The Mary Hamilton Papers : Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton

Napier, Francis Scott, 8th Lord

The Mary Hamilton Papers

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Letter from Francis Napier, 8th Lord Napier, to Mary Hamilton. He writes on the ‘state of the nation’ and concludes that nothing will improve until the King employs men of merit (such as himself) rather than allowing them to be idle. Napier is ‘out of all patience’, and if he could afford to he would resign from his ‘commission to have the satisfaction of thrashing L[or]d Amherst’, who assures him that he wishes to serve him but takes no notice of him when there are thirteen regiments that are to be raised. Even the youngest ensign in his own regiment ‘is to have a Lieutenancy for three days merely to entitle him to a Captain Lieut[enanc]y in one of the new Corps’.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The letter continues somewhat waspishly on news of family, then to wondering what led him to make a confidante of Hamilton: ‘Some people would be apt to say like draws to like, but that would be paying you too high a Compliment.’</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at Edinburgh.</p>