LORD NELSON FAMILY COPY

(NELSON, Lord Horatio) (Horatio, Viscount Merton of Trafalgar) BAILLIE, Thomas. A Solemn Appeal to the Public, from an Injured Officer, Captain Baillie, Late Lieutenant Governor, of the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich. London: for Baillie by J. Almon, 1779. Tall folio (10-1/2 by 17 inches), contemporary full red morocco rebacked with original elaborately gilt-decorated spine laid down, marbled endpapers; pp. (8), xliv, 190. $4500.

Admiral Horatio Nelson family copy of this defense of Thomas Baillie, complete with fine mezzotint portrait of Baillie which was issued separately, in contemporary morocco-gilt. The copy of Lord Nelson's nephew, also named Horatio, the Viscount Merton of Trafalgar, only son of William Nelson, Admiral Nelson's brother.

Baillie, a captain in the Royal Navy, was appointed lieutenant-governor of the Greenwich Hospital in 1774. Four years later he published an account of abuses within the hospital concerning wasted revenues, the transformation of wards into fine apartments for clerks, the diet of the pensioners, and so on, which created great controversy and subsequently deprived Baillie of his office and caused a libel suit to be brought against him. This account of the trial contains Erskine's brilliant defense of Baillie which cleared him of the charges. (Erskine, later lord chancellor, had at this time just been called to the bar.). The engraved armorial bookplate was designed for Horatio, Viscount Merton of Trafalgar, the only son of William, First Earl Nelson, Admiral Horatio Nelson's brother, who died in 1808. This post-Trafalgar bookplate was designed not earlier than March 1806 or later than Jan 1808, when Viscount Merton died.

Interior fine, expert restoration to extremities. A handsome and desirable copy, with excellent provenance.