An Original Signed Paper Slip on Board His Majesty's Ship H.M.S De Paris by British naval officer Admiral William Cornwallis. Dated 1801. Admiral of the Red Sir William Cornwallis, 1744-1819 was a Royal Navy officer. He was the brother of Charles Cornwallis, the 1st Marquess Cornwallis, British commander at the siege of Yorktown. Cornwallis took part in a number of decisive battles including the siege of Louisbourg in 1758, when he was 14, and the Battle of the Saintes but is best known as a friend of Lord Nelson and as the commander-in-chief of the Channel Fleet during the Napoleonic Wars. HMS Ville de Paris was a 110-gun first rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 17 July 1795 at Chatham Dockyard. She was designed by Sir John Henslow, and was the only ship built to her draught. She was named after the French ship of the line Ville de Paris, flagship of François Joseph Paul de Grasse during the American Revolutionary War. That ship had been captured by the Royal Navy at the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782, but in September of that year on the voyage to England as a prize, she sank in a hurricane. She served as the flagship of John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent, with the Channel Fleet. Size of paper is 97mm x 50mm. Condition is good. Mounted on paper.