Tag Archives: orion

Letters from Battle of Trafalgar, via Caird Library, National Maritime Museum

The Caird Library Blog, from the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England,  has a nice entry from earlier this month about the letters of young George Perceval, whose first action as an 11-year-old sailor was in the Battle of Trafalgar, on board HMS Orion. Later, as the blog author writes, “The next letter in the collection is written on Christmas Day, and George was PER-1-20Bound Book0105.jpgobviously greatly enjoying his wait for the new ship – the letter starts out in a fair hand, but the section in which he writes that he has ‘drunk all your healths’ shows that he certainly has – and it would appear that the affects are showing in 12 year old George’s handwriting!”

Images of several letters are included, and they’re very high quality. It’s a neat presentation of fascinating manuscript content.