The Mary Hamilton Papers : Letter from Charlotte Finch (née Fermor) to Mary Hamilton

Finch (née Fermor), Charlotte, Lady

The Mary Hamilton Papers

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Letter from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton. She writes that Prince Alfred looks so ‘charming’ today that she cannot resist taking up her pen to brag about it. He bathes two days out of every three. She presented him to Lord North [probably Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (1732-1792), prime minister] yesterday, who visited for a short time and was in the area to ‘endeavour to get Sea-men for manning the Ships that are in so much want of Men’. Finch notes that her post today brought her news of the death of Lord Rockingham, which did not surprise her as she had had ‘so bad an Account of him’ in the previous post. She reports that Lord Fitzwilliam will come into his Estate and his three sisters will get fifteen thousand pounds apiece, and that as Lord Fitzwilliam has no children and his brother is sickly, the estate may well pass to one his nephews. Finch is afraid that the death of the Bishop of Salisbury has had a profound effect on Lady Mary Hume's situation.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at Deal Castle [Kent].</p>