Oxford
April 16 - 1812.
My dear Mamma,
I am here at Oxford in safety, at Dr Coles - Three miles beyond Swansea we saw the Copper Works - In the first furnace, the ore is reduced to this state [illustration] in grains of a black colour, and it is successively purified in eight or nine different furnaces, a great deal of sulphur being perceptibly volatilized, as we tasted it - It is melted in a sort of a deep oven, and there is a man who skims off the dross with an instrument like a hoe [illustration]. The melted copper looks intensely red hot. It is then poured off into a cistern of water, which is afterwards drawn up, and the copper appears in the form of rather larger black grains. Thus it is continually melted till it is purified - When they make brass, they pass the copper through a sort of mould with [illegible deletion] holes in it, which reduces the copper to these sort of shapes [illustration] as Charlotte <1> can shew you in her specimens - They have a curious way of obtaining a sort of copper ore - They immerse iron plates in the river that flows from the Anglesey Copper Mines, which river is so strongly impregnated with copper, that it deposits a quantity of that metal on the iron plates, and makes it worth mens while to keep a good deal of iron in that river After seeing the copper works we went to see Lord Vernons at Briton Ferry <2> - the trees there are very forward - Sycamore was in leaf: Horse Chesnuts, and May partly so - Blackthorn was in full blossom - While Aunt Mary, Mr F. and Captn Cole <3> were walking about the grounds, Charlotte and me amused ourselves by plucking Arums, and extracting the embryo blossoms - At Briton Ferry, I and Charlotte dined, and in the room there was a curious organ which played I think thirty tunes - It had six stops as I shall call them, thus - [illustration]
Dia-something Principal Twelfth Sixteenth Triangle Drum
The four first were different modifications of the Sound, but if you pulled out the Triangle Knob, the organ only beat time to the tune, like a person playing on the Triangle, and the same with the Drum -
At half past 5. we arrived at Margam <4> but as I had dined at Briton Ferry - I did not dine there -
(Turn Over)
The next day we walked up to the Half Moon Fort and thence we had a very fine view (N.B. Captn Cole desires me to tell you it is a miserable work) They, as they were going another way, directed me to go down a certain path as a short way, never was such a lamentable path - As soon as I had descended with cautious steps about 20 Feet, (For you must know I was very cautious as the path was not a yard broad, and on one side was a "dreadful precipice" of 10 or 12 Feet - How dreadful!!!) There was an Archway, thus [illustration] which I passed under when, lo! and behold, the path ceased, and I was left to choose my future route - The first route I chose was to tumble down ten feet or more thus [illustration with labels: 'stone', 'grass'] a stone on which I trod giving way with myriads of others and clattering down to the bottom of the rocks - I fell, tumbled, and slid a long way down some nearly perpendicular grass till my course was suddenly interrupted by a tree. However if it had not been for this incident, I believe I should never have descended those said rocks, so it was rather fortunate - After two hours rambling I got out at the other side of the wood - In the wood I gathered a [text missing] <5> [whi]ch I wish you would ask Aunt Mary [the] [n]ame of, if you can make her unders[tand] my description of it - Its leaves and stem were like grass, it had five pointed petals [illustration] of a brown color with white edges and a style of this shape [illustration] ending in three points of a greenish yellow color - Coming here, I saw an [sic] yew tree tastefully cut: [illustration] PS - At Gloster [sic] I remarked, as I knew you would be anxious about it, that my bed was very dry, and after that, it was warmed - Give my love to Mr F. Aunt Mary & my Cousins
Yr Affecte Son.
W.H F Talbot
The Rt Honble
Lady E Feilding
Penrice Castle
Swansea
Notes:
1. Charlotte Louisa 'Charry' Traherne, née Talbot (1800-1880), WHFT's cousin.
2. George Charles Venables-Vernon, 4th Lord Vernon (1779-1835); Vernon House was at Briton Ferry, two miles from Neath in South Wales.
3. Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776-1855), WHFT's aunt; Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780-1837), Royal Navy; WHFT's step-father; Sir Christopher Cole (1770-1836), Captain, MP & naval officer.
4. Margam Park, Glamorgan: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.
5. Text torn away under seal.