Nelson's engaging warmth and affection was not confined to his family. He also had a gift for friendship, and he carefully cultivated his friends with letters during his long absences at sea. Many of these were lovingly preserved and so have found their way into the collected editions and into biographies. Nonetheless, even in this well-ploughed field, new material has been added to the ‘canon’ that enables us to fill some surprising gaps in the existing material.

Nelson's friends fall into two categories, both of which are represented here. First, and most numerous, were his Royal Navy friends. He was, after all, on active service for considerably more than half of his short life and so it is scarcely surprising that the majority of his friends were men with whom he shared these intense and action-filled years. Letters to all those service friends with whom he corresponded regularly will be found throughout this book: some have been brought together in this section to illustrate the characteristically warm manner in which he always wrote. For example, there is a rare letter to Thomas Hardy inviting him to Merton: ‘We shall all be happy in receiving you as one of our true friends & we all love you, believe me every your affectionate, Nelson & Bronte’ (29). Or there is one of his characteristic envois, to Alexander Ball, at that time serving as Governor of Malta:

It is also clear from the letters printed here what a loyal friend he was: for example, supporting Captain James Macnamara when he was on trial for manslaughter having killed a man in a duel (33), or providing a testimonial for Captain Henry Digby (30).

A notable absentee, hitherto, from the ranks of Nelson's naval friends properly represented among his letters has been Admiral Sir Peter Parker. Yet the admiral and his wife Margaret were among the most important people in Nelson's early life. It was, after all, thanks to Parker that Nelson received such rapid promotion to Post Captain, which in turn meant that he became an admiral when still comparatively young.