TALBOT2725

Lucerne

23^d July 1833

My Dear Mr F.

I certainly did not mean that you should pay Dominico ¹ 12^s but only reimburse him the expenses of the Customhouse which appear to have been 5/6. I have not time to write much at length as we are going to see the Rigi ² & the char is waiting at the door. M^{lle 3} begs me to say she wrote a long letter to Horatia ⁴ last Sunday & put it in the post at Meyringhen – We have been without news from England since we left Berne, but on our arrival here we found in Galignani ⁵ a profusion of interesting intelligence – The news from London comes up to the day before the Lords ⁶ had to decide on the Irish Church Bill, ⁷ but leaves us there, without mentioning the result, which is tantalizing. Francesco ⁸ left us when we arrived at Berne, without assigning any particular reason, we thought him a good servant. I then took Antonio Baletti ⁹ who does very well. It is surprising how many new houses have been built at Berne Thun & Interlacken <sic>, the latter especially now professes 5 or 6 immense Pensions, ¹⁰ which are not however much frequented, the speculation seems to have failed.

Lucerne has recently been the theatre of 2 great events, for small events are great to little towns.

The first was an incendie ¹¹ on the 12 June owing to a woman setting fire to a row of straw hats, see the disadvantage <of the Lucer>noise ¹² costume! and refusing to open the door, <thinking she?> could put it out herself. Several houses were burnt down & the whole town in great danger – The authorities brought out cannon and fired 100 shot against the house & the neighbouring ones till they fell down. The shot that missed went into the lake and only 1 man was killed by them. The whole country was aroused by the cannonade in the dead of night, & came flocking with arms in their hands to suppress the supposed Revolution. Signal fires were lighted all over the country –

The other event was the other day when the people of this canton ¹³ rejected the new constitution when put to the vote (<univers>al suffrage) by a majority of 12,000–7000 which has confounded the government who are liberals, & all the parti du mouvement, ¹⁴ who attribute it to the priests, & are going to have the vote taken over again, which I think not fair.

Yours aff^tly

Henry Talbot

Angleterre
Monsieur
M. le Capitaine Feilding

31 Sackville S^t
Londres