ALS from Admiral Samuel Hood [Horatio Nelson, Napoleon] Siege of Toulon 1793

[NELSON, Horatio]; HOOD, Admiral Samuel Autograph letter signed to an unidentified correspondent, written from HMS Victory, off Toulon Road, 20 November 1793.
 
One leaf written on both sides, folio (340 × 190 mm), written in a secretarial hand and signed by Hood on the reverse side. Paper browned and water-stained, multiple edge losses, several fold splits and small holes, fragile but just about legible throughout. A fair condition letter.
 
Despite its distressed condition, this is an exceptional field-worn survivor of one of the pivotal naval operations of the French Revolutionary War, directly connecting Hood, Nelson, and the rise of Napoleon.
 
Writing from his flagship Victory, Hood laments the failure of his correspondent to send adequate reinforcements to the besieged allied garrison in Toulon: “It is extremely painful to me to observe that your Excellency’s backwardness in sending succours to the full extent of the powers of the Garrison… is most truly dispiriting, I wish it may not prove disastrous in the extreme.” He warns that “five or six hundred more men by the Terrible or Egmont would have been of far greater service than as many thousands can possibly be a month hence” and closes in frustration that “at this moment I only received from Gibraltar about 103 of British”, signing off “Your Excellency’s most obedient humble Servant, Hood.”
 
The letter dates from the critical final weeks of the Toulon campaign, when Hood and his subordinate officers—including the young Captain Horatio Nelson, then commanding HMS Agamemnon—attempted to hold the port against Republican forces commanded in part by a little-known artillery officer, Napoleon Bonaparte. Within a month of this letter, the allied defence collapsed, and Hood was forced to evacuate his fleet, marking both Nelson’s first combat distinction and the opening act of Napoleon’s rise to power.