Naval Order Signed ‘Keith’ as Commander in Chief in the Mediterranean, to Doctor Polhill “having charge of the Sick and Wounded Seamen belonging to His Majesty’s Ships at Leghorn”, making the detailed arrangements for moving all Patients from Leghorn to the Hospital at Mahon. Countersigned by his secretary, Nicholas Brown 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.