This is the best summary I could come up with:

Some letters contained accounts of wives pining for their husbands away at war, while others included discussions of household finances, the birth of a child or expressions of resentment toward sailors who had been out of touch.

Renaud Morieux, a European history professor at the University of Cambridge who discovered the collection of letters in 2004, said he asked an archivist if he could examine the contents of a box only out of curiosity while conducting research at the National Archives in southwest London.

Busy with writing a book and with other research projects, Dr. Morieux published his findings this week, nearly 20 years after discovering the letters, in the French academic journal Annales.

In one letter, a woman named Anne Le Cerf wrote to her husband, a noncommissioned officer on the ship, saying that she could not wait to “possess” him, using a word that could have meant “embrace” or “make love.” Ms.

Rebecca Earle, a history professor at the University of Warwick, said that what made this collection of letters remarkable was that they provided a rare insight into the personal lives of people in 18th-century France.

Dr. Morieux said he found it emotional to be the first person to read such messages, filled with sadness and intimacy, that went undelivered to their intended recipients.

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