Description
A long Autograph Letter Signed, addressed ‘My dear Lord’, about the names on a list of promotion to high naval rank, and reflecting on the future of Bermuda. 10 pp. 9 x 7 inches, light toning to one page only, in good condition. HMS Barham, Bermudas, 16 November 1828. Admiral Charles Elphinstone (1774-1840), second son of John 11th Lord Elphinstone and a nephew of Admiral Lord Keith, took the additional name of Fleeming (pronounced Fleming) on inheriting his grandmother’s estates in Wigtoun. He served in the Navy from 1794, became an admiral, commander-in-chief at Gibraltar (1816), a Whig member of the Reform Parliament, and he died while serving as governor of the Royal Naval Hospital, Greenwich. He married Catalina Paulina Alessandro (1800–1880), of Cadiz. “Since I have been at Bermudas I have frequently reflected on the plan you informed me of at Melville Castle of making it the Head quarters of the West India Command, in every point of which it is most judicious and I most ernestly recommend it to to be adopted, as Commissioner Hughes will be removed from Jamaica by the death of Sir George Gray, it will offer a good opportunity to reduce that establishment as I have suggested in my letter of the 19th of Sept …”