Laycock abbey
27 April
My Dear Henry
I am afraid you have been all this time in town without doing anything for me with Mr Hammersley. <1> More dividends have accrued due to me in March, & nobody to receive them. Besides I very much wish the proper steps to be taken for removing the principal to the English Funds. Now they are going to lower the interest in France there is no object in keeping them there, but great inconvenience. Were I known to Hammersley I would have transacted it for myself long ago. Pray tell Caroline <2> & above all Fanny <3> that we shall be in town Deo volente Monday Evening to tea, but she is not to get anything but the under mentioned articles viz: a neck of tender mutton, some bread & milk & Yorkshire cakes because we shall take cream & country butter with us, to make the most of our rural pleasures. Pray write a twopenny post note to Thrupp<4> to say that my post chaise will go to him Monday coming, that somebody may be prepared to receive it, as it is awkward arriving late & his shop perhaps shut up. Now pray don’t forget the above matter of fact commissions. How very odd you do not answer about your Ligusticum <5> The Gardener seems in trouble about it, for fear Horatia <6> should have misled him. The place looks perfectly neat, all the walks smooth & rolled, & not a weed this day in the whole garden. I have made a trial now of this house for a fortnight with hardly any servants & horrid weather & find that with everything against it, yet still it is always chearful & comfortable. Answer by return of post & tell me about the Ligusticum & whether you have actually executed my two commissions as above. Ly Charlotte <7> has followed the example of Theresa & has had a fausse couche <8> at Margam <9>
Horatia says that it is evident you do not answer about the Ligusticum because you feel it would be like putting birds back into their eggs to repot them now. She has imported a lot of the finest Italian Carnations equal to those we saw at Salerno
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
31. Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Of Hammersley & Company, bankers, London. [See Doc. No: 03625].
2. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
3. A daughter of the Rev Charles Fox Strangways. [See Doc. No: 00686].
4. Charles Joseph Thrupp (d. 1866), a high quality coachbuilder on Oxford Street, London, later succeeded by his more famous son, George Athelstane Thrupp (1822–1905).
5. See Doc. No: 03657.
6. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
7. Lady Charlotte Talbot, née Butler (1809–1846), wife of CRM Talbot.
8. Miscarriage.
9. Margam Park, Glamorgan: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.