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Single page letter all handwritten and signed dated August 1842. Regarding the care? At sea of a boy applicant, something the boy said in a letter struck the admiral in some way? Historical Note: He became a midshipman in 1799 aboard the 16-gun sloop HMS Martin, but left her in May 1800 before she was lost with all hands. He next served aboard Renown, flagship of Sir John Borlase Warren. After this, in November 1802, he transferred to the frigate Greyhound under Captain William Hoste. The following year, he moved to Égyptienne for a voyage to St Helena escorting a convoy of ships and then in the English Channel and off the coast of France. (In later years, feeling he had been badly treated as a midshipman by her captain, Charles Fleeming, Napier challenged that officer to a duel, though they were eventually reconciled by their seconds. After the surrender of Napoleon and his first period of exile in 1814, Napier and his ship were transferred to the coast of North America, where the War of 1812 with the United States was still in progress, now commanded by Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane. In the Chesapeake Bay campaign, he took part in the August expedition up the Potomac River to Alexandria (southeast of the American national capital), Arriving several days after the Burning of Washington and the Battle of Bladensburg under Maj. Gen. Robert Ross and Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn. He was present when Francis Scott Key wrote the ?Star Spangled Banner? at the time of the attack by the British on Fort McHenry. He also took part in campaigns in Portugal, Syria, The Baltic in the Crimea. He later wrote ?The History of the Peninsula War? 6 volumes in 1855. Seller Inventory # 8506
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