HAM/1/20/166
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
House of Lords
5th- March 1802.
My Dear Sister,
I received your
most saucy Letter, about an hour
ago, which has made my blood boil
so violently that I cannot persuade
myself to wait till I get home, but
must give my Venom vent without
delay.
How could You presume to sup-
pose that I would insult Louisa, so
far as to imagine, that she could
be sick, when I had seen such evi-
dent signs of the return of Ruddy
Health in a Countenance, which I
should commend, did it not too
much resemble Yours. For her own
sake, and for Mr. D.s comfort, I re-
joice that Dr. Kerr thinks as I do, a-
bout her Cough. As to You, whatever
gives You pleasure, I could almost
detest.
How durst You affront my
Consequence so much, as to direct
your Letter to Portugal Street? Did
you not know that London was
a sufficient Addreʃs ffor One of the
Sixteen Representatives of The
most Illustrious Peerage in The
World. The insult is not to be tolerated,
and as a punishment, I had almost
determined not to tell You that I
reside at No. 4, Suffolk Street, Charing
Croʃs.
My best affections ever attend
Mr. Dickenson, Louisa, & my Countrywoman,
while my Wrath, hatred, and abhor-
rence are likely to be your portion.
In the mean time I remain ever
My Dear Sister,
Your Affecte. Brothe[r]
Napier
When I got to Wooburn
on Saturday Morning at
Eight O'Clock, the people
at the George neither knew
how the Duke of Bedford did,
nor that he was ill, nor
that Dr. Kerr had been sent
for --
[1]
London, Fifth March 1802
Mrs. Dickenson[2]
Post Office.
Northampton
Napier.
[3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
House of Lords
5th- March 1802.
My Dear Sister,
I received your
most saucy Letter, about an hour
ago, which has made my blood boil
so violently that I cannot persuade
myself to wait till I get home, but
must give my Venom vent without
delay.
How could You presume to suppose
that I would insult Louisa, so
far as to imagine, that she could
be sick, when I had seen such evident
signs of the return of Ruddy
Health in a Countenance, which I
should commend, did it not too
much resemble Yours. For her own
sake, and for Mr. Dickensons comfort, I rejoice
that Dr. Kerr thinks as I do, about
her Cough. As to You, whatever
gives You pleasure, I could almost
detest.
How durst You affront my
Consequence so much, as to direct
your Letter to Portugal Street? Did
you not know that London was
a sufficient Address for One of the
Sixteen Representatives of The
most Illustrious Peerage in The
World. The insult is not to be tolerated,
and as a punishment, I had almost
determined not to tell You that I
reside at No. 4, Suffolk Street, Charing
Cross.
My best affections ever attend
Mr. Dickenson, Louisa, & my Countrywoman,
while my Wrath, hatred, and abhorrence
are likely to be your portion.
In the mean time I remain ever
My Dear Sister,
Your Affectionate Brother
Napier
When I got to Wooburn
on Saturday Morning at
Eight O'Clock, the people
at the George neither knew
how the Duke of Bedford did,
nor that he was ill, nor
that Dr. Kerr had been sent
for --
London, Fifth March 1802
Mrs. Dickenson
Post Office.
Northampton
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/1/20/166
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Northampton
Date sent: 5 March 1802
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton. He writes on
Louisa Dickenson's health and teases Hamilton for addressing her letter to
him at Portugal Street. He notes that as one of the 'sixteen representatives
of the most Illustrious Peerage in the World' London on its own would have
been sufficient enough of an address. He ends the letter with his correct
address of Suffolk Street.
Dated at The House of Lords.
Length: 1 sheet, 279 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 1 December 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: 8 March 2022