HAM/1/20/141
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
5, Charles Street
Westmr= 5th. March
1799.
My Dear Sister,
As you threaten
to invade the Capital, to secure
good terms for myself, I obey
your commands by instantly
acknowledging the receipt of your
Letter, although the doing so is
matter of much inconvenience to
me, my Pen being hardly fit
to write with, and my time
not affording me leisure enough
to mend it. Why did you not
send me the Route to your House,
instead of advice how to travel?
True it is, that with all poʃsible aʃsu=
=rance, I have travelled, (and persist
in doing so) to the House of Lords
in a Hackney Coach. But, I have
not yet sufficiently subdued my
Pride, so as to submit to jumble
into the Country in the Stage
Coach. As to your Mail Coaches,
that Respect which I owe to
the safety of my bones prevents
my thinking of such an Attempt.
My stay here will pro=
=bably be till towards the latter
end of April. My intention then
was (if poʃsible) to look at You, and
Archy Cathcart, in my way North.
Having stupidly forgot to bring
my Road Book with me, I know
not how far this plan would have
been practicable. If you come here,
one difficulty will be removed.
If you do not, I must endeavour
to fulfil my intentions. Not that
I care about You, for we shall
certainly quarrel. But, your Guid
Mon & your Bairn are deserving
of my regard. As I have not
been bilious lately, I need not
call in Clarges Street for Mrs-
Castor (Oil, I suppose, you mean). Re=
=ally, it cost me trouble to recol=
=lect who you could poʃsibly wish
me to wait on, as I never knew
anybody of that Name, in my
Life. After much puzzling, and
examining the word with a mag=
=nifying Glaʃs, I suspect, your inten=
=tion was to have written Carter.
It is so long since I left School,
that my Greek has left me.
I dare not, therefore, encounter
any of your Blue Stocking Aʃsociates.
If I think of it, your Meʃsage
shall be delivered to Old Cis, and a
scold to Lady Clavering. Adieu, for
I must go to a Committee for
dividing waste Grounds in the
Parish of Molesworth.
Say everything
kind for Me, to
your Lord & Master,
Your Child, & my Countrywoman.
Ever My Dear Sister
Your Affece. Brother
Napier.
[1]
London, Fifth March 1799
Mrs- Dickenson[2]
Leighton House
Leighton Buzzard
Beds.
Napier
[3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
5, Charles Street
Westminster 5th. March
1799.
My Dear Sister,
As you threaten
to invade the Capital, to secure
good terms for myself, I obey
your commands by instantly
acknowledging the receipt of your
Letter, although the doing so is
matter of much inconvenience to
me, my Pen being hardly fit
to write with, and my time
not affording me leisure enough
to mend it. Why did you not
send me the Route to your House,
instead of advice how to travel?
True it is, that with all possible assurance
, I have travelled, (and persist
in doing so) to the House of Lords
in a Hackney Coach. But, I have
not yet sufficiently subdued my
Pride, so as to submit to jumble
into the Country in the Stage
Coach. As to your Mail Coaches,
that Respect which I owe to
the safety of my bones prevents
my thinking of such an Attempt.
My stay here will probably
be till towards the latter
end of April. My intention then
was (if possible) to look at You, and
Archy Cathcart, in my way North.
Having stupidly forgotten to bring
my Road Book with me, I know
not how far this plan would have
been practicable. If you come here,
one difficulty will be removed.
If you do not, I must endeavour
to fulfil my intentions. Not that
I care about You, for we shall
certainly quarrel. But, your Guid
Mon & your Bairn are deserving
of my regard. As I have not
been bilious lately, I need not
call in Clarges Street for Mrs-
Castor (Oil, I suppose, you mean). Really
, it cost me trouble to recollect
who you could possibly wish
me to wait on, as I never knew
anybody of that Name, in my
Life. After much puzzling, and
examining the word with a magnifying
Glass, I suspect, your intention
was to have written Carter.
It is so long since I left School,
that my Greek has left me.
I dare not, therefore, encounter
any of your Blue Stocking Associates.
If I think of it, your Message
shall be delivered to Old Cis, and a
scold to Lady Clavering. Adieu, for
I must go to a Committee for
dividing waste Grounds in the
Parish of Molesworth.
Say everything
kind for Me, to
your Lord & Master,
Your Child, & my Countrywoman.
Ever My Dear Sister
Your Affectionate Brother
Napier.
London, Fifth March 1799
Mrs- Dickenson
Leighton House
Leighton Buzzard
Bedfordshire
Napier
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 Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/20/141
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Leighton Buzzard
Date sent: 5 March 1799
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton. He writes of
visiting Hamilton and wishes that she had written to him the route to her
house rather than her advice on how to travel there.
Dated at Charles Street, Westminster [London].
Length: 1 sheet, 411 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 11 November 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: 4 March 2022