HAM/1/20/231
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
27, St. James's Street
29th- Janry- 1809
My Dear Sister,
I have often been told
that when a Lady writes a Letter, She
never explains her meaning, 'till
the Postscript. Your Letter of the 27th. Inst-
seems to confirm this observation, for
after commanding Me to send to Lady
Charlotte Finch &c &c, You stick in a scrap
of Paper, saying, “if you do not approve of
“this, do not do it.” Without this latitude,
I should certainly have sent my Servant
to Lady Charlotte Finch's &c, although, I
confeʃs it did appear to me odd, to make
enquiries in the Name of a Person who
was in Beds, & not in Town to receive the
answer. Had you been pleased to have
inclosed Notes of enquiry for Lady Charlotte,
or for Mrs- Boscawen, my Servant should
have delivered them, & They, would pro=
bably have sent You an Answer. But,
being an entire Stranger to both of them,
I think, they would have been somewhat
surprised at receiving a Meʃsage from
me. Consequently, I have sent none.
Your three packets
have not reached me. I trust, they
will not be lost; but, why did you
send me Manuscript papers? I sent
You a paper from my friend Mr. Wood,
in addition to the Queries, I had put to
You; and, if you had been Graciously
pleased to have marked the Answers,
on Mr. Woods paper, the full purpose
would have been answered, and your
Manuscripts might have remained
in perfect security at Leighton. It is
lucky for You that I am not your
Hub. If I had been, I should have
scolded You for running the Risque
of losing your Papers.
Major Stanhope, was
the Son of Lord Stanhope, not of Lady
Stanhope. Lady Cis, is at Hampton Court.
Sir John Moore's Aid de Camp, Anderson,
is not her Son in Law.
With best affections to
Yourself, Mr. Dickenson, Louisa, &c I
ever am, My Dear Sister
Your faithful Friend
& Brother
Napier
With best wishes to my
Countrywoman, tell her that I met with
no good Apples in Scotland --
London, Thirtieth January
1809
Mrs- Dickenson[1]
Leighton House.
Leighton Buzzard
Beds
Napier.
[2]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
27, St. James's Street
29th- January 1809
My Dear Sister,
I have often been told
that when a Lady writes a Letter, She
never explains her meaning, till
the Postscript. Your Letter of the 27th. Instant
seems to confirm this observation, for
after commanding Me to send to Lady
Charlotte Finch &c &c, You stick in a scrap
of Paper, saying, “if you do not approve of
“this, do not do it.” Without this latitude,
I should certainly have sent my Servant
to Lady Charlotte Finch's &c, although, I
confess it did appear to me odd, to make
enquiries in the Name of a Person who
was in Bedfordshire, & not in Town to receive the
answer. Had you been pleased to have
enclosed Notes of enquiry for Lady Charlotte,
or for Mrs- Boscawen, my Servant should
have delivered them, & They, would probably
have sent You an Answer. But,
being an entire Stranger to both of them,
I think, they would have been somewhat
surprised at receiving a Message from
me. Consequently, I have sent none.
Your three packets
have not reached me. I trust, they
will not be lost; but, why did you
send me Manuscript papers? I sent
You a paper from my friend Mr. Wood,
in addition to the Queries, I had put to
You; and, if you had been Graciously
pleased to have marked the Answers,
on Mr. Woods paper, the full purpose
would have been answered, and your
Manuscripts might have remained
in perfect security at Leighton. It is
lucky for You that I am not your
Hub. If I had been, I should have
scolded You for running the Risk
of losing your Papers.
Major Stanhope, was
the Son of Lord Stanhope, not of Lady
Stanhope. Lady Cis, is at Hampton Court.
Sir John Moore's Aid de Camp, Anderson,
is not her Son in Law.
With best affections to
Yourself, Mr. Dickenson, Louisa, &c I
ever am, My Dear Sister
Your faithful Friend
& Brother
Napier
With best wishes to my
Countrywoman, tell her that I met with
no good Apples in Scotland --
London, Thirtieth January
1809
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/1/20/231
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Leighton Buzzard
Date sent: 30 January 1809
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton. He writes on
the subject of Hamilton's asking him to make enquiries on her behalf of Lady
Charlotte Finch and Mrs Boscawen, unless he did ‘not approve of this’.
Napier says that he would have sent his servant make enquiries to both
women, if Hamilton had not given him the ‘latitude’ of choosing not to do so
if he did not think it appropriate. Napier is a stranger to both women and
he is sure that they would both be surprised at receiving a message from
him, so he has chosen not to send one.
Hamilton has sent Napier manuscripts in the post which he has not yet
received. He writes that he had sent her a paper from Mr Wood [see
HAM/1/20/228] along with Mr Wood's enquiries and he notes that if she had
marked the answers to these queries in the paper he sent instead of
forwarding him her manuscripts then they would ‘have remained in perfect
security at Leighton’.
The letter also relates to general news. Napier notes that Major Stanhope
was the son of Lord Stanhope not Lady Stanhope and that Lady ‘Cis’ is at
Hampton Court.
Dated at St James's Street [London].
Length: 1 sheet, 362 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 20 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: 16 March 2022