Single Letter

HAM/1/19/51

Letter from William Napier, 7th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


      31st-                                                   31st-
                                                                        gout
                             Edinburgh June 28th- 1773
I am this moment My Dearest Mary in two day from
Buxton[1] & thank God I feel only a little tired, otherwise
better than I have been for ʃome time, I found
my three youngest Girls well & at home, Lady Napier
& the other two are wt Ld Cathcart at his house
in the Country where I propose going to morrow
to bring them home in a few days afterwards
I was made happy with yours from London just as
I was going into my C---haise for which I thank you
& for the ring, the motto as you ordered it, I shall
certainty like, tho I did not want any thing to
keep my dear Ward in my memory. I am
rather ʃurprised you are returned to North: as
I took it for granted that you was on yr way
to margate & your not saying any particular
buʃineʃs carried you up I t---ook it for granted
that you was set off for your sea bathing, but
I am in hopes to have all these particulars clear'd
up in your next. your presentiment never My
Dearest Girl
surer than of my ilneʃs, theGye Gout
took poʃseʃsion off my Lungs, Stomach and Bowells



and had made ʃuch a lodgement that the Doctor
was afraid he would been worsted however
thank God in about three or four days he
gave a little way & my Legs being blistered
immediately removed my Gentleman[2] to
other quarters not so eaʃily ascertained
however my Legs are so sore yet that I
can hardly move but that I hope to get
the better ʃoon off -- Remember me in the
best manner to Mrs- Hamilton & believe me
most ʃincerely My Dearest Mary's

      I am just come, ye Post just going, & I travelled
all night so you may be aʃsured no other
Lady but yrself should have heard from
me to night My Compts to Mrs- Rogers &c
Adieu God bleʃs you

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. The wording is odd, but a slip of two for to does not seem very probable.
 2. There is another example (in HAM/1/4/6/5) of my gentleman used with wry humour for ‘(the) gout’, perhaps likening that erratic ‘wandering’ illness to a restless visitor. The usage is not recorded in the OED.

Normalised Text


                     
                                                                        
                             Edinburgh June 28th- 1773
I am this moment My Dearest Mary in two day from
Buxton & thank God I feel only a little tired, otherwise
better than I have been for some time, I found
my three youngest Girls well & at home, Lady Napier
& the other two are with Lord Cathcart at his house
in the Country where I propose going to morrow
to bring them home in a few days afterwards
I was made happy with yours from London just as
I was going into my Chaise for which I thank you
& for the ring, the motto as you ordered it, I shall
certainly like, though I did not want any thing to
keep my dear Ward in my memory. I am
rather surprised you are returned to Northampton as
I took it for granted that you was on your way
to margate & your not saying any particular
business carried you up I took it for granted
that you was set off for your sea bathing, but
I am in hopes to have all these particulars cleared
up in your next. your presentiment never My
Dearest Girl surer than of my illness, the Gout
took possession of my Lungs, Stomach and Bowels



and had made such a lodgement that the Doctor
was afraid he would been worsted however
thank God in about three or four days he
gave a little way & my Legs being blistered
immediately removed my Gentleman to
other quarters not so easily ascertained
however my Legs are so sore yet that I
can hardly move but that I hope to get
the better soon of -- Remember me in the
best manner to Mrs- Hamilton & believe me
most sincerely My Dearest Mary's

      I am just come, the Post just going, & I travelled
all night so you may be assured no other
Lady but yourself should have heard from
me to night My Compliments to Mrs- Rogers &c
Adieu God bless you

(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations,
spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. The wording is odd, but a slip of two for to does not seem very probable.
 2. There is another example (in HAM/1/4/6/5) of my gentleman used with wry humour for ‘(the) gout’, perhaps likening that erratic ‘wandering’ illness to a restless visitor. The usage is not recorded in the OED.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from William Napier, 7th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/19/51

Correspondence Details

Sender: William Napier, 7th Lord

Place sent: Edinburgh

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 28 June 1773

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from William Napier, 7th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton. He has returned home from Buxton and has found his youngest girls well. Lady Napier and the other children are visiting Lord Cathcart, and he proposes to go there the following day and bring them home a few days afterwards. He thanks Hamilton for her letter and replies to something that she had written him by noting that he had assumed that she would be in Margate, sea-bathing. He continues his letter on the subject of his health, referring to the gout as ‘his Gentleman’. He has had his legs blistered and writes that they are so sore, he can hardly move them.
    Dated at Edinburgh.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 332 words

Transliteration Information

Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).

All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.

Acknowledgements: Transcription and XML version created as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1.

Transliterator: Tino Oudesluijs, editorial team (completed 21 August 2020)

Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library

Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library

Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors

Revision date: 2 November 2021

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