February 17 1817 <1>
My Dear Henry
Did you particularly wish to move the Curtisia Fagineĉ or Assagay Tree, because if so I will save some of the seeds of it for you, & will not send any to Melbury <2> till I have yr answer.
Lady Bath <3> was in a hurry because she is coming to town & wanted them to be planted before she left Longleat
I dont want Ld Arden, <4> if he is safe, that's well. Mr Bonney's <5> Father was once very kind to Lord Westmorland's Father, <6> before he came to the title - it was many years ago at Bath. I am not sure whether it was not their Grandfather's but in short it is from some sort of family gratitude Lord W - gave Mr B - the living of Cliffe.
Do tell me who the Honorable Mrs Bland, <7> could have been before she married. You have been at Kippax <8> I believe. I send you some Ixias enclosed. The Mud boots I hope are received. Nathan[?] explains Angular Motion to be a kind of compound motion composed of a circular & a rectilinear motion, like the wheel of a coach. (Not that I see why that should be called angular) - again, he says the angular motions of revolving bodies, are reciprocally proportional to their periodic times. - Again, angular motion is the motion of a body which moves circularly about a point, or the variation in the angle described by a line connecting the a body with the centre about which it moves. Thus a pendulum has an angular motion about its centre & the planets have an angular motion about the Sun.
Notes:
1. Written in another hand.
2. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
3. Isabella Elizabeth Thynne, née Byng, Lady Bath (d. 1830).
4. Probably Lord Joseph Arden.
5. Henry Kaye Bonney (ca. 1746-1810).
6. John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland (1759-1841), and his father John Fane, 9th Earl of Westmorland (d. 1774).
7. Appolonia Mary Bland (1785-1868), daughter of Charles Philip, 16th Lord Stourton (1752-1816). She qualified as the Honorable Mrs Bland.
8. Kippax Park, Yorkshire, Southeast of Leeds, now demolished, the home of the Bland family.