HAM/1/20/42
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
Welwyn, 7th. Decr- 1780.
Your disobedience astonishes
me -- Pray Miʃs did not I command
you to write to me? Are my orders to
be treated in this manner? Am I to
write Ten letters for one? In this little
dirty Village, I have little else to do than
read letters, and you forsooth won't
write any.
I expect to hear from
you immediately, for I have a packet
to transmit to You, which I received
this morning. It is from Lady Hen:
Hope, wanting government to aʃsist a Lady
in distreʃs. I had some conversation with
her upon the subject before I left Scotland
& promised to do every thing in my
power to forward the application. She
suggested tellsending the Case to the Q. but
by sending it to You, it is not my
intention to desire You to ask a favour,
only to put me in such a way of doing it
as you think may make the request
effectual. Send me a frank for Yourself
& I will inclose the Packet, just as I
received it.
Lady C. is in good health.
I saw her yesterday and dine with her
tomorrow. I told her the conversation
I had with the Q. about her, which pleased
her wonderfully -- I am at length settled
in my Lodgings. My Landlord drives
a Stage Coach & I am now sitting in
my Parlour, with a Child squalling
on one side of me, a Hog stye on the
other and a Blacksmiths shop in
front. My only amusements are Eating
Drinking, Sleeping, Drilling Six Men,
Scolding my Serjeants, & letter scribbling.
I mention not reading, for alas my li=
=brary is small -- Adieu. I
remain ever Your affect- Brother
N——
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Welwyn, 7th. December 1780.
Your disobedience astonishes
me -- Pray Miss did not I command
you to write to me? Are my orders to
be treated in this manner? Am I to
write Ten letters for one? In this little
dirty Village, I have little else to do than
read letters, and you forsooth won't
write any.
I expect to hear from
you immediately, for I have a packet
to transmit to You, which I received
this morning. It is from Lady Henrietta
Hope, wanting government to assist a Lady
in distress. I had some conversation with
her upon the subject before I left Scotland
& promised to do every thing in my
power to forward the application. She
suggested sending the Case to the Queen but
by sending it to You, it is not my
intention to desire You to ask a favour,
only to put me in such a way of doing it
as you think may make the request
effectual. Send me a frank for Yourself
& I will enclose the Packet, just as I
received it.
Lady Cathcart is in good health.
I saw her yesterday and dine with her
tomorrow. I told her the conversation
I had with the Queen about her, which pleased
her wonderfully -- I am at length settled
in my Lodgings. My Landlord drives
a Stage Coach & I am now sitting in
my Parlour, with a Child squalling
on one side of me, a Hog sty on the
other and a Blacksmiths shop in
front. My only amusements are Eating
Drinking, Sleeping, Drilling Six Men,
Scolding my Serjeants, & letter scribbling.
I mention not reading, for alas my library
is small -- Adieu. I
remain ever Your affectionate Brother
Napier
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/1/20/42
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: Welwyn
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 7 December 1780
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton, relating to
lodgings and an application for assistance. Napier admonishes Hamilton for
her not writing to him and hopes to hear from her immediately as he has
nothing to do in 'this dirty little village' but read letters. He has
received a packet to send to her from Lady Henrietta Hope who wants the
'government to assist a Lady in distress'. He had spoken with her on the
subject before he left Scotland and had promised to do all he could to
'forward the application'. He does not ask Hamilton to present it only to
'put me in such a way of doing it as you think may make the request
effectual'.
Napier details his lodgings in Welwyn. His landlord is a coach driver and he
is sat writing in a parlour with a screaming child on one side of him. His
only amusements are sleeping, drinking, eating and drilling his six men and
scolding his sergeants. Reading is not included as his 'library is
small'.
Dated at Welwyn [Hertfordshire].
Length: 1 sheet, 287 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 17 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