Lacock
Thursday

My dear Henry.

In the first Place, your mother ^<1> wishes to know whether you have rec^d a letter she wrote to you ten days since & which L^d Auckland ^<2> directed to you at Cowes. She fears from your not having taken any Notice of it that Kit ^<3> may be in Possession & that it has followed him to Glamorganshire –

On arriving here I found M^r Paley ^<4> [illegible] anxious for the establishment of a board of Health, & I accordingly write to Lansdowne ^<5> for the form in what the application should be made, his answer is arrived today & directs that a meeting of the principal Inhabitants should be called, & states that upon their application the necessary powers will be immediately forwarded – before therefore any thing further can be done, we want to know first whether you approve, & secondly when you intend coming as without your assistance nothing will go right – please answer these enquiries at your earliest leisure.

I had some conversation with M^r Paley respecting M^r Worsley ^<6> & the Curacy – poor man he seems in a labyrinth of difficulties, & indecision – I present however he is endeavoring to find a person to act as Curate & Tutor, remaining himself in [illegible deletion] The parish – The Galways are here & Vivian ^<7> & the weather is beautiful & the place lovely. I brought the Gout down in my knee, but it is gone again, & who has got it I know not – In the Counties there is no getting the voters to register themselves & in the Towns as none can vote who have not paid their Rates previously to the 20 August, & as very few have done so it follows that the Constituency will be might small partout ^<8> – I hear your reform dinner is to take place at Chippenham ^<9> next week. do you attend it?

Y^rs aff^ly
C. F.

We are just going a large Party to the Labyrinth which we hear is in the highest order as well as the Wood in general

W. H. F. Talbot Esq^re
Cowes
Isle of Wight

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Notes:

1. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.

2. George Eden, 1^st Earl of Auckland (1784–1849), Governor General of India.

3. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.

4. Rev James Paley (1790–1863), Vicar at Lacock.

5. Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3^rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), MP, WHFT’s uncle.

6. Rev Thomas Worsley (1797–1885), theologian & Master of Downing College, Cambridge.

7. Sir William Payne Gallwey (1807-1881), 2^nd Bart, and his wife, Emily Anne, née Frankland-Russell (b. 1822), and Sir Richard Hussey Vivian (1775–1842), politician.

8. On all sides.

9. Chippenham, Wiltshire: largest town near Lacock, 3 miles N.