Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/20/146

Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


                                                         11, St. James's Street
                                                            8th- April 1799.



My Dear Sister,
      Having in due form
spit on the Green Wafer, and closed
your Note, I have commanded
my Man John to carry it him=
=self to Lady Wake's. I will allow
that You are a good Creature,
for making Me the pretence
for Your gadding abroad. The Archy
Cathcarts have likewise had
the humanity to quit the Country,
and are now in Town. The He
one, I have seen, and live in hopes
of soon being introduced to the
She one.
      Since I wrote to You
last, I have had a very comfort=
=able Dinner, at the Greville
Mansfields; and on Wednesday,
I have a Card to feast with the
Portland Place Mansfields. The
Lord of Cathcart, is confined to his
Room, with a violent Cold, or
Gout, and the Lady of Ditto, in
attendance at Windsor. I, inadvertently,


and in disobedience to your com=
=mands, betrayed your intention
of being here to Lady Mansfield.
But, as your determination, on
that point, is fixed, it is not of
much consequence. Adieu, My
Dear Sister. Best Love and
Affections to the Leighton House=
=ites. Ever Your Affecte Brother
                                                         Napier

To convince You
that I have Wafers
I shall now make
use of one, though
the practice is filthy


[1]
London, Eighth April 1799

      Mrs- Dickenson[2]
        Leighton House
           Leighton Buzzard
                             Beds.
Napier.

[3]

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. Remains of a gummed wafer at the top and the bottom centre of page.
 2. Circular FREE frank mark in red ink, dated 8 April 1799.
 3. Illegible postmark, in black ink.

Normalised Text


                                                         11, St. James's Street
                                                            8th- April 1799.



My Dear Sister,
      Having in due form
spat on the Green Wafer, and closed
your Note, I have commanded
my Man John to carry it himself
 to Lady Wake's. I will allow
that You are a good Creature,
for making Me the pretence
for Your gadding abroad. The Archy
Cathcarts have likewise had
the humanity to quit the Country,
and are now in Town. The He
one, I have seen, and live in hopes
of soon being introduced to the
She one.
      Since I wrote to You
last, I have had a very comfortable
 Dinner, at the Greville
Mansfields; and on Wednesday,
I have a Card to feast with the
Portland Place Mansfields. The
Lord of Cathcart, is confined to his
Room, with a violent Cold, or
Gout, and the Lady of Ditto, in
attendance at Windsor. I, inadvertently,


and in disobedience to your commands
, betrayed your intention
of being here to Lady Mansfield.
But, as your determination, on
that point, is fixed, it is not of
much consequence. Adieu, My
Dear Sister. Best Love and
Affections to the Leighton Houseites
. Ever Your Affectionate Brother
                                                         Napier

To convince You
that I have Wafers
I shall now make
use of one, though
the practice is filthy



London, Eighth April 1799

      Mrs- Dickenson
        Leighton House
           Leighton Buzzard
                             Bedfordshire
Napier.

(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. Remains of a gummed wafer at the top and the bottom centre of page.
 2. Circular FREE frank mark in red ink, dated 8 April 1799.
 3. Illegible postmark, in black ink.

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/1/20/146

Correspondence Details

Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord

Place sent: London

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: Leighton Buzzard

Date sent: 8 April 1799

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton, concerning his family. He notes that since he last wrote to Hamilton he had dinner at the Greville Mansfields and is also to dine with the Portland Place Mansfields.
    Dated at St James's Street [London].
   

Length: 1 sheet, 224 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 11 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: 4 March 2022

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