Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Autograph letter signed : Cawnpore, to [Sir Philip Francis], 1780 Oct. 9.

BIB_ID
340340
Accession number
MA 149.22
Creator
Collings, L., active 1780.
Display Date
1780 Oct. 9.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1901.
Description
1 item (2 p.) ; 23.0 cm
Notes
Collings has used ciphers when referring to certain persons and someone, possibly Sir Francis, has written the corresponding name through or above the cipher.
Docketed.
Identity of recipient inferred from contents of the letter.
Part of a large collection of correspondence of Sir Philip Francis; see collection-level record for more information.
Provenance
By descent to his eldest granddaughter Miss Francis, and in her possession in 1871; sale (London, Sotheby's, 27 November 1897); purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer J. Pearson & Co., 1901.
Summary
Reporting that "our Situation is dismal enough and I have very little hopes of its improving. We have played the Fool and it is come home to us at last;" hoping Francis has succeeded with "23" [Bristow]. Believe me it will be doing an essential Service if any Step can contribute towards our Salvation here. 24 [Purling] is really not fit for the office in any one Shape--he is laughed at by the people about him and universally Despised. As to our Com---g Offr. here [here, in another hand, an "x" is written above "our" and below the line is another "x" and Col. James Morgan], he thinks of no one thing upon Earth but his Wife and his Money..;" saying that he hopes he has fully recovered [reference here to the wound sustained by Sir Francis in his duel with Warren Hastings].