BIB_ID
342543
Accession number
MA 150.73
Creator
Smith, L.L., Captain, active 1780.
Display Date
1780 Apr. 26.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1901.
Description
1 item (4 p.) ; 22.9 cm.
Notes
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.
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
Discussing a military action led by Captain Popham; relating news of "Sir E."[yre Coote] and the "Gov'r [Warren Hastings]; "saying that "as soon as the Gov'r sacrificed his pre-eminence by his appeal to him, and refered the dispute of council to his decision, he rose into consequence, power shifted hands, and Sir E....became the chairoteer [sic] of the state. He was now no longer a satelite of the Gov'rs, warmed by his beams, and supported by his power, but the primary of the system; when like a new created Sun he animated all the dead masses round him; threw some of the most grave into a giddy rotation, and Hastings like another little mercury hovering round his person was lost by his proximity in the [illegible] blaze."
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