Gareth

A quick and preliminary look seems to indicate that such a letter may not in fact exist.

The story of the letter appears to have originated in a work by Sir William Frazer, Hec et Ubique published in 1893. I could not find a mention with an earlier date. Sir William states that he was told of the existence of the letter by an unnamed source and it was in the Admiralty Archives, but, he did not search for it. He hoped someone else would look for it.

Cronin apparently did so for his biography in 1972. “The collection of letters in which N's application would be is not in the P.R.O. and seems to have disappeared.”

The United Service for February 1894 questions the story, “It is a curious story, as Sir William Frazer says; but Sir William is, above all, a raconteur, and we should rather see the matter verified by some such person as Professor Loughlin.”

While in 1988 Dorothy Carrington published Napoleon and His Parents: On the Threshold of History and wrote,”Even greater doubt overclouds the assertion of Sir William Fraser that Napoleon showed a fellow student at Brienne, an English boy, the future Lord Wenlock, a letter in 'remarkably good English' requesting admission to the British navy, which ....”

Ron