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. Napier conveys general news of his family and acquaintances, and also reports an accident at sea on his son Francis's ship.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Napier writes of John Dickenson having an accident and of his 'attending Louisa [his daughter] in her dancing parties' and hopes he does not find this too inconvenient. His own house, he notes, is like a hospital. Five children are suffering from measles. His two youngest boys 'introduced this disorder into the family' and his three youngest girls have caught it. Lady Napier is also ill and Napier has been prevented from going to the meeting of Parliament because he is needed at home.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Napier's son William is cruising the Mediterranean and his other son, Francis, 'ought to have been drowned three weeks ago'. Francis Napier was conducting a boat with prisoners from a 'prize' to his frigate when the boat sank. Napier assumes that the boat was probably overloaded. The frigate was close by and they were all saved. Francis 'swam to the ship & got up the sides of it, changed his clothes, went into another boat & returned to the Prize for more Prisoners'.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Hamilton had enquired about a Miss Wynne's return and Napier notes that as he is not part of the gambling community, he has no news of her. He has never met the Wynnes's or Campbell and his wife although he notes that Campbell's character was notorious some years ago as he has 'robbed Sir Charles Douglass's Pocket Book'. His marriage did not induce Napier to seek his acquaintance even if his wife was a friend of Hamilton's.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at Queen Street [Edinburgh].</p>