Letter

Scope and Content

Letter from Lady Catherine Herries to Mary Hamilton. The letter relates to the health of Mrs Elizabeth Vesey (see HAM/1/6/2), conveys general news, and briefly touches on the political situation of the time.

Herries reports that she has now been sent back the patterns and songs that she had sent to Lady Stormont (see HAM/1/17/123) and she longs to send them to Hamilton along with a cloak she has. The letter continues with news on her family and friends. Mrs Elizabeth Carter has come to town and is to dine with Herries that day. Herries is sure that Carter would wish her to send her love to Hamilton. She also hopes to see Horace Walpole that evening. She reports that he has been kept in his house by a cold and the 'bitter weather but he gives me hopes of venturing out to night'. How Herries wishes that Hamilton would also be of the party.

Herries continues her letter on Mrs Vesey who is ill but who Herries reports so still pleased to see that she is loved but who nevertheless on the 'whole though keeps talking incoherently yet in less miserably when any such friend is present'.

Herries also briefly comments on reading a pamphlet written about Prince George and his 'mistress' Mrs Fitzherbert entitled, Marcellus and Julia: a Dialogue, [1788] and will let Hamilton know if it is worth reading.

Dated at St James's Street, [London].