HAM/1/20/56
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
Worcester 7th. Janry. 1782
My Dear Sister,
As I have not seen
your departure from this Life
announced in the Newspapers, I shall
venture to enquire how you do, and
what you are doing. I was in hopes
to have made this enquiry in person,
but that Jilt Fortune (who by the bye never
was a friend of mine) has put it out of my
power to make a Trip to London this
Winter -- All my hopes in the Lottery
were blasted; the Tickets I was concerned
in, having been drawn Blanks. I wished
to have been rich enough to have paid
my Duty to Her Majesty at the Birthday,
and could I have collected £100, I should
have spent a Month or Six Weeks
in Town.
My attempts in Recruiting have
not met with the Succeʃs I expected. Should
this continue to be the case, I shall proba:
=bly be removed in the Spring. Chelmsford
will then be the place I should desire
to be sent to. Worcester proves a very
agreable Winter Quarter. Many of the
Prebendary's are now arrived, who give
good Dinners. They have been so civil
as to require my aʃsistance at several
of their Feeds. ------------------
------ In summer the people of the County
collect at Malvern, for the benefit of
the Air & Water. I do not recollect to
have heard you mention whether
you have been in Wor——shire or not?
The view into Herefordshire from the
Top of Malvern Hill is one of the
most pleasing prospects, I have ever seen
The Ground is prettily broke into little
Hills covered with Apple Trees. In spring
the beauty & richneʃs of the bloʃsoms are
not to be described. Wor——shire is well
wooded and watered, but to a person ac=
=customed to Hertfordshire, looks rather
bare. I have enquired after Natural
Curiosities for You but without Succeʃs.
It does not seem to be the Genius of my
acquaintances here to make those collections
I long to hear from You. Politics have
lately become the darling topic of
conversation. You may easily beleive that
I felt particularly for Lord Cornwallis's
misfortunes. The Newspapers some time
ago mentioned his arrival in England. Our
Politicians are impatient to hear his opinion
of American Affairs. Adieu. My Dear
Sister. Beleive me ever
Your very Affectionate Brother
N——[1]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Worcester 7th. January 1782
My Dear Sister,
As I have not seen
your departure from this Life
announced in the Newspapers, I shall
venture to enquire how you do, and
what you are doing. I was in hopes
to have made this enquiry in person,
but that Jilt Fortune (who by the bye never
was a friend of mine) has put it out of my
power to make a Trip to London this
Winter -- All my hopes in the Lottery
were blasted; the Tickets I was concerned
in, having been drawn Blanks. I wished
to have been rich enough to have paid
my Duty to Her Majesty at the Birthday,
and could I have collected £100, I should
have spent a Month or Six Weeks
in Town.
My attempts in Recruiting have
not met with the Success I expected. Should
this continue to be the case, I shall probably
be removed in the Spring. Chelmsford
will then be the place I should desire
to be sent to. Worcester proves a very
agreeable Winter Quarter. Many of the
Prebendary's are now arrived, who give
good Dinners. They have been so civil
as to require my assistance at several
of their Feeds.
In summer the people of the County
collect at Malvern, for the benefit of
the Air & Water. I do not recollect to
have heard you mention whether
you have been in Worcestershire or not?
The view into Herefordshire from the
Top of Malvern Hill is one of the
most pleasing prospects, I have ever seen
The Ground is prettily broken into little
Hills covered with Apple Trees. In spring
the beauty & richness of the blossoms are
not to be described. Worcestershire is well
wooded and watered, but to a person accustomed
to Hertfordshire, looks rather
bare. I have enquired after Natural
Curiosities for You but without Success.
It does not seem to be the Genius of my
acquaintances here to make those collections
I long to hear from You. Politics have
lately become the darling topic of
conversation. You may easily believe that
I felt particularly for Lord Cornwallis's
misfortunes. The Newspapers some time
ago mentioned his arrival in England. Our
Politicians are impatient to hear his opinion
of American Affairs. Adieu. My Dear
Sister. Believe me ever
Your very Affectionate Brother
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/1/20/56
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: Worcester
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 7 January 1782
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton. He writes
that his hopes for the lottery have been ‘blasted’ (see HAM/1/20/55) and
that he had wanted to be rich enough at least to pay his duty to the Queen
on her birthday and had he won £100 he would have spent a month or even
six weeks in London.
Napier has not been as successful as he would have wished in recruiting for
his regiment and if this continues then he will be moved to Chelmsford in
the Spring. Napier writes of Worcester as being an agreeable place for
Winter Quarters and describes the country for Hamilton. He also notes that
in the Summer months, many of the people visit Malvern for the benefit of
the air and waters. Napier notes that politics is the topic of conversation
at the moment and that he feels for Lord Cornwallis¡s misfortunes. The
newspapers some time ago noted his return to England and that politicians
‘are impatient to hear his opinion of American affairs’.
Dated at Worcester.
Length: 1 sheet, 385 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 22 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: 3 December 2021