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, relating to a highway robbery that Napier suffered. He writes that he has arrived safely but not as rich as he was when he left London. He was stopped and robbed at about 7 o'clock the previous night by two highway men who took his watch, gold chain and seals and his servants watch. Luckily he and his servant only had a few shillings in their pockets and has it was getting dark they did not see his strong box, filled with £47 in cash, which was at the bottom of then Chaise. They also took a pair of unloaded pistols but even had they been loaded, Napier notes that the attack was so sudden that he would not have had time to take them out of their case. In all he lost almost £55. His grandmother ‘lamented’ his ‘misfortune but did not administer any solid comfort’. He notes that the highwaymen initially took Hamilton's pocket book but returned it, presumably as they thought it was a Bible. </p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at Stilton.</p>