Hector Maclaine was born on the Isle of Mull about 1785. He fought in France during the Napoleonic Wars; the medal he was awarded for bravery at the Battle of Nivelle was sold at auction in London in 2020 and realised £22 000. At the end of the Wars in 1815 he remained in France as part of Wellington’s temporary army of occupation; his wife Martha Osborne who he married in 1816 was living with him in France; their son William was born at Valenciennes in 1818. This letter shows him returning to France and setting up a home there with his family. But when his wife’s father’s widow died he inherited the Osborne family’s substantial properties in Thornbury, Gloucestershire. By the time of the Census of 1841 the family was living there; the son William had already graduated from Oxford with a BA awarded in 1840. All this perhaps indicates that two hundred years ago and despite the recent wars France was felt to be a desirable place to live; and in Le Havre there is clearly an English-speaking community.
Addressed
to Mrs Craig Cameron
Bridge Kennoway Fife
Montivilliers
26 Augt 1828
My Dear
Margaret
We came here
about five days ago in search of a house & found a small lodging which we
have taken for three months to be ready to step into the first vacant house
that offers. The Situation of this town is very fine & healthy & six
miles only from Havre de Grace & a good road to it, we can get the
necessarys here but Havre is our chief resort for shopping.
William is
at school at Havre or Ingoville near that place at a Mr Dukes’s an English
Clergyman of very amiable Manners who preaches
for us all on Sundays at our chapel in Havre. Wiliam is much pleased
with him & quite reconciled to his new abode, & I have every reason to
think that we shall all continue so to do for the time we propose to remain. We
were at a Boarding house at Ingoville for two weeks after our arrival where we
met with the old chaperone of archds [Archibald’s?] Wife a Mrs Vanneck
she said they have been acquainted since they were children she is married to
the honble Mr Vanneck a brother of Lord Huntingfields, of this more hereafter -
write me a long letter giving all the news of the Highlands etc & if you
have heard from Archibald or Gillian McLaine. I write this in a hurry as I am
going in to Havre to the post office. Whenever you write address to Lt. Col.
Maclaine Havre de Grace France, Care of Captn Meeks Steam Packet Office Southampton
With United
[?] love to you
I remain
Your ever
aff[ letter torn here ectionate] Brother H.Maclaine
N.B.
I shall
write you once a month on [letter torn here]
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