Mary Watson-Wentworth, Hillingdon House, [Middlesex], to James Edward Smith

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Ref No GB-110/JES/COR/15/129
Title Mary Watson-Wentworth, Hillingdon House, [Middlesex], to James Edward Smith
Letter date 18 Feb 1800
Author(s) Mary Watson- Wentworth 1735-1804
Number of Pages 6

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GB-110/JES/COR/15/129 from Mary Watson-Wentworth, Hillingdon House, [Middlesex], to James Edward Smith (18 February 1800)

Metadata for GB-110/JES/COR/15/129 from Mary Watson-Wentworth, Hillingdon House, [Middlesex], to James Edward Smith (18 February 1800) Close

Item data

Item Type: Document
From: Wentworth, Mary Watson-
Sent from: Hillingdon, Middlesex
To: Smith, Sir James Edward
Summary:

Thanks for turkey and biscuits, which her ill-health prevented her from acknowledging sooner. Offers Smith a stuffed bird of paradise for his collection; she received it with a living parakeet from Bombay and its plumage is as though it died yesterday. Ashamed to put Smith's household to the expense and trouble of satisfying her demand for biscuits and ideally would like a box quarterly but her finances constrained "since Mr [William] Pitt [the Younger (1759-1806), prime minister] has been pleas'd to take £500 a year" from her income.
Comments that Smith's 'Agapanthus' which bore the winter and flourished in a border "must have been very pleasant", and wishes Smith could persuade Grieg, her gardener, to make similar experiments at Hillingdon. 'Amarylis radiata' in flower in her room which she thinks worthy of being drawn; [James] Sowerby does not recall her sending him a flower and leaf of it two years ago.
Curious to know whether Smith's sister is married to his young companion he brought to visit last year. Sending the bird in a box soon.

Letter date: 18 Feb 1800
Languages: English
Prev Ref No: 15.244
Additional Information:
Note typeNote
Finding AidsDawson, W R (1934). "Catalogue of the manuscripts in the Library of The Linnean Society - Part I. The Smith papers: The correspondence and miscellaneous papers of Sir James Edward Smith", London: Linnean Society.
AdditionalSmith replied 3 Mar [1800]