This letter continues our series of correspondence from John Yule to his wife Eliza. An archive of 100 letters survive from Yule and are held in the Yule family’s private collection. Yule fought at both the battle of the Nile in 1798 and Trafalgar in 1805 and was a member of Nelson’s personal staff for several years. The first letter in the series describes how demanding Nelson was and gives more background to Yule’s career and the collection. In the second letter John produces a simple and entertaining code that he and Eliza can share in their letters. This letter is particularly interesting because it shows what life in the Navy actually felt like for an officer during the age of Nelson. Instead of heroics and gunfire, we get uncertainty, ambition, homesickness, and a lot of waiting.
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