Autograph Letter Signed ‘Keith’ [to Mr. Atkinson] about works needing attention on his estate by KEITH, George Keith Elphinstone, Admiral Lord

7 February 1797. 2 pp. 9 x 7 inches, in good condition, with the address leaf, Penny Post mark. Elphinstone, In HMS Monarch, arrived in England on 3 January 1797 as conqueror of the Cape and the captor of the Dutch fleet. George Keith Elphinstone, Viscount Keith (1746-1823), admiral, fought in the American War of Independence, and commanded the expedition which took Cape Town (1795-97). In December 1798 he was sent to the Mediterranean as second in command to St.Vincent. Keith landed the army in Aboukir Bay (1801). From 1803 to 1807 he was commander-in-chief in the North Sea, with particular responsibility for coastal defence (including the Channel) in the event of a French invasion. From 1812 he was commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet, and had a line of cruisers along the French coast at the time of Waterloo.