Saunders, Charles, Sir, Admiral (ca. 1715-1775). Two Official Orders Addressed to "Captain Tonyn, Commander of HMS Brune ", both Written in Secretarial Hand, one Signed "Chas. Saunders. " Both: on board HMS Neptune, Gibraltar Bay, 5 January 1762.

Both Folios (ca. 32,5x20,5 cm). Each 1 p.; brown ink on watermarked laid paper, main text in secretarial hand (“By Command of the Admiral Sam. More”). One order signed by Saunders and with a period manuscript note “This is the original order” at the bottom. Both docketed in ink “Brune” on versos. Documents with stains, tears and two minor holes on folds (one affecting a word), but overall a good collection written in very legible hand.

Two important naval orders from the time of the Seven Years’ War, issued a day after Britain’s declaration of war to Spain (4 January 1762). Both orders were created by the secretary of Admiral Charles Saunders, Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean fleet, and addressed to Captain George Anthony Tonyn (d. 1770) of the HMS “Brune.”

The first document (a copy of the original order) directs Captain Tonyn: “You are hereby required and directed to put yourself under my Command & follow all such further Orders as you shall receive from me, till further orders”. The second order, with the original signature of Sir Charles Saunders informs Tonyn of the Britain’s declaration of war to Spain and orders “immediately to commence Hostilities against his Catholic Majesty [Spanish King] & his Subjects by taking, sinking, burning, or destroying their Ships, Vessels, & Effects, and to protect his Majesty’s trading subjects to whom you are to give Notice of the Rupture with Spain.”

George Anthony Tonyn became a lieutenant of the Royal Navy in 1756, a captain of HMS Fowey in 1758, and a captain of the frigate Brune in 1761. In 1767 he was appointed to the Phoenix of 44 guns and ordered to the coast of Africa, apparently as the commander of the African Station (see more: Charnock, J. Biographis Navalis; or Impartial Memories of the Lives and Characters of Officers of the Navy of Great Britain, from the Year 1660 to the present time. Vol. VI. London, 1798, p. 344). On 17th October 1762 HMS Brune under command of Tonyn captured the French Frigate "L'Oiseau " commanded by Capitaine De Modene in what is now regarded as the last sea battle of the Seven Years War between France and Great Britain. His nephew was Charles William Paterson (1756-1841), Admiral of the White.

“Admiral Sir Charles Saunders, KB was a Commander-in-Chief of the British Mediterranean Fleet during the Seven Years' War and later served as First Lord of the Admiralty. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1766. Cape Saunders, on the Otago coast of New Zealand, was named in his honour by Captain James Cook, who had served under Saunders in Canada” (Wikipedia).