses and gravel walks were agreeable features of the place.
Merton situated less than a couple of miles to the southwest was similarly suited to Nelson’s needs. Close enough to London to keep in touch with the Admiralty, it was sufficiently secluded in 52 acres of land to offer privacy to his unusual household that at Christmas 1801 comprised himself, Emma, Lady Hamilton, their infant daughter Horatia, and Emma’s husband Sir William Hamilton. The household was as Emma put it ‘Tria juncta in uno’ (Three joined in one) recalling the motto of the order of knighthood to which Hamilton and Nelson both belonged.
Nelson purchased Merton earlier that year after his victory at the Battle of Copenhagen. He paid £9,000 for the property, and, ignoring the surveyor’s damning report, borrowed two thirds of the purchase price from Davison. The Hamiltons moved in first, and populated the farmstead with pigs and poultry, and stocked the moat, known as the Nile, with fish. Nelson himself arrived at the home he had longed for on 23 October 1801, having written to Emma ‘We will eat plain, but will have good wine, and a hearty welcome for all our friends.’ The guests soon included Nelson's siblings with their families, and his aged father, naval friends, diplomats, acquaintances from Naples, musicians, artists and actors. They got to know some of their neighbours too - the Portis family, of course, among them.