The first surviving Nelson letters date from the late 1770s. By that time Britain was at war with the American colonies and, having served his apprenticeship, Nelson was about to make a series of rapid jumps up the promotion ladder. The earliest known letter, to his elder brother William dated 20 February 1777, is printed in this book for the first time (1), a routine report of a voyage to Cadiz in the battleship HMS Worcester as acting lieutenant. Shortly afterwards, he passed his examination as lieutenant and was appointed to the frigate HMS Lowestoffe, under the command of Captain William Locker, a former protégé of the great mid-eighteenth century British admiral, Sir Edward Hawke. In her Nelson sailed to the West Indies where he was to experience his first spell of extended war service.

The first letter printed in this section is to Nelson's uncle Captain Maurice Suckling (162), who had watched so carefully over his nephew's early training. Classically ‘Nelsonian’ in its breathless excitement, it gives a vivid description of various actions with the ‘rebels’. After only a year in the Lowestoffe Captain Locker gave Nelson command of a small schooner that acted as the frigate's tender. He then transferred to the station flagship HMS Bristol as third lieutenant, under the aegis of the commander-in-chief, Admiral Sir Peter Parker who, following the death of Maurice Suckling in 1778, became his chief patron. After less than a year he was promoted to commander and was given his first independent command, the brig HMS Badger, and six months later, in June 1779, he received the key promotion to post captain when he was still just three months short of his twenty-first birthday. Although modern research into the careers of naval officers of the period2 has shown that promotion this rapid was not as unusual as some of his biographers have suggested in the past, it was nonetheless impressive. It also shows just how important it was to have influential patrons, as well as ability, in the eighteenth century. Moreover, his swift rise meant that he had served as a lieutenant for less than three years and so had spent very little time in the strict hierarchy of a wardroom. His natural independence survived.