The Seven Years War (1756-63)
Manuscript and printed maps and views, correspondence and journals from the first global war
St Cast, 1758 (Saint-Cast-le-Guildo, Brittany, France) 48°37'49"N 02°15'27"W
c.1758Ten pages of text. Ink on two sheets of paper, folded in half to give eight sides, together with two smaller, separate sheets. | 22.9 x 19.0 cm (folded size) | RCIN 732078.c
The tentative attribution to Pleydell is made on stylistic grounds, but it is possible that the author could be David Dundas, although the writing does not resemble this. The letter dated Newport 22 September is a continuation, in a more informal, possibly different hand, of that begun on 17 September. The whole may be a draft, kept by the author, of the fair copy which would have been sent to the recipient. The later letter begins: 'I had the pleasure of writing you a few Lines Tuesday last by Col: Elliott, & same time send you two sketches of our Operations at Cherburgh, & S.t Cast, both which I hope you received, & found Proper …'.
The Colonel Elliott to whom reference is made may be George Augustus Eliott (1717-90), later 1st Baron Heathfield of Gibraltar who was in 1758 a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 2nd Horse Grenadier Guards, as well as being an Engineer officer. He was to raise, on 10 March 1759, a regiment of light cavalry and was made Colonel of the 1st Light Horse (later the 15th Light Dragoons) into which David Dundas was commissioned a few months later on 9 September 1759.
For further reading, see:
J. Falkner, 'Eliott, George Augustus, first Baron Heathfield of Gibraltar (1717–1790)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004; online edition, Jan 2008.
Condition: every page has three fold lines and the whole appears to have been tightly folded to 14.1 x 8.0 cm; worn and slightly torn along folds on back page.
? John Cleeve Pleydell (1736-1816) (author)
Subject(s)
Army-FranceArmy-GBWatermark: I V
Mark, stamped: 866
Condition: every page has three fold lines and the whole appears to have been tightly folded to 14.1 x 8.0 cm; worn and slightly torn along folds on back page
22.9 x 19.0 cm (folded size)
Manuscript title:
No title. [Unsigned letters, possibly by John Cleeve Pleydell, dated Plymouth Septr 17 1758, and Newport Sep: 22.d 1758, to an unknown recipient, giving details of the action at St Cast and the events before and after.]
Annotations:
George III heading: S.t Cas 7-11 Sep. 1758.
Other annotations: (Recto) [top right, black pencil:] 10 [this number appears on subsequent recto pages]. (Verso) none.
George III catalogue entry:
Cas, S.t A drawn Map of the Bay of S.t Cas in Bretagne and the adjacent country relative to the Expedition under General Bligh in September 1758: inclosing another copy of D.o on thin paper and a copy of a Letter giving an account of the Expedition.
Subject(s)
Saint-Cast-le-Guildo, Brittany, France (48°37'49"N 02°15'27"W)
Page revisions
3 November 2024
Current version
