HMS Bellerophon Pocket Book: Rare Book of the Week

This week's rare book of the week is the pocket book of Captain Henry D’Esterre Darby of HMS Bellerophon, kept between April and October 1799, chiefly during June and July 1799 when Darby was serving in the Bay of Naples as part of Nelson’s squadron after the Battle of the Nile. 

"Only two other such Public Order Books survive worldwide, placing Darby’s pocket book in an exceptionally small group of Nelson command manuscripts adding something like forty memoranda and orders to the surviving corpus of Nelson’s correspondence," said Guy Nathan from Arch Books who is offering the item. "This is not a single signed letter or presentation piece, but a rare surviving working command notebook, a shipboard record of incoming memoranda and orders, principally from Nelson himself, with others by his key captains and senior naval colleagues including Thomas Masterman Hardy, Sir Edward Berry, Earl St Vincent, Sir John Duckworth, and Sir Robert Calder."

The volume is kept in a variety of contemporary hands and comprises transcripts of 46 memoranda and orders issued by or on behalf of Nelson, including 35 copied from originals bearing Nelson’s signature, three unsigned, seven issued on his behalf by Hardy, and one by Berry. These are contemporary transcripts entered aboard ship from the orders and memoranda received there.

The pocket book shows Nelson as commander in real time with the court martial of William White, late boatswain’s mate of HMS Bellerophon, at its heart, followed by Nelson’s memorandum directing that the sentence be carried into execution the next morning.

Elsewhere there is the Battle of the Nile anniversary order, intelligence instructions, battlefield casualty reports, prisoners in irons, restrictions on letters and communication, and the daily mechanics of fear, discipline, and control within Nelson’s squadron.

HMS Bellerophon - known as “Billy Ruffian” to sailors - is one of the most famous ships in British history. She fought at the Battle of the Nile, suffering heavily after engaging the great French flagship L’Orient, then later served in the Trafalgar era, and in 1815 became the ship to which Napoleon surrendered after Waterloo.