The 1805 Dispatches #21.03 June 2021 5 of 5 LATE NEWS EXTRA The 1805 Dispatches usually has a four-page format, but one of the joys of digital-only publications is that there is a flexibility that is unavailable to printed matter. Like Horatio Nelson, William Hoste was the son of a Norfolk vicar. He joined Nelson as Captain’s Servant aboard HMS Agamemnon in April 1793, soon after the outbreak of war with France. Nelson described the young Hoste as being ‘without exception one of the finest boys I ever met with’, promoting him to midshipman within a year. Hoste moved with Nelson to HMS Captain in 1796 and was present at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, where the capture of the great Spanish ships San Joseph and San Nicholas was achieved by ‘Nelson’s Patent Bridge for Boarding FirstRates’. As a newly promoted Lieutenant, Hoste served aboard HMS Theseus at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. He became one of a number of officers who commissioned Egyptian-styled objects in celebration of the victory and his magnificent set of four ormolu wine coolers will be offered in Sotheby’s ‘Treasures’ auction on 6 July 2021, following a public exhibition. In September 1805 Nelson appointed Hoste to the command of HMS Amphion, a 32-gun frigate dispatched to North Africa with diplomatic gifts for the Dey of Algiers. This meant that - to his lasting regret - Hoste missed Trafalgar but his subsequent career in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic was to prove outstandingly successful. Rewards included a Captain’s Gold Medal for the Battle of Lissa, when Hoste famously hoisted the signal Remember Nelson before leading four frigates to a famous victory over a much larger Franco-Venetian squadron on 13 March 1811, the Austrian Order of Maria Theresa (1814), and a knighthood with the award of his KCB in January, 1815. Hoste’s gold medal and Order insignia, together with other related items and family medals, will also be offered for auction by Morton & Eden, on 13 July 2021, and will be available for public viewing at Sotheby’s alongside the ‘Egyptian’ wine coolers. Here is a live link to: http://www.mortonandeden.com/
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