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, providing news of his family and of friends. He is glad to hear that Hamilton's ‘London Plan’ has come into effect and that he will visit her at Welbeck Street. Napier teases Hamilton saying that he is surprised that she has ‘agreed to that situation as the attractive charms of Lady Cecilia Johnston in Wimpole Street will certainly carry off your husband from you’.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Napier had celebrated the Jubilee at Selkirk the previous day with his son, Lieutenant William Napier who has just been promoted by the admiralty and Napier himself has added to his sons’ dignity by making him a Justice of the Peace. His son is a large ‘fellow and in case of Riots appears well calculated to thrash the mobs’. William Napier is now 23 years old and Napier notes that his mother has not seen him for five years.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Napier ends his letter by noting that Mrs Waddington, whom he describes as one of Hamilton's ‘blue stocking Ladies’, had come to live in the area.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at Queen Street [Edinburgh].</p>