"Whether It Was Alexander Davison, His Tried Friend In Afterlife, As
Southey Suggests, Or Another Quebecer Of Note, In 1782, Matthew
Lymburner, As Lt.-Col.
John Sewell, on the faith of Hon.
William
Smith, the Historian of Canada, had stated to us, is of minor
importance: one thing is certain, some thoughtful friend, in 1782,
seems to have extricated the impulsive Horatio from the 'tangles of
Neaera's hair' in the port of Quebec: the hand of fate had marked the
future Captain of the Victory, not as the Romeo of a Canadian
Juliet, but as the paramour of Lady Emma Hamilton. Alas! for his fair
fame! It seems certain that the Commander of the Albemarle,
during his repeated visits to our port, in July, September and
October, 1782, became acquainted, possibly at some entertainment at
Freemason's Hall, - the 'Windsor' of the period - with 'sweet sixteen'
(he himself was but twenty-four) in the person of Miss Mary Simpson,
the blooming daughter of an old Highlandman, Sandy Simpson, a cousin
to Mr. James Thompson, then overseer of works, and father of the late
Judge John Gwalor Thompson, of Gaspe, and of late Com.-General James
Thompson, of Quebec. Sandy Simpson was an habitue of this historical
and, for the period, vast old stone mansion where Captain Miles
Prentice, [133] as he had been styled in 1775, hung out, with good
cheer, the olive branch of Freemasonry and of loyalty to his
Sovereign. The bonne societe of Quebec, in 1782, was limited
indeed: and it was not probable the arrival from sea of one of H.M.'s
ships of war, the Albemarle, could escape the notice of the leading
men in Quebec.
"If the Quebec Gazette of 1782 and Quebec Herald, published in
1789-90, contain no mention of this incident, several passages in the
correspondence [134] exchanged by the Thompson family with the early
love of Nelson, when she had become a stately London matron, as spouse
of Colonel Matthews, Governor of the Chelsea Hospital, throw light on
his previous career in Quebec.
"The question as to whether Nelson's charmer was Miss Prentice or her
cousin, Mary Simpson, which we submitted in the Tourists' Note Book in
1876 (see pages 26 and 36), we had considered as settled, in 1878, in
favour of Miss Simpson, as the following passage in the Chronicles
of the St. Lawrence shows:
"Here anchored (Island of Orleans), it would seem, Nelson's sloop of
war, the Albemarle, in 1782, when the love-sick Horatio returned to
Quebec, for a last farewell from the blooming Miss Simpson, a daughter
of Sandy Simpson, one of Wolfe's Provost Marshals. Miss Simpson
afterwards married Colonel Matthews, Governor of the Chelsea
Pensioners, and died speaking tenderly of her first love, the hero of
Trafalgar.' (Chronicles of the St. Lawrence, p. 198.)
"This eclaircissement, as to dates, is not out of place, inasmuch as
one of our respected historians, Dr. Hy. Miles, in a scholarly
article, published March, 1879, three years after our mentioning Miss
Simpson, labours under the idea he was the first to give her name in
connection with Lord Nelson.
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