ALS about a dispute from a British merchant to Admiral Horatio Nelson 1800

[NELSON, Horatio]; PARK, John. Autograph letter signed to Rear Admiral Lord Nelson, K.B., Palermo, 8 March 1800.
 
One page, folio (310 × 210 mm), neatly written in ink, address panel on verso addressed to “Rear Admiral Lord Nelson, K.B.”; original folds with small chip to centre fold and loss to lower rear blank, otherwise well preserved and overall, very good.
 
An appeal addressed to Nelson during his Mediterranean command, written from Palermo by Captain John Park(e), a British merchant and transport master serving under Admiralty orders. Park petitions Nelson for redress over a sum of 1,800 ducats “taken and brought from the Neapolitan coast… on the faith and credit of the British Government,” which he had delivered to Sir William Hamilton, and which was then handed to Sir John Acton, Prime Minister of Naples and head of the Sicilian treasury. No repayment was made, and Park pleads for Nelson’s protection to recover what he is owed. He adds that General Acton had since ordered him to blockade a local port, costing him “the income of my ship and best earnings of a sailor.”
 
The letter vividly evokes the confusion and corruption that beset Palermo after the fall of Naples in 1798. With the royal family and government dependent on British naval protection, Nelson found himself drawn far beyond his military duties into diplomacy and financial arbitration, forced to mediate between the bankrupt Sicilian treasury and British subordinates and contractors left unpaid. Park’s letter captures that entanglement perfectly: a small but revealing episode in the financial disorder that shadowed Nelson’s greatest Mediterranean triumphs. Letters to Nelson from Palermo concerning the Neapolitan government and his Mediterranean command are rare.