Sackville St <1>
16th Dec. 1824
My Dear Mr Feilding
I heard yesterday of the death of Sir W. Lemon. <2> I called upon Miss Feilding <3> yesterday, she was very cheerful and as I saw her a year ago walking about the room without difficulty. I met there Mad. de Gaja.<4> Her account of Ld Winchilsea <5> is good, he is coming to Town the 24th. George <6> is turning foxhunter, would you believe they have got him to put on a scarlet coat. Jane <7> & the baby are very well. I met Lord Auckland & Emily Eden <8> in Town. The Travellers is deserted, so are the other Clubs, London foggier than ever & half Macadamized. <9> Sackville St looks like Kerguelen's Land or the Isle of Desolation. <10> I have had an extremely bad cold that does not improve the appearance of things to me. I have written to Mrs Montgomerie <11> - No answer yet. The enterprizing African Travellers have sent home a very extraordinary account. Dr Oudney <12> is dead, not of the heat but of the cold - The cold in December in N. Lat 12o was so intense that the water froze in their vessels. It seems to be a vast tableland of great elevation perhaps 14000 feet. I am going to Abbotsbury <13> on Monday
Yrs afftly
H Talbot
I wrote a long letter from Dover, & have not heard a word from any of you.
Cause & Effect - from the newspapers
Two friends meeting: Well, says one, so Counsellor D. is dead, and has left very few effects - No wonder says the other, since he had so few causes -
Monsieur
M. le Capitaine Feilding
Hotel de la Terrasse
R. Rivoli
Paris
Notes:
1. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
2. Sir William Lemon (1748-1824).
3. Matilda Feilding (1775-1849), WHFT's 'aunt' - sister of Charles Feilding, his stepfather.
4. Matilda de Gaja, née Fitzgerald (1793-1850), daughter of Lord Robert Stephen Fitzgerald (d. 1833), diplomat, and Sophia Charlotte Fitzgerald, née Feilding (d. 1834). Matilda married General Chevalier Victor Marion de Gaja (d. 1875), who fought in the Napoleonic Wars and was credited by Napoleon with saving his life at Leipzig.
5. George Finch, 9th Earl of Winchilsea (1752-1826).
6. George Finch (1794-1870), JP & MP.
7. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796-1874).
8. George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland (1784-1849), Governor General of India and his sister, Emily Eden (1797-1869).9. The Travellers Club was a gentlemans' club established in 1819 in London, catering to those who had visited foreign countries, diplomats posted to London and their guests. The reference was to the macadam road surface invented by John Loudon McAdam (1756-1836), Scottish engineer.
10. Kerguelen Islands in the Southern Indian Ocean, administratively part of the Antarctic Lands, consists of the island of Kerguelen (also known as Desolation Island) and nearly 300 islets, which together cover about 2,400 square miles (6, 200 square km).
11. Probably related to Rev George Stephen Molyneux Montgomerie (1790-1850), close friend of Talbot family, artist, Rector of Garboldisham, near Thetford, Norfolk.
12. Dr Walter Oudney (1790-1824), naval surgeon and African traveller. In 1821 Walter Oudney and Lieutenant Hugh Clapperton went on an official expedition across the Sahara to Bornu (now in northeastern Nigeria), in the Lake Chad basin.
13. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.