Harrow <1>
April 25th 1815
My Dear Mr Feilding,
I received the watch quite safe, & am very much obliged to you for it: but I have not returned the other yet, because I am regulating it carefully, & have now succeeded in making it keep time, for these two last Days, which convinces me that Mr Bartoise did not touch it. The difference of Time between the watches was only half a minute.
We spoke privately in School today, that is, in the presence of the Sixth form only: Than <2> [illegible deletion] I did not say mine at all perfect, than which nothing can be more truly uncomfortable. – This I attribute to our having been a long while in Church immediately before: it being St Mark’s Day – our first, second, & Third Speech days are respectively May. 4. – June 1. July 6. – Tell Mamma <3> I do not wish her to come here next Speechday, but I should like her to come either in June or July. – I do not upon consideration, see anything generous in Buonaparte’s releasing the Duc d’Angoulême: since he capitulated on that condition. <4>
I remain, Yrs Afftely
W. H. F. Talbot.
Captn Feilding R.N.
31 Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. Harrow School: WHFT attended from 1811–1815 and his son Charles from 1855-1859.
2. WHFT may have meant to cross this out, or he could have smudged it while underlining the word.
3. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.
4. Louis-Antoine de Bourbon, Duc d’Angoulême (1775–1844), last dauphin of France and a prominent figure in the restoration of the Bourbon line after the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. [For Lady Elisabeth’s reaction on the Duke’s recent release from Napoleon, see Doc. No: 00645].