Autograph letter signed : Loudoun Castle [near Galston], to Robert Burns, 1790 June 27.

Record ID: 
363660
Accession number: 
MA 49.71
Author: 
Dunlop, Frances Anna Wallace, 1730-1815.
Credit: 
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1913.
Description: 
1 item (2 p., with address) ; 24 cm
Notes: 

Addressed to "Mr. Robt. Burns / at Ellisland / by Dumfries."
With postmark and seal.
Docketed.
Dunlop likely reacquired these letters after Burns's death and left them to her descendants with the Lochryan manuscripts (42 of Burns's letters to Mrs. Dunlop and some autograph poems, now MA 46 in the Morgan's collection).
Part of a large collection of letters from Frances Dunlop to Robert Burns. Letters in the collection are described in individual records; see MA 49 for more information.

Summary: 

Telling him that her son-in-law has died of a fever; noting that her "eldest daughter" has also "caught the malignant infection"; describing the experience of writing a letter to the dead man's father: "my heart is dead within me at the idea of his reading it"; commenting on her daughter Susan, the widow, who is "some months gone with child."

Provenance: 
General Sir John Wallace; by descent to Sir William Thomas Francis Agnew Wallace; bequeathed to his brother, Colonel F.J. Wallace; acquired by Robert Borthwick Adam before 1898; purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1913, possibly from the London dealer Pearson.