London.
26 Jany
My dear Henry
You have been better in writing to us often than we I fear have deserved but you know what a bustle we are always in as the Time of our Departure approaches you will not be surprized at our having dawdled beyond the day fixed more than 2 weeks, or at hearing that we settle at Brighton just a month later than I had proposed Tomorrow I go there by the Mail & they all follow the next morning by which Time I hope to have got them a House our journey was as prosperous as could be for the Time of year & we got away pretty well notwithstanding Richards <1> illness, which confined him to his bed & obliged us to leave him behind I have got a new man, who has a great deal to learn, but of whom I have great hopes, at least I have every reason to believe that he will be honest & well intentioned & he seems very intelligent. Henry Frampton <2> came up from Dorsetshire yesterday & dined here today he brings but an uncomfortable account of Giles <3> who seems to be in a critical state John <4> when last heard of was at Alexandria waiting for a passage to Naples & William <5> to our great astonishment quietly at Abbotsbury <6> when we imagined him at some place ending in ski in the heart of Poland The Talbots all gone back to Penrice <7> & so ends my Family News. of other I have not much. The Law against the press in France <8> was making a great sensation, & the despotic excuse of authority against Lacretelle <9> & the other academicians for the use they made of the right to petition solemnly guaranteed by the Charter, still more how it will end is not easy to say but I cannot think that the King <10> & the Priests can go on in their present course long some people talk of war but I do not myself see much chance of it a war in Spain is always unpopular with a French army, & to go there to fight the cause of the Monks & the Jesuits, would be very disquieting to them besides for what can they [illegible] go to war with us? supposing the spanish [sic] Troop invade Portugal & we repel them it does not follow that it is there we should attack them in return & put ourselves in contact with the French but rather in their colonies, about which the French are little interested it will not however come to that London is dirty dull Foggy & uncomfortable, you shall all be glad to be out of it there are however a good many people in it, & we might have pleasanter society now than in the season when everyone goes mad by common consent Old Lord William Russel who you must remember in Italy is going to marry Jerome Bonapartes <11> first wife Miss Paterson <12>, who they say is a very charming person George Finch <13> is in Town & seems in very tolerable spirits his sejour <14> with my sisters <15> at Worthing has answered very well to him & them Jane Nichol <16> is here but I have not seen her I got your Box through the Custom House without unpacking by saying what it was & putting a valuation on it I paid I think 16/ or 18/
God bless you
Ever Yrs most affly
C F.
Monsieur Talbot
Poste restante
Berlin
Prusse
Dόsseldorf
Brussel
Notes:
1. Richard, a servant.
2. Henry Frampton (1804-1879).
3. Giles Digby Robert Fox Strangways (17981827).
4. John George Charles Fox Strangways (18031859), MP.
5. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (17951865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
6. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
7. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
8. Passed in 1826.
9. Jean Charles Dominique de Lacretelle (17661855).
10. Charles X of France (17571836), ruled from 1824 to 1830.
11. Jerome Bonaparte (17841860), brother of Napoleon I.
12. Elizabeth (Betsy) Patterson (17851879).
13. George Finch (17941870), JP & MP.
14. Stay.
15. Augusta Sophia Hicks, nιe Feilding and Matilda Feilding (1775-1849), WHFT's aunts and sisters of WHFT's step-father.
16. Jane Harriot Nicholl, nιe Talbot (17961874).