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 Napier's eldest son, William. William has just arrived at Plymouth from the Mediterranean. His Captain, Lord Cochrane, has come to London and it was him that informed Napier that William was well and he hopes to have a letter from him soon. Napier had been worried about his son, as in the last letter he received from him William had written that he had been under arrest and ‘expecting to be tried by a Court Martial’. William was under Court Martial not for his own actions but by an order delivered to him by his own Captain which he believed himself ‘bound to obey, in preference to complying with some directions from another Captain Senior to Lord Cochrane, who ordered him to do the very reverse’. When William refused to carry out the senior Captain's orders he was put under arrest. William had written to Napier of his arrest in December and it was only when he saw Lord Cochrane that he was told that the incident had been settled before they left the Mediterranean.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>He also notes that General Clavering has been sent to ‘Newgate by order of the House of Commons’. This has left Napier somewhat anxious. He notes that Clavering did not ‘state his own case at the Bar, so favourably as he might have done’.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at St James's Street, [London].</p>