Publications of the Navy Records Society

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: INTRODUCTION The documents contained in this volume are mainly drawn from two sources. The letters addressed to Jackson are taken from the Add. MSS. of the British Museum, No. 9343. The despatches addressed to Stephens are in the ' Admiral's despatches, Leeward Station No. 9, ' at the Record Office. A few other documents have been added for purposes of illustration. These are the letters of Lord Robert Manners, quoted from the Fourteenth Report of the Historical Records Commission, the extracts from the log of the Canada, and from Sir Samuel Hood's Journal, and Admiral Graves's account of his action with the Count de Grasse in the Chesapeake, which is taken from the ' Admiral's despatches, North American Station No. 10.' All these MSS., except the first-named, are in the Record Office. It would, perhaps, be more accurate to say that all these documents, except the letters to Mr. Jackson, are of the nature of illustrations, since it was for the sake of these confidential outpourings of Hood's to his friend that this volume was compiled All the letters to Jackson are not printed here for the first time.Those of them which deal with the battle of the I2th of April, 1782, and the operations immediately following, are to be found in the ' United Service Gazette' forthe5th, 12th, and 19th of April, 1834. They were then published as contributions to the great controversy started by Sir Howard Douglas's attempt to secure for his father, Sir Charles, the whole credit of the breaking of the line on that famous occasion. To the best of my knowledge the others have remained in MS. until now. It has been thought advisable to reinforce them by off1cial despatches and extracts from logs which serve to throw light upon, or even only to amplify, what Hood said in confidence, and in the bitter..