| Description | Large quarto album in dark red morocco gilt, with "LETTERS" on front cover, containing a collection of letters to the Forbes Leith family from members of the aristocracy, churchmen and the like. The letters are pasted one or two to a page and generally have a note with the sender's name and date entered below them.
Including a letter from Major Charles Keith, 4th Light Dragoons, 18th January 1855, from the Crimea, dated "Camp before Sebastopol": "... I doubt if we have men enough for the affair now. You will have an idea of our state when I tell you that of 54,000 men which have been despatched from England within the last 9 months, we can only now muster 15,000 men fit for duty, and they are decreasing at the rate of over 1000 a month…" |