Sackville Street <1>
Saturday August 26th
My Dear Henry
If you do not write oftener I must certainly send for you by Habeas Corpus <2> & remove your Body from the Principality of Wales <3>, as it seems to prove a Capua to you, & so to enervate your right hand, as to prevent your continuing those communications which give me so much pleasure. I have not been well this week, which makes me miss your Letters the more. Besides I want very particularly to know about your health, as I remember it was just this time last year at Penrice <4> & this time eight years ago at Plymouth that you were in a state of déperissement <5> which makes me think the Sea Tide in the D og days, does not agree with you, however it may in other parts of the year. Have you been again on Kit’s <6> Poney? & with as much success? I am writing this on the Sofa, as I cannot sit up to write, having a bad head ach [sic] – I hope you can read it. Car & Hor <7> are still at Barming. Mr. F. <8> goes next week to Sprotborough <9> for Partridge Shooting – Sir George Paul <10> is going to Paris for a week
God Bless you My Dearest & write directly
Mr Hy Talbot Esqr
Penrice Castle
Swansea
Notes:
1. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
2. A common law writ issued by a court to summon someone before it.
3. WFHT was at Penrice Castle, Wales. [See Doc. No: 00662].
4. Penrice Castle and Penrice House, Gower, Glamorgan, 10 mi SW of Swansea: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
5. Deterioration.
6. Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.
7. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister, and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
8. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
9. Sprotbrough Hall, Doncaster, the family seat of Sir Joseph Copley, 3rd Baronet (d. 1838).
10. Sir George Onesiphorus Paul, High Sheriff of Gloucester.