HAM/1/20/100
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to John Dickenson
Diplomatic Text
My Dear Sir,
Maria & I very heartily
rejoice with you on My Dear Sister's
safety & the birth of your Daughter,
& sincerely pray that they may both
be long preserved to You. We shall be
impatient 'till we hear how Nursing
agrees with Mrs- D. I am confident
she will be the better for making
the attempt, and I hope that she will
succeed. Maria tried it with her first
Child but to her very great mortification
She was obliged to relinquish the
office. Mrs- D. must guard against being
too anxious. I beg you will tell her,
that it is my advice to her to give up
all management of her daughter to
You. If she does not, the Child will
grow as saucy as herself, and be as
much detested by everybody as she is.
As to your intended Challenge,
I should humbly be of opinion it
would be most prudent for You to
drop the idea. If my proofs of your
Jerryism were before defective, your
letter has furnished me with incon=
=testible evidence of the truth of
my aʃsertion. In the first place You
allow that your Wife's letters are sacred
& that she only communicates what
paragraphs she pleases. Is not this
Jerryism? Secondly, Your Wife has
forced & commanded You to copy her
handwriting, in which you have
made such progreʃs, that I can
hardly bring myself to believe that
the John Dickenson in your letter
was not written by Mary Dickenson.
If you do not now confeʃs yourself to
to be a Jerry,[1] I can only conclude you
to be the most obstinate of the Jere=
=miah tribe & leave You to chaunt
your own Lamentations on the
subject, 'till they at length get the
better of your high Spirits & reduce
you to the situation of a tame Sparrow
to hop about the house at Spousy's call.
I am glad to hear the
Bath waters have had the effect
you expected from them. I have
never yet made trial of them, tho'
I have been bilious from my earliest
years. Since I have been quartered
here, an old Lady gave me a very
simple recipe which I have found
great benefit from viz. Half an ounce of
the best Aloes, & the same quantity of
Castile Soap. Pound them separately,
then pound them well together and
make the maʃs into Pills. One, two
or three to be taken at Bed time.
I began with one & have never taken
more than two at a time. Whenever I
feel myself heated and costive,[2] I take my
Pill which in the morning operates.
The orders for our Embark=
rk=ation are at length arrived. Colonel
Ogilvie goes to Canada with the Regt- so
that I hope to be in Britain in the
Month of July. My Lawsuit will I fear
detain me till that time in this
Country, much against my inclination
for I have long been tired of living
▼
in this very unsettled CountryKingdom --
Maria joins me in every
affectionate wish to You & Yours.
Ever My Dear Sir
Yours very faithfully
Napier.[3]
[4]
[5] [6]
John Dickenson Esqr.
No 2 Abbey Street
Bath
[7]
[8] [9]
Lord Napier Febry
1787[10]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Napier passes playfully from one current sense of Jerry, ‘Jerry Sneak; hen-pecked husband’ (see HAM/1/20/99), to another, ‘Jeremiah’.
2. ‘Affected by, predisposed to, or characterized by retention of the faeces; = constipated’ (OED s.v. costive adj. 1.a. Accessed 18-10-2021).
3. This section is written vertically in the right-hand side of the page.
4. Faint Bishop mark in brown ink, dated February (date unclear).
5. Manuscript figure 4, crossed through, denoting original postage charge.
6. Postmark ‘KINSALE’ in blue ink.
7. Manuscript figure 1/4 in brown ink, denoting recalculated postage charge.
8. Faint postmark ‘IRELAND’ in brown ink.
9. Seal, in red wax.
10. This annotation is written in the left margin.
Normalised Text
Kinsale, 5th. February 1787.
My Dear Sir,
Maria & I very heartily
rejoice with you on My Dear Sister's
safety & the birth of your Daughter,
& sincerely pray that they may both
be long preserved to You. We shall be
impatient till we hear how Nursing
agrees with Mrs- Dickenson I am confident
she will be the better for making
the attempt, and I hope that she will
succeed. Maria tried it with her first
Child but to her very great mortification
She was obliged to relinquish the
office. Mrs- Dickenson must guard against being
too anxious. I beg you will tell her,
that it is my advice to her to give up
all management of her daughter to
You. If she does not, the Child will
grow as saucy as herself, and be as
much detested by everybody as she is.
As to your intended Challenge,
I should humbly be of opinion it
would be most prudent for You to
drop the idea. If my proofs of your
Jerryism were before defective, your
letter has furnished me with incontestable
evidence of the truth of
my assertion. In the first place You
allow that your Wife's letters are sacred
& that she only communicates what
paragraphs she pleases. Is not this
Jerryism? Secondly, Your Wife has
forced & commanded You to copy her
handwriting, in which you have
made such progress, that I can
hardly bring myself to believe
the John Dickenson in your letter
was not written by Mary Dickenson.
If you do not now confess yourself to
be a Jerry, I can only conclude you
to be the most obstinate of the Jeremiah
tribe & leave You to chant
your own Lamentations on the
subject, till they at length get the
better of your high Spirits & reduce
you to the situation of a tame Sparrow
to hop about the house at Spousy's call.
I am glad to hear the
Bath waters have had the effect
you expected from them. I have
never yet made trial of them, though
I have been bilious from my earliest
years. Since I have been quartered
here, an old Lady gave me a very
simple recipe which I have found
great benefit from viz. Half an ounce of
the best Aloes, & the same quantity of
Castile Soap. Pound them separately,
then pound them well together and
make the mass into Pills. One, two
or three to be taken at Bed time.
I began with one & have never taken
more than two at a time. Whenever I
feel myself heated and costive, I take my
Pill which in the morning operates.
The orders for our Embarkation
are at length arrived. Colonel
Ogilvie goes to Canada with the Regiment so
that I hope to be in Britain in the
Month of July. My Lawsuit will I fear
detain me till that time in this
Country, much against my inclination
for I have long been tired of living
▼
in this very unsettled Kingdom --
Maria joins me in every
affectionate wish to You & Yours.
Ever My Dear Sir
Yours very faithfully
Napier.
John Dickenson Esqr.
No 2 Abbey Street
Bath
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 John Dickenson
Shelfmark: HAM/1/20/100
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: Kinsale
Addressee: John Dickenson
Place received: Bath
Date sent: 5 February 1787
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to John Dickenson,
congratulating him on the birth of his daughter, Louisa. He wishes to know
how nursing will agree with Mary Hamilton and believes that she will be
better for 'making the attempt' and hopes that she will succeed. Napier's
wife, Maria attempted to nurse her first child but was 'obliged to
relinquish the office'. He advices Dickenson that the management of Louisa
should be given to him as there may be a likelihood that she may turn out to
be as 'saucy' as Hamilton if she had control over her management.
The letter is also concerned with general news, the waters at Bath which
Napier has not yet tried and a medical recipe for Napier who suffers from
biliousness. Napier has received embarkation orders for his regiment.
Colonel Olgivie is to go to Canada with the regiment and Napier hopes that
he will be in Britain in July as his lawsuit will detain him in the country
that month, much to his annoyance, as he notes that he has for a 'long time
been tired of living in this very unsettled Kingdom'.
Dated at Kinsale, Ireland.
Length: 1 sheet, 528 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 19 October 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: 27 February 2022