Melbury ^<1>
March 10

My dear Henry

I hope this may reach you before you take wing for Corfu, I shall start immediately after election matters will allow of my absence – but I much fear that the variety of intervening temptations between Gibraltar & Corfu, will prevent my reaching the latter till after you have left it – I wish I could tempt you on to Constantinople or Alexandria.

John Strangways ^<2> is gone up the Nile with M^r Phillips a gentleman of Leicester Shire – and I am in great hopes I shall meet him somewhere next year – I will not fail to leave an account of my movements with William ^<3> at Florence. I leave this tomorrow for Margam, ^<4> where I have been staying two days in my way from Plymouth. In about a month I shall be in London, but I have had so much to do in Glamorganshire this winter, that I was quite prevented from going to Town as I expected – I am in hopes my sisters will come too, but they are not over-ready or anxious in the cause –

Believe me Dear Henry Every truly Yours
C R M Talbot

PS – pray tell M^r Feilding ^<5> I have directed his sherry to be shipped 3 weeks ago, but that no ship has left Swansea for six weeks in consequence of the westerly winds –

Sherborne, March ten 1826 Ilchester ^<6>
H. F. Talbot Esq^r
31. Sackville S^t
London

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Notes:

1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.

2. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803–1859), MP.

3. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4^th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.

4. Margam Park, Glamorgan: home of Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot.

5. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.

6. Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3^rd Earl of Ilchester (1787–1858).