Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/20/92

Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


                                                         Cork 21st. July 1785.

My Dear Sister,
      I need not tell You
how happy I was to receive your
Letter giving me an account of your
Marriage. I beg you will present my
best Compliments to Mr. Dickenson
& tell him that I very sincerely
wish he may be as miserable &
unhappy in his new Situation as I
am.
      You must be surprised at
not having heard from me sooner, but
I did not receive your Letter 'till
last Night owing to my having been
absent from home for some Weeks,
looking after a Legacy I lately succeeded
to by the Death of a distant relation
of mine (a Mrs- Naper) in this Country
who has left me an Executor & Residuary
Legatee, by which I shall pocket about


Three Thousand Guineas. Some of her
relations have however attacked the
Will, but without any good ground
to go on. The busineʃs will be brought
before the Prerogative Court next
November, in the mean time I
have administered, paid the Legacies
&c. &c. If I carry my cause I shall directly
point at a Company in the Guards,
so that You and all my friends must
pray fervently for my Succeʃs, if
You have any desire of seeing me
in Britain.
      Maria grows large & is
to be confined next Month. When that
event happens I shall not fail to
communicate it to You. She begs to
join me in every good wish for
the happineʃs & satisfaction of Yourself
& Mr. Dickenson. Beleive me ever
your very sincere friend & affectie. Brother
                                                         Napier.

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red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)

Normalised Text


                                                         Cork 21st. July 1785.

My Dear Sister,
      I need not tell You
how happy I was to receive your
Letter giving me an account of your
Marriage. I beg you will present my
best Compliments to Mr. Dickenson
& tell him that I very sincerely
wish he may be as miserable &
unhappy in his new Situation as I
am.
      You must be surprised at
not having heard from me sooner, but
I did not receive your Letter till
last Night owing to my having been
absent from home for some Weeks,
looking after a Legacy I lately succeeded
to by the Death of a distant relation
of mine (a Mrs- Naper) in this Country
who has left me an Executor & Residuary
Legatee, by which I shall pocket about


Three Thousand Guineas. Some of her
relations have however attacked the
Will, but without any good ground
to go on. The business will be brought
before the Prerogative Court next
November, in the mean time I
have administered, paid the Legacies
&c. &c. If I carry my cause I shall directly
point at a Company in the Guards,
so that You and all my friends must
pray fervently for my Success, if
You have any desire of seeing me
in Britain.
      Maria grows large & is
to be confined next Month. When that
event happens I shall not fail to
communicate it to You. She begs to
join me in every good wish for
the happiness & satisfaction of Yourself
& Mr. Dickenson. Believe me ever
your very sincere friend & affectionate Brother
                                                         Napier.

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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/1/20/92

Correspondence Details

Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord

Place sent: Cork

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 21 July 1785

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton. He congratulates her on her marriage and asks her to give his compliments to John Dickenson and teases her asking her to tell him 'that I very sincerely wish he may be as miserable & unhappy in his new situation as I am'.
    He also writes that he has been looking after a legacy that has been left to him by a Mrs Napier, one of his distant relations. From this he will be left about three thousand guineas but some of her relations are attacking the Will. The business will be brought before the Prerogative Court in November.
    Dated at Cork [Ireland].
   

Length: 1 sheet, 264 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 29 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: 30 December 2021

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