£875
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs | 589
Auction: 19 February 2020 at 10:00 GMT
concerning his financial affairs, in the form of a list headed "1747" and then several indistinct figures ending "S.L. 52 Spent. S[i]r John Lambert"
"ye T.P. to draw on Waters.
M[emoran]d[um] Di to know from Gordon
ye Post Book, ye Wine
ye silver for 25. Louis
ye servant to be german
ye detail of all yr rents
with ye form used by J.W.
to receive them and the man[n]er
I can make one.
ye affair of Vignion &
ye interest of 5 per C[ent]
all to be put in clier
having ye acquittances
also ye Ordon[n]ances
to be given im[m]ediately -
for ye amount of 102 T.
ye Linnin that is nott
to be seen how to wash.
If G knows a gentilman"., 1 page, 16mo, n.p. 1747
Note: The Young Pretender, in dangerous exile in France, often wrote in the vaguest terms. Margaret Foster, in her biography of the Prince wrote that "His fear of detection would not allow him to sign his name or date his letters. Often these missives were written in invisible ink and in disguised hands even worse than Charles' own. The names he did sign at the end only added to the confusion for they changed with bewildering rapidity and it was like receiving anonymous letters which... were difficult to accept as trustworthy". The Waters mentioned in the letter is Charles Edward's Parisian banker. The reference to Vignion presumably indicates Avignon where he spent some of his time in exile. Gordon may be John Gordon, Rector of the Scots College at Paris, to whom the Prince is known to have written at various times. It may be that the reference to "ye Linnin" is in code.