HAM/1/19/54
Letter from William Napier, 7th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
32d- To Margate
Edinburgh August 26. 1773
Once more My Dear Ward I sit down to write
you & aʃsure you I am mending a pace; tho
I have had really a terrible time ʃince I came
to Scotland & ʃome little time before, two
Phiʃicians constantly attending me with
Surgeons Nurses and the D——l however
I am so well recovered as to be able to thank
My Dear Ward for hers of the 6th- of July &
to aʃsure her this is my first letter (but one
on buʃineʃs that I wrote two days ago) that
I have ventured to write & I know your
Goodneʃs will excuse the shortneʃs of it.
I am obliged to you for the Ring & am very
impatient to get it, as for Killarney[1] I
dont think it was worth the expence of
the binding, but you do always as you
please & get round the Spiral Circle
with yr Mama & Guardian just as you
please so nothing more can be ʃaid but
that its Miʃs Hamiltons pleasure so of course
we must subscribe yr mama wont own this,
but it dont ʃignify & its not the leʃs true
remember the Picture in the Corner of the
dining Parlour, pray how does it look now?
I really dont know how to deʃire you to send
the Book & Ring unleʃs you could send[2] them
derected to me to the Care of James
Ruʃsell Esqr Naʃsau Street St Annes & he
will send them by ʃome ʃafe hand that
is coming down to Edinburgh & I shall
write him that ʃuch a parcell will be
sent him & beg he'll take care of it
Adieu My Dear Ward & believe you have not
two sincerer friends than Lady Napier and
I, who joins me in best Compts- to Mrs-
Hamilton & you & believe me to be
most affctly yours
Napier
Lady Napier wrote you very lately. remember me to
Mrs Rogers in a particular manner[3]
[4]
Recd: at Margate Septr. 5th
1773[5]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This probably refers to ‘Killarney: A Poem’, written by John Leslie and published in 1772.
2. The marks here are probably blottings from the M of Hamilton's ‘Margate’ on the flap opposite.
3. Part of the sheet to the right of the closer has been cut away, but no text appears to have been lost from this page.
4. This side of the page is only partly preserved.
5. This annotation is written vertically along the margin at the top right of the page.
Normalised Text
Edinburgh August 26. 1773
Once more My Dear Ward I sit down to write
you & assure you I am mending a pace; though
I have had really a terrible time since I came
to Scotland & some little time before, two
Physicians constantly attending me with
Surgeons Nurses and the Devil however
I am so well recovered as to be able to thank
My Dear Ward for hers of the 6th- of July &
to assure her this is my first letter (but one
on business that I wrote two days ago) that
I have ventured to write & I know your
Goodness will excuse the shortness of it.
I am obliged to you for the Ring & am very
impatient to get it, as for Killarney I
dont think it was worth the expense of
the binding, but you do always as you
please & get round the Spiral Circle
with your Mama & Guardian just as you
please so nothing more can be said but
that it's Miss Hamiltons pleasure so of course
we must subscribe your mama won't own this,
but it doesn't signify & it's not the less true
remember the Picture in the Corner of the
dining Parlour, pray how does it look now?
I really don't know how to desire you to send
the Book & Ring unless you could send them
directed to me to the Care of James
Russell Esqr Nassau Street St Annes & he
will send them by some safe hand that
is coming down to Edinburgh & I shall
write him that such a parcel will be
sent him & beg he'll take care of it
Adieu My Dear Ward & believe you have not
two sincerer friends than Lady Napier and
I, who joins me in best Compliments to Mrs-
Hamilton & you & believe me to be
most affectionately yours
Napier
Lady Napier wrote you very lately. remember me to
Mrs Rogers in a particular manner
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
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/1/19/54
Correspondence Details
Sender: William Napier, 7th Lord
Place sent: Edinburgh
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Margate
Date sent: 26 August 1773
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from William Napier, 7th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton, concerning
his poor health and a ring and a book that Hamilton has sent him (see HAM/1/19/57).
Length: 1 sheet, 330 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.
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