Rome
Palazzo Spina
Sunday Decr 24th 1848
My dear Henry
I must write you a line to thank you for your three welcome letters received within a day of each other by Horatia <1> & me – & also to wish you & Constance & Amandier & all the dear Children <2> a merry Christmas & a happy New Year from us all. I must also intreat you to believe none of the absurd & exaggerated accounts in the Newspapers about the fear & disorders existing at Rome – There is very little of one, & none of the other – However ill & ungratefully the Romans acted in the first instance towards Pio Nono, <3> it must be confessed that they have behaved admirably since, in maintaining order – & although there have been all this time about 500 or 600 mauvais sujets, birboni, <4> revolutionists, anarchists &c &c, in the town, & that disturbances have been perpetually foretold, yet none have ever happened, nor does there even seem the least disposition to commit outrages among the people – which is certainly wonderful, it must be allowed – considering there is no actual Govt & that we have been told at various times that on such & such a day the last <bajoccho?> from the Treasury wd be drained to pay the troops – & that there was no possibility of legally obtaining more, without the Pope’s presence – Considering all this we jog on pretty well – I believe the Pope is anxious to return – They are come for the letters – so I must finish – but we will write again soon –
Pray write – Your’s <sic> are so welcome –
Yrs affly
Caroline
Bulldog is at Ca Va <5> We have had Captn Key <6> twice here – also Mr Temple & Ld Napier <7> – who is very agreable <sic> –Love to all – in haste –
Notes:
1. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
2. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife, Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family and Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter, Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter, Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter and Charles Henry Talbot (1842–1916), antiquary & WHFT’s only son.
3. Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti (1792–1878); Pope Pius IX from 1846–1878.
4. Bad characters, rascals.
5. Cività Vecchia. [See Doc. No: 06209].
6. Sir Astley Cooper Key (1821–1888), admiral; commanded the Bulldog steamer in the Mediterranean from 1847 to 1850.
7. Probably Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865), statesman and Francis Napier, Lord Napier and Ettrick (b. 1819).