Friday
[this is written on the same sheet as a note from Lady Elisabeth - see Doc. No: 00064]
My dear Henry -
Pray get me from the H of Commons a Copy of the "first Report of the commission on the commercial Relations between France & England" which I see is just presented to both Houses, & which I should much like to have -
Sunday.
Horatia <1> had a better Night, & I am much inclined to hope the complaint is on the Turn, but she still suffers a great deal of Pain & is very Helpless - our going is therefore delayed at all events till Thursday 12th & if beyond that - to an uncertain Period - the Packet does not sail again in the morning till the 23d -
If my watch is come Montgomerie <2> may bring it - Thank Constance <3> for her Note - Horatia's Pain is in every joint, you may imagine how incapable she must be of moving herself even an Inch in bed or from her Back to the side & the Ennui <4> which it must create being so helpless - but she is better today - I am very glad you went to Hammersmith <5> & hope Constance will go there again some morning - I understand Betsey <6> is to go when you leave Sackville St <7> tell Constance, as I answer her Question - I am in trouble about the changes - I regret Aucklands <8> appointment excessively - they take him from where he was doing perfectly well & place him in a situation all the Duties of which must be all new to him, & where he has a new Trade to learn - He will not be popular in the profession, in which he hardly knows a creature & his cold distant manner is not calculated to make him Friends - Why did not they persuade Abercromby <9> to take some office? he would have added character & respectability to their administration - Ld Carlisle <10> will not be less inefficient, for being paid - in short I am vexed that something more substantive has not followed the Change - Then think of Poulett Thomson <11> President of the board of Trade!! - It was his inefficiency, & the promise he had of the Presidency if Auckland was moved which in great measure created the difficulty & uncertainty as to Auckds accepting the Controllership of the Exchequer - Well, I cannot help it - & fretting is useless but it seems to me that we are going astern of ahead [sic] -
God bless you - I am very sorry you are unwell, but every body is I think.
C.F
Betty is gone to Bristol -
Mrs Vickeray [sic]
St Philips Plain
Bristol
W. H. Fox Talbot Esqr M.P.
31. Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810-1851), WHFT's half-sister.
2. Rev George Stephen Molyneux Montgomerie (1790-1850), artist, Norwich.
3. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811-1880), WHFT's wife.
4. Boredom.
4. This was possibly to visit Lady Sophia Charlotte Fitzgerald, née Feilding (d. 1834), Charles Feilding's sister. She moved to Hammersmith (now a West London suburb) after her diplomat husband, Lord Robert Stephen Fitzgerald, died in Nice in 1833. After her death, a memorial to her was placed in St Paul's Church, Hammersmith.
6. Elizabeth Vickery ‘Betty’, WHFT’s governess, who died in 1835. WHFT paid to have a gravestone placed at Cutcombe, Somerset, inscribed: 'Erected to the Memory of Elizbth Vickery his kind & faithful nurse by Henry Fox Talbot of Lacock Abbey in the country of Wilts Esqre'; the stone's inscription is still readable - See Doc. No: 03205.
7. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
8. George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland (1784-1849), Governor General of India.
9. James Abercromby, 1st Baron Dunmferline (1776-1858).
10. George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle (1773-1848), politician.
11. Charles Poulett Thomson, later Baron Sydenham (1799-1841), merchant, politician and Governor-General of Canada.