HAM/1/20/148
Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
11, St. James's
Street, 12th- April
1799.
My Dear Sister,
A Committee, of
the Hospital of Incurables,
requires my Attendance
at Two O'Clock, on an Estate
Bill of my Cousin Hope Weir's,
after which, a thin Man
with a long Nose, and a
large Wig, hears an Ap=
=peal from Scotland; af=
=ter which, I am summoned
to listen to an Application
for a Divorce -- There is,
likewise, to be a Debate
on a Volunteer Bill, and
a Conference with the
House of Commons, in
the Painted Chamber. Now,
according to my Calculation,
it will be impoʃsible for
Me to escape from all
these weighty Matters be=
=tween the Hours of three
& five. Therefore, I demand
an explicit answer to
the following question, viz.
“If I cannot arrive at the
“Queen's Flower Maker's
“before five O'Clock, at what
“other hours are the Extraor=
“=dinary Husband, the Amaz[e]
“ful Wife, & the tolerably wel[l]
“grown, well behaved Girl,
“to be exhibited?” I presume,
You will dine with Lady
Wake, and of course gabble
with her till you both
talk yourselves, and your
auditors to sleep, so that
the probability is, that You
will not be visible to Me,
till after breakfast to=
=morrow. I write after, for
I would have You to com=
=prehend, that I never go
out before breakfast.
Adieu, Best affections
to all the Prodigies. Ever
Yours faithfully
Napier.
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
11, St. James's
Street, 12th- April
1799.
My Dear Sister,
A Committee, of
the Hospital of Incurables,
requires my Attendance
at Two O'Clock, on an Estate
Bill of my Cousin Hope Weir's,
after which, a thin Man
with a long Nose, and a
large Wig, hears an Appeal
from Scotland; after
which, I am summoned
to listen to an Application
for a Divorce -- There is,
likewise, to be a Debate
on a Volunteer Bill, and
a Conference with the
House of Commons, in
the Painted Chamber. Now,
according to my Calculation,
it will be impossible for
Me to escape from all
these weighty Matters between
the Hours of three
& five. Therefore, I demand
an explicit answer to
the following question, viz.
“If I cannot arrive at the
“Queen's Flower Maker's
“before five O'Clock, at what
“other hours are the “Extraordinary
Husband, the “Amazeful
Wife, & the tolerably well
“grown, well behaved Girl,
“to be exhibited?” I presume,
You will dine with Lady
Wake, and of course gabble
with her till you both
talk yourselves, and your
auditors to sleep, so that
the probability is, that You
will not be visible to Me,
till after breakfast tomorrow
. I write after, for
I would have You to comprehend
, that I never go
out before breakfast.
Adieu, Best affections
to all the Prodigies. Ever
Yours faithfully
Napier.
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
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/1/20/148
Correspondence Details
Sender: Francis Scott Napier, 8th Lord
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 19 June 1799
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton, enquiring
when he can meet with Hamilton and her family. He will be busy for most of
the day at the ‘Hospital of Incurables’ [House of Lords] on an Estate Bill
of his cousin Hope Weir [William Hope-Weir (1736-1811), MP, grandson (as was
Napier) of Charles Hope, 1st Earl of Hopetoun]; he has been summoned to
listen at an application for a divorce; and he is to meet ‘a thin Man with a
long nose, and a large wig, hears an appeal from Scotland’. It will not be
possible for him to ‘escape from all these weighty matters’. He demands to
know ‘If I cannot arrive at the Queen's Flower Maker's before five o'clock,
at what other hours are the Extraordinary Husband, the Amazeful Wife, &
the tolerably well grown, well behaved Girls to be exhibited’.
Dated at St James's Street [London].
Length: 1 sheet, 225 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 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: 6 March 2022