Valentine’s Day often brings to mind flowers, cards, and romantic gestures, but for centuries love travelled in a much quieter way. Not by text message or email, but by ink, folded paper, and hope.
Recently, after my aunt passed away, my cousins discovered that she had kept love letters from my uncle, written while he was working far away in India. My cousins didn’t read them. They felt too personal, words meant only for their parents.
And that’s what makes one extraordinary collection of letters connected to the sea so haunting. Because some love letters were never received.
Letters Written for Sailors
In the mid-18th century, during the Seven Years’ War, French sailors left home aboard naval ships bound for distant waters.
They were not famous captains or admirals. They were ordinary men, sons, husbands, sweethearts. Back on shore, the people who loved them wrote letters:
- wives writing to husbands
- fiancées writing to the men they missed
- mothers sending comfort across the waves
These were not public words. They were private threads holding lives together across an ocean.
It’s also worth remembering that letter writing was not always as simple or private as it feels today. Many ordinary people could not read or write, and had to rely on a more educated neighbour, a local scribe, or someone at the port to put their words onto paper. Imagine speaking your most heartfelt thoughts aloud to a stranger, trusting them to capture the tenderness, the longing, the ache of missing someone far away at sea. Even the act of writing a love letter required courage.
One woman wrote simply:
“I could spend the night writing to you…”
Another signed off with tenderness:
“Good night, my dear friend.”
The Capture of the Galatée
Many of these letters were intended for sailors serving aboard the French frigate Galatée.
In 1758, during the Seven Years’ War, the Galatée was captured en route from Bordeaux to Quebec by the British Royal Navy and her crew were taken prisoner to England.
The sailors were held far from home, uncertain of when, or if, they would ever return. Yet the people in France kept writing.
The French Postal Service Tried to Deliver Them
What makes this story so remarkable is that these letters were not simply lost in the chaos of battle.
After news of the capture reached France, the French postal authorities continued to forward correspondence intended for the crew, sending it through official channels to England in the hope it could still reach the imprisoned sailors.
The letters were presented to the British Admiralty. Somewhere, the writers must have imagined their words arriving even behind prison walls.
Most never did.
Sealed Away for Centuries
Instead of reaching their recipients, the letters were stored among Admiralty papers.
They eventually ended up in the collections of what is now the British National Archives at Kew, near London. There they remained unopened, unread, and forgotten.
Not for days or months, but for more than 250 years.
They became known as the “sealed letters” because so many were still folded, sealed, and private, exactly as the writers had left them.
Opened Only Out of Curiosity
In the 21st century, historians rediscovered this extraordinary bundle of correspondence. Carefully, out of curiosity and a desire to understand the lives of ordinary people touched by war and separation, some of the letters were finally opened and read for the first time.
They were never grand declarations meant for history. They were simple, human messages.
One woman promised devotion:
“I am your forever faithful wife.”
Another wrote with aching intimacy:
“I embrace you with my heart, being unable to do it with my lips.”
Words that waited centuries to be heard.
What Happened to the Sailors?
For many of the intended recipients, the outcome was uncertain or tragic.
Some sailors never returned home. Some remained prisoners. Some may have waited for news that never arrived, unaware that letters had been written at all.
The sea didn’t just separate them by distance, it silenced their connection entirely.
Is It Right to Read Someone Else’s Love Letter?
It’s impossible to encounter the sealed letters without feeling a strange discomfort.
These were private words. They were never meant for historians, journalists, or for us.
So why do they move us so deeply?
Perhaps because they remind us that love has always lived in ordinary moments:
- missing someone
- worrying for them
- longing for their return
- writing anyway
And perhaps because, like my aunt and uncle’s letters, they carry something intimate that feels almost sacred.
Maybe the question isn’t whether we should read them, but what we owe them when we do.
Respect. Gentleness. Listening.
The Lost Art of Love Letters
In a world of instant messages, love letters can feel like something from another life. Yet these sealed letters remind us that love used to travel slowly. Love required patience.
Love was written down carefully, because it might be the only way to stay close.
This Valentine’s Day, perhaps the most romantic thing isn’t a grand gesture, but a few honest words written deliberately for someone you care about. Even now, when messages travel instantly, there is something timeless about taking the time to put love into words.
Happy Valentine’s Day from LoveSail
Today, love no longer has to travel by letter. LoveSail is a global sailing community for dating, friendship, and finding crew, connecting sailors wherever they may be.
Image courtesy of: Renaud Morieux/The National Archives/PA
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