HAM/1/20/156
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
11, St. James's Street
7th- March 1801.
My Dear Sister,
When you desire me
to frank your Letters, I wish you
would write their Addreʃses in a
legible character. Mrs- Bliʃset, Bleʃset,
or Bloʃset, may perhaps receive
the letter you sent me, as I endea-
voured to imitate your Chinese Cha-
racters as well as I could, and I took
this bad pen, for the purpose of
making the imitation more cor-
rect.
As to our beloved King, I believe
his complaint has been a Brain
Fever, but I never heard a word
of what you mention. The report,
of the Physicians, to day is “His
“Majesty's Fever, is so much abated
“as to give the fairest prospect of his
“speedy recovery” -- For which, I
most sincerely thank God.
All my hopes & prospects
are at present obnubilated.[1] When-
ever they begin to clarify, if I
am in a good humour, perhaps
I may tell you. As to my Plans
or motions, I can say nothing
at present. So Adieu. Love to your
Husband, Brat, & my Countrywo-
man. Ever My Dear Sister, Your
faithful & Affecte. Brother
Napier
I saw Sir Wm. Hamilton
crawling along Piccadilly,
the other day. His Lady
drove down St. James's
Street about two hours
ago, The Greville Mansfield,
I have not seen lately,
but am asked to an At Home
at the Portland Place Counteʃses
on Wednesday. I dont like
these unsubstantial Invitations --
London, Seventh March 1801.
[2]
Mrs. Dickenson
Leighton House
Leighton Buzzard
Beds.
Napier.
[3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
11, St. James's Street
7th- March 1801.
My Dear Sister,
When you desire me
to frank your Letters, I wish you
would write their Addresses in a
legible character. Mrs- Blisset, Blesset,
or Blosset, may perhaps receive
the letter you sent me, as I endeavoured
to imitate your Chinese Characters
as well as I could, and I took
this bad pen, for the purpose of
making the imitation more correct
.
As to our beloved King, I believe
his complaint has been a Brain
Fever, but I never heard a word
of what you mention. The report,
of the Physicians, to day is “His
“Majesty's Fever, is so much abated
“as to give the fairest prospect of his
“speedy recovery” -- For which, I
most sincerely thank God.
All my hopes & prospects
are at present obnubilated. Whenever
they begin to clarify, if I
am in a good humour, perhaps
I may tell you. As to my Plans
or motions, I can say nothing
at present. So Adieu. Love to your
Husband, Brat, & my Countrywoman
. Ever My Dear Sister, Your
faithful & Affectionate Brother
Napier
I saw Sir William Hamilton
crawling along Piccadilly,
the other day. His Lady
drove down St. James's
Street about two hours
ago, The Greville Mansfield,
I have not seen lately,
but am asked to an At Home
at the Portland Place Countesses
on Wednesday. I don't like
these unsubstantial Invitations --
London, Seventh March 1801.
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/1/20/156
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Leighton Buzzard
Date sent: 7 March 1801
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton. He discusses
the King's health and suggests that he may be suffering from a 'Brain
Fever'. He notes that the reports of the physicians today are 'His Majesty's
fever is so much abated as to give the fairest prospect of his speedy
recovery'. Napier also writes that all his hopes have been 'obliterated'. He
mentions seeing Sir William Hamilton 'crawling along Piccadilly' and notes
that Emma Hamilton drove down St James's Street a couple of hours since.
Dated at St James's Street [London].
Length: 1 sheet, 246 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 26 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: 7 March 2022