Single Letter

HAM/1/4/5/2

Letter from Lady Catherine Hamilton (née Barlow) to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


1

Typed
March 1772

Lady Hamiltons letters to her niece


      I am quite concern'd My Dr
Miʃs Hamilton that you could give yourself
leave one moment to think that my late
Silence has procededed from any motive of
unkindneʃs, you neither do yourself or me justice
in giving way to that thought -- & I beg for
the future if I should not be so regular in
answering your letters as I would wish to
be, that you will impute it to neceʃsity --
not inclination -- I have sometimes not been
well & at all times so engaged that from
the time I get up in the Morning till I go to
bed I seldom have an instant to myself,
judge thou how much time I have for writing,
but I could not let the Post go without aʃsuring
you of my true esteem & regard & thanking
you in Sr Williams name for your very
pretty present & beautifull Work -- but



Sr Wm. is quite concern'd that you have
sent him such a quantity & would have
wrote himself to tell you so & thank you
but that he has so much busineʃs upon
his hands that he really has it not in
his power -- I thank you likewise My Dr
Miʃs Hamilton for the Charming works you
have put in mine -- I hope Mrs Hamilton has
got quite Stout & well & am happy all is
likely to be amicably adjusted -- I would write
more but I have stole this time (which is the
only minute I have) from my dinner & have
got such a headach with looking down
so soon that I can scarce see -- I will write
again as soon as I can -- in the mean
time beg mine & Hamiltons kind Love to
Mrs Hamilton & am
      My Dr Miʃs Hamiltons
                             Very Affecte Aunt
                                                         CHamilton
George Street      17712[1]
Hanover Square
      March 12th --

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. This line appears to the right of the address. '1771' has been corrected to '1772', by Mary Hamilton or another hand.

Normalised Text







      I am quite concerned My Dear
Miss Hamilton that you could give yourself
leave one moment to think that my late
Silence has proceeded from any motive of
unkindness, you neither do yourself or me justice
in giving way to that thought -- & I beg for
the future if I should not be so regular in
answering your letters as I would wish to
be, that you will impute it to necessity --
not inclination -- I have sometimes not been
well & at all times so engaged that from
the time I get up in the Morning till I go to
bed I seldom have an instant to myself,
judge thou how much time I have for writing,
but I could not let the Post go without assuring
you of my true esteem & regard & thanking
you in Sir Williams name for your very
pretty present & beautiful Work -- but



Sir William is quite concerned that you have
sent him such a quantity & would have
written himself to tell you so & thank you
but that he has so much business upon
his hands that he really has it not in
his power -- I thank you likewise My Dear
Miss Hamilton for the Charming works you
have put in mine -- I hope Mrs Hamilton has
got quite Stout & well & am happy all is
likely to be amicably adjusted -- I would write
more but I have stolen this time (which is the
only minute I have) from my dinner & have
got such a headache with looking down
so soon that I can scarce see -- I will write
again as soon as I can -- in the mean
time beg mine & Hamiltons kind Love to
Mrs Hamilton & am
      My Dear Miss Hamiltons
                             Very Affectionate Aunt
                                                         Catherine Hamilton
George Street      
Hanover Square
      March 12th --

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 1. This line appears to the right of the address. '1771' has been corrected to '1772', by Mary Hamilton or another hand.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Lady Catherine Hamilton (née Barlow) to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/5/2

Correspondence Details

Sender: Lady Catherine Hamilton (née Barlow)

Place sent: London

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: Northampton (certainty: low)

Date sent: 12 March 1772

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Lady Catherine Hamilton to Mary Hamilton. She assures her niece that her delay in responding to her letter is not due to any reason other than her lack of time to write. She thanks Mary Hamilton in Sir William's name for her 'very pretty present & beautifull [sic] Work' that she has sent him but writes that Sir William's time is so consumed with business that he has not time to write his thanks himself.
    Dated at George Street, Hanover Square [London].
    Original reference No. 1.
   

Length: 3 sheets, 306 words

Transliteration Information

Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Image to Text' (David Denison & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2013-2019), now incorporated in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).

All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.

Acknowledgements: XML version: Research Assistant funding in 2016/17 provided by The John Rylands Research Institute.

Research assistant: Sarah Connor, undergraduate student, University of Manchester

Research assistant: Carla Seabra-Dacosta, MA student, University of Vigo

Transliterator: Jocelyn Hordern, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted May 2017)

Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library

Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library

Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors

Revision date: 12 August 2023

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