| Description | from Thomas Honeyborne to Joseph Atkinson. Reads as follows: "My Dear Joe, When at Stourbridge in rummaging over some old papers I found the inclosed letter from your Father dated the 17th of Jan[uar]y 1806, I suppose in answer to one I wrote to him at that time upon the subject of the thousand pounds which my brot[her] paid to him as a part of my sister's fortune for the purchase of Leeson Street House and by this letter it appears that no security was demanded or given. Brettell told me he had no memorandum or recollection of any security being given on the occasion, which he w[oul]d have recollected had any security been required - so that your mother must deduct £1000 from your late father's property as belonging to her.
Tomorrow evenig I expect Charles & Mrs Green and her daughters to come here. I go to the assembly at Cheadle on Tuesday evening - they will stay with me some little time but how lond I do not know. They call on Lady Siturch at Oakover on their way. I suppose to dine there as they do not come here to dinner. I promised to go with them to the Ball but as I am only a piece of lumber there & have an eruption broke out all over my head & a swelling of the glands of my neck, & some sore lumps on the back part of my head near to the neck, I shall not go, but will get ?Coyney to introduce them. I cannot account for this complaint unless it proceed from a scorbutick habit which broke out upon me two or three years ago, as I have taken no cold, unless it be, as I suspect to be the case, by the custom of washing my head in cold water in a morning & as I sleep in a flannel night cap & another one of cotton over it for the purpose of preserving my heaing (which is now nearly perfectly restored) & the application of cold water applied to the head when in a state of perspiration has produced this effect. That is the insensible perspiration that is going on after uncovering my head. I now wash my head with warm water in a morning & I thing my head is getting better. I feel as if I had a plaster of pitch on my head.
"We have had the most delightgul winter ever remembered, only slight frosts & dry weather, the glass having been unusually high till a few days ago it began to fall & we have lately had some showers. Whilst I was away from here we have lost poor Blaze the attorney, who died after a long illness from catching cold after being violently heated during the last summer on his return from Derby Assizes. He was affected with a soreness all over the muscles of his body so as to be incapable of motion without the greatest pain. He was a very honest, honourable nam as ever lived, & has left a very large family behind him, mostly young. I am invited to the funeral on Tuesday morning & as it w[oul]d not be very decorous to go to a Ball on the same evening I shall urge that as an additional reason for my not going there.
" I am reading a narrative of a residence in Belgium during the time of the great battle Waterloo which I have found uncommonly interesting notwithstanding the subject has been written on so often that it is become quite threadbare. It is said to be written by a Lady. All the little incidents & occurences that took place are admirably well narrated so as to keep the mind of the reader in a continual state of agitation & anxiety. If you have not read it I recommend you to puruse it you will find it very interesting.
"My dinner is just coming on the table & I must bid you adieu and with love to Sally, Maria &c &c I remain
My Dear Joe
Affectionately Your
T. Honeyborne
PS I see the Duke of Wellington is appointed Master Gen[era]l of the Ordnance & it is supposed some change in administration will take place in consequence of it & that the Marquess of Welsley will come in. |