[‘I make no doubt will succeed in a very extensive degree’: Sir Robert Mends, distinguished Royal Navy officer.] Long Autograph Letter Signed to the British Envoy at Lisbon Charles Stuart, describing his Portuguese situation during the Peninsular War

See his entry and that of Stuart in the Oxford DNB. 3pp, 4to. On bifolium. Sixty-six lines of neatly-written text, signed ‘R Mends’ and addressed ‘To / The Honble Chas. Stuart / His Majestys Envoy / Lisbon’. A vivid and substantial historical document. Of his activities around this time the Oxford DNB writes: ‘In the summer of 1810, in command of a squadron on the coast of Spain, Mends destroyed several French batteries, for which service, in addition to a formal letter of thanks from the junta of Galicia, he received the order of the Cross of Victory of the Asturias and the nominal rank of major-general of the Spanish army.’ He begins by osberving that the ‘Correspondence with Biscay has been kept so profoundly abstracted’ from his knowledge, that he really knows ‘nothing of the matter, beyond having directed every Ship on the Station to attend to it, in preference to every other object. ie to receive on board any Agent who might present himself as so employ’d’. He continues with reference to ‘the mode of carrying on this correspondence’, ‘the Deputy Commissary Mr. White’, ‘Arana’, ‘the Blockaded Ports’, ‘the Nimrod cutter’, ‘the House of Mr. Dickinson’, ‘Don Raymond de Castro the late Captain General of Galicia’, ‘the Ifegena’, ‘Santona’, ‘General Renovales’. He concludes: ‘I am now getting under weigh for Bermio [sic] with a large Quantity of Ammunition on board for Biscay & Navarra, and shall immediately return here to conduct the Expedition which I make no doubt will succeed in a very extensive degree - God grant that we may receive such accounts from your side of the Country as we hope soon to send from this’.