Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Lucy Hutchinson (1620–1681). Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson. 1906.

Appendix XXXVI: Letter of Mrs. Hutchinson on the Sale of Owthorpe, 1671

‘MR BATEMAN,—I was last night at your Chamber after you went from Mr Butler’s, to have desired you that what notes you took of my affairs, wherein I dealt simply and clearly expecting to have found the like, might have been given up and burnt; and that according to your engagement, as a gentleman, what I exposed to you might not at all be made public; but in that particular now you have a little put it out of your power, by telling Mr Clarke all particulars, which he again told Mr Ward, and I perceive by himself hath been advising with every one he meets. I have desired my brother to show you two letters, upon confidence of which, I put by an offer of money that was made me, and is now disposed, and did not so much as send Sir William Jesson an answer to a letter he sent to me in order to a treaty; and refused two others that were offered me for purchasers; and whatever pretence is taken I cannot but discover, that this gentleman is young and continues no longer firm to his resolution than till the next designing person he consults, persuades him to a new one. I have nothing to accuse in this but my own ill choice, and rash confidence of Mr Ward’s mistakes, who however it falls ill to me, I am confident meant well to both; nor am I so much concerned in the loss of a purchaser (for that I cannot fear to want long) as in the failure of (what I thought so assured that I refused it elsewhere) money to take in my principal mortgages: and I confess too I have reason to be vexed, that I should be so sifted where there was no real intention to close with me. The least I can expect both from yourself and Mr Clarke is a future silence to all persons of what I have too credulously opened to you, concerning my affairs, and thereby you will oblige, your servant,

Feb. 10th, 1670,

Endorsed, February 11th, 1671—‘Madam Hutchinson’s letter about Owthorpe’.