HAM/1/20/30
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
Tewin Water 7th. Febry-
1780
Had you not been
formed of a very obdurate Composi=
=tion you would have had humanity
enough to have enquired whether I
had hanged myself or not. Another
Weeks continuance at Marlow, would
probably have had that aeffect. Not
a Creature to converse with -- No
Booksellers shop in the Town, -- No
Coffee House, or other lounging
place to divert my melancholy.
However, thank my Stars, these
Evils are at length terminated,
& I have removed Bag & Baggage,
Company & all to Hertford, from
which this place is only five
Miles distant. Old Ly- Cathcart
says, this must be my Head Quarters,
& she has made over to me the
command of Her Horses & Carriages.
'Till my Officers join me, I shall
make use of her kind offer & therefore
this is only to give you Notice that I
am to be found at this place near
Welwyn Herts.
Adieu.
Your Affec. Brother
N——
I see some Irish Bishopricks are
given away, but none to Uncle
Frederick. He might have saved
himself the trouble of going to the
Levee --
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Tewin Water 7th. February
1780
Had you not been
formed of a very obdurate Composition
you would have had humanity
enough to have enquired whether I
had hanged myself or not. Another
Weeks continuance at Marlow, would
probably have had that effect. Not
a Creature to converse with -- No
Booksellers shop in the Town, -- No
Coffee House, or other lounging
place to divert my melancholy.
However, thank my Stars, these
Evils are at length terminated,
& I have removed Bag & Baggage,
Company & all to Hertford, from
which this place is only five
Miles distant. Old Lady Cathcart
says, this must be my Head Quarters,
& she has made over to me the
command of Her Horses & Carriages.
Till my Officers join me, I shall
make use of her kind offer & therefore
this is only to give you Notice that I
am to be found at this place near
Welwyn Hertfordshire.
Adieu.
Your Affectionate Brother
Napier
I see some Irish Bishoprics are
given away, but none to Uncle
Frederick. He might have saved
himself the trouble of going to the
Levee --
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/20/30
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: Welwyn
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 7 February 1780
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton. He writes of
the lack of entertainment at Tewin Water where he is stationed with his
Company. He complains that there is no-one to talk to and that the town does
not have a bookseller or coffee house or other such place where he could
pass his time. Thankfully, he writes, that he is to move five miles away to
Hertford. His relation, Lady Cathcart's estate is in Herefordshire and that
her house should be Napier's head quarters (until his officer joins him) and
Lady Cathcart has placed her horses and carriages at his command.
Dated at Tewin Water [Hertfordshire].
Length: 1 sheet, 184 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: Christine Wallis, editorial team (completed 14 September 2021)
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: 3 December 2021