London
Thursday
29 May 1834

Dear M^r F.

I took my place in the Coach this morning, but having passed a completely sleepless night, I was afraid of making myself ill by the journey, & therefore preferred forfeiting my place – Tomorrow the Coaches are all full, & it does not appear to me worthwhile to come down Saturday evening & return Sunday evening which I must do in order to be in time for the expected Ministerial statement on Monday. I mean therefore to come down on Saturday week & wish you adieu, but I wish very much you could postpone your departure till the next time the Camilla sails, which I believe she does twice a week: More especially as our gallery ceiling is tumbling down & I am afraid the workmen will make a blundering piece of work of fixing the iron arch after you are gone –

Perhaps however you were already intending to wait a few days longer till Hor^a & my mother ^<1> had got the better of their influenza.

I signed a letter to L^d Grey ^<2> yesterday begging him not to resign, there were a great many signatures of the H. of Commons ^<3> – The remainder of the Session will now be much more lively: we were getting excessively humdrum, & this will give us a fillip.

For my part I don’t comprehend anything about it, nor who can act with who, and why the remainder cannot – it is all an enigma to me. It appears that if anybody had proposed M^r Ward’s ^<4> resolutions 3 months ago, (or at any other time) it w^d have had the effect of dissolving the ministry at whatever time it might have been proposed! Therefore for many months the state of the Government has been like a magazine of combustibles to which the hand of a child might at any time have applied a match. I have no news, that is particularly true, to tell you, therefore conclude –

Yours aff^tly
Henry

P.S. We took the drawings of Lacock yesterday to Matilda ^<5> who was very much pleased with them – Her house has a very pretty look out upon the Thames –

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Notes:

1. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister and Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.

2. Charles Grey, 2^nd Earl Grey (1764–1845), statesman, resigned on 9 July 1834 after a disagreement in the cabinet over the renewal of the Irish coercion act of 1833.

3. House of Commons.

4. Probably John William Ward, 1^st Earl Dudley (d. 1833).

5. Matilda Feilding (1775-1849), WHFT's 'aunt' - sister of Charles Feilding, his stepfather.