NELSON, Horatio, Viscount (1758-1805). Document signed ('Horatio Nelson'), Boreas, St John's Road, Antigua, 21 June 1786.

NELSON, Horatio, Viscount (1758-1805). Document signed ('Horatio Nelson'), Boreas, St John's Road, Antigua, 21 June 1786.

One page, 164 x 203mm, the verso bearing the receipt for a payment to Figarella of £4-12 and an endorsement (some paste-staining, especially to margins, silked on verso).

Nelson in the West Indies. Nelson as a young captain certifies that Domingo Figarella, Pilot Extra, has safely guided the Boreas into St John's Road, Antigua, 'without the assistance of any other Pilot'.

Nelson had sailed to the Caribbean in Boreas in March 1784, tasked with imposing the Navigation Acts, which perversely aimed to prevent the British Caribbean islands from trading with the American colonies, in spite of the fact that these were virtually their only source of food and raw materials. Setting about his task with characteristic zeal, Nelson soon attracted the disfavour of his commander-in-chief and the governor of Antigua, as well as a number of law-suits, which at one stage confined him to his ship. He was however able to go ashore on Nevis, where he met his future wife, the young widow Fanny Nisbet. They were married on 11 March 1787, and returned to England a few months later.