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Auction: 1025 - The Turl Collection of Naval General Service Medals 1793 - 1840
Lot: 8

A Scarce and Well Documented ´Nile´ Pair to John Speed, Royal Navy Naval General Service 1793-1840, one clasp, Nile (John Speed.), darkly toned, minor edge bruising; Alexander Davison´s Medal for the Nile 1798, 47mm, bronze-gilt, reverse field engraved ´John Speed, Swiftsure 74´, gilt slightly worn, generally very fine, with the following mostly original documentation: - Recipient´s indenture of Apprenticeship, for a period of four years in the service of Mr. Matthew Clover, a ´Master and Mariner´, dated 14.11.1788 - Letter from the recipient to his parents recounting his escape from the wreck of the Courageux off the Barbary coast, dated on board the Ville de Paris, at sea, 12.4.1797 - Copies of The Times, dated 3.10.1798, with a report of Nelson´s victory off the Nile, and another for 7.11.1805, with a report on Trafalgar, the latter being a 50th Anniversary commemorative edition - Letter to the recipient from the Check-Office, Greenwich Hospital, reporting that no prize-funds had been credited to the establishment in relation to Speed´s naval service, dated 20.5.1812 (2) Estimate £ 5,000-6,000 John Speed served as Able Seaman in H.M.S. Swiftsure for Nelson´s action off the Nile, 1.8.1798. One Large Naval Gold Medal (Nelson) and twelve Small Naval Gold Medals were awarded for this action. John Speed, born Sunderland, circa 1770; apprenticed for a term of four years to Matthew Clover, a Master and Mariner, 1778; stipulations of indenture including, ´Taverns or Alehouses he shall not frequent, unless about his Master´s business. At cards and dice, tables, bowls or any other unlawful games he shall not play..... Matrimony during the said term he shall not contract´ (Indenture included in lot refers); not long after his apprenticeship it appears that Speed was impressed into service with the Royal Navy, early service including in H.M.S. Courageux (Captain B. Hallowell); whilst serving in the latter Speed was to survive her wreck off the Barbary coast in December 1796, ´We were then in number on board 640 and in less that 20 minutes time there was only 126 alive that made their escape onto the rocks and a great many were almost naked and after they got on shore upwards of 30 perished and we lay on the rocks all that night on a most deplorable condition and in the morning we were resolved to see if we could find any inhabitants. We travelled most part of the day and to our joy we fell in with some of the Moors of Turks. They conveyed us to a cave under a rock and made a fire for us so that we got our clothes dried. They gave us some horse beans to eat and we remained there six days upon a few horse beans once a day, there being such a heavy fall of rain we could go no further....´ (Letter included in lot refers); the survivors of the wreck eventually made safe passage to Gibraltar via Tangiers and Speed was temporarily borne on the books of H.M.S. Ville de Paris before joining H.M.S. Swiftsure as an Able Seaman; he served in the latter under the command of his old Captain, Benjamin Hallowell, in Nelson´s historic action off the Nile, August 1798, when the Swiftsure played a significant role in the destruction of the enemy´s flag ship Orient, the eventual explosion of which was heard as far away as Rosetta, some ten miles distant; still serving in the Mediterranean theatre in H.M.S. Swiftsure in 1801, Speed is credited on the latest published transcription of the medal roll as being additionally entitled to the ´Egypt´ clasp. Provenance Spink Medal Circular December 1996

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£7,500