HAM/1/20/45
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
Welwyn, Herts, 24th: Feby-
1781.
Ten Thousand thanks to my
Dearest Sister for her very kind Offer --
She must not be hurt if I decline taking
advantage of her generosity, neither would
I wish that She should impute my re=
=fusal to Pride or false delicacy --
You bid me not answer
'till I have reflected, & I have obeyed You.
The more I reflect the more improper, not
to call it dishonest would be my accept=
=ance of the astonishing proof you give
me of your friendship and esteem, appear
to the world and to myself. No my Dear
Sister, I sincerely trust that no selfish
consideration will ever induce me
to act contrary to my own Idea of Integrity,
and while I feel myself actuated by princi=
=ple & equity, I never can prevail upon
myself to borrow without a certainty of
being able to repay -- In your debt I
must for ever be, and I am convinced
you will do me the justice to beleive
that I feel the full force of your dis=
=interested and generous proposal -- I
hope you will ever find my friendship
for You real & sincere. It distreʃses
me beyond expreʃsion to find you put
the tryal of its sincerity upon my acceptance
of what would make me despise myself
for ever, should I even entertain the
most distant intention of doing so -- at
the same time I shall always conceive
my obligation to You the same as if
I had accepted. My heart is too full
to add anything more to what I have
wrote, or to correct its incoherency, I
can only say that I am & ever will be
your most sincere friend & much obliged
Brother --
N——
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Normalised Text
Welwyn, Hertfordshire, 24th: February
1781.
Ten Thousand thanks to my
Dearest Sister for her very kind Offer --
She must not be hurt if I decline taking
advantage of her generosity, neither would
I wish that She should impute my refusal
to Pride or false delicacy --
You bid me not answer
till I have reflected, & I have obeyed You.
The more I reflect the more improper, not
to call it dishonest would my acceptance
of the astonishing proof you give
me of your friendship and esteem, appear
to the world and to myself. No my Dear
Sister, I sincerely trust that no selfish
consideration will ever induce me
to act contrary to my own Idea of Integrity,
and while I feel myself actuated by principle
& equity, I never can prevail upon
myself to borrow without a certainty of
being able to repay -- In your debt I
must for ever be, and I am convinced
you will do me the justice to believe
that I feel the full force of your disinterested
and generous proposal -- I
hope you will ever find my friendship
for You real & sincere. It distresses
me beyond expression to find you put
the trial of its sincerity upon my acceptance
of what would make me despise myself
for ever, should I even entertain the
most distant intention of doing so -- at
the same time I shall always conceive
my obligation to You the same as if
I had accepted. My heart is too full
to add anything more to what I have
written, or to correct its incoherency, I
can only say that I am & ever will be
your most sincere friend & much obliged
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/1/20/45
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: Welwyn
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 24 February 1781
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton, relating to
his turning down Hamilton's offer of a loan. Napier is very thankful to
Hamilton but he is not selfish to take what he may not be able to repay and
his own 'integrity' will not allow him to accept.
Dated at Welwyn [Hertfordshire].
Length: 1 sheet, 283 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