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Document number: 654
Date: 03 Jul 1815
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: FEILDING Elisabeth Theresa, née Fox Strangways
Collection: Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Chippenham
Collection number: Lacock Abbey Deposit WRO 2664
Last updated: 10th February 2012

Sackville Street <1>
July 3d

My Dear Henry

The onus probandi <2> lies with you, to make out how Buonaparte <3> is worse than Richard 3d <4> or Louis 11th <5> or many others. I am afraid your political mind is corrupted by reading that vile Courier, <6> the constant dropping of a daily Paper will wear away the hardest of stoutest Whiggism. Your Coat shall go to you as soon as its finished. Tom Strangways's <7> wound turns out not to be so bad as, in the first confusion, it was represented. Mr F. <8> is gone to Eden Farm with Lord Auckland. <9> The National Monument <10> should I think be something like the Arch of Constantine. <11> It is impossible any body can coolly think Buonaparte a Coward, they might as well as well say it was mere matter of opinion whether or no Sir Isaac Newton <12> was a silly man. s

Facts are stubborn things. I hear so much in praise of Lord Ashley <13> - do you like him? I mean to go to the Speeches

W. H. F. Talbot Esqr
Dr Butler's <14>
Harrow


Notes:

1. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.

2. The burden of proof.

3. Napoleon I, Emperor of France (1804-1814/15).

4. Richard III, King of England (1452-1485).

5. Louis XI, King of France (1423-1483).

6. Broadsheet newspaper.

7. Lt Col Thomas Fox Strangways (1790-1854), a cousin of WHFT's mother, Lady Elisabeth Feilding and the son of her uncle Charles. He was grievously wounded at the battle of Waterloo but recovered unexpectedly and continued his military career. At the rank of Brigadier-General, he was killed in the Crimean War at the Battle of Inkerman on 5 November 1854.

8. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780-1837), Royal Navy; WHFT's step-father.

9. George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland (1784-1849), Governor General of India. Eden Farm, Beckingham, Kent.

10. Wellington's triumph over Napoleon at Waterloo in mid-June immediately led to suggestions of a national monument in London; the idea was raised in Parliament as early as 28 June. The monument to Wellington, a colossal statue of Achilles made from melted-down enemy cannon, was financed by subscription from the women of Britain and placed near Hyde Park Corner in 1822. Numerous other monuments to Wellington and Waterloo were erected after 1815 throughout Britain.

11. The Arch of Constantine, Rome, erected in 315 AD.

12. Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727).

13. Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Ashley (1801-1885), later 7th Earl of Shaftesbury.

14. Rev George Butler (1774-1853), Headmaster at Harrow.

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