Diplomatic Text
Turin Sepr. 1764 to Charles[1]
My Dear Brother will be surpriz'd, not to have heard from
me long before this time, & perhaps still more when he sees from
whence I date my letter; the case is plainly this, when I came
to consult with Lady Warwick, who behaved to me as well as
I cou'd possibly wish, in what part of France to fix my resi=
dence, after having absolutely objected against Aix or Marseille
the former for being a dear place & crowded with English, the
latter for being disagreeable, we then thought Thoulouse might
answer my purpose till we also started strong objections against
that place; in short as she perceiv'd that my inclination was for
Italy, she advised me to go there without further ceremony, as
I shou'd then be at a certainty of fixing in a place perfectly a=
greeable to me & not liable to the trouble of moving from
one place to another; as for what people might say, it was
of no consequence, as it is as usual to go into Italy on account
of one's health as to any part of France; she gave me her
opinion upon this matter with so much sincerity & affection,
& as it agreed so perfectly with my inclination I loʃsd no time
oin proceeding on my journey & am now thus far on my way to
Florence, where I hope to be agreeably settled & at no great expence
Badioli Lady Warwick's upper Servant, who is a Florentin and
an extraordinary clever fellow has wrote to a relation of his at
Florence who he aʃsures me will fix me there to my mind. I am
to find good Appartments ready for me & two Servants a Man
& a maid; with this small appointment I think I can go on
upon my plan without any danger of exceeding. We have had
a long, troubblesone & expensive journey Mrs. Hamilton is much
fatigued & has caught a violent cold by being exposed to a
heavy rain on our paʃsage over Mont Cenis. We expect to
arrive at Florence in eight days more, we go very slow as
we go by Voiture[2]. I shall defer writing to you again till I
have been at least a fortnight at the place of my destination
that I may be able to give you a full & explicit account of
every thing you may be desirous of knowing. Adieu my Dear
Brother present my most affectionate Compts. with my Wife's to
Mrs. Hamilton & Mary & remember us to our poor Child[3] I am &
shall ever remain most faithfully & Affectionately
Yours
Frederick Hamilton
Turin September 19th. 1764
direct to me Gentilhomme Anglois
à Florence
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. 'To Charles' is a later addition, written in ink.
2. A carriage, usually transporting up to six people.
3. This must be Elizabeth, presumably left behind with a Mrs Pasham under the supervision of her uncle Charles's family while her parents were abroad, and an unnamed male child was with them in Italy (see HAM/1/4/7/22 p.2 col.2). Their daughter Jane and youngest son Robert were not yet born.
Normalised Text
My Dear Brother will be surprised, not to have heard from
me long before this time, & perhaps still more when he sees from
whence I date my letter; the case is plainly this, when I came
to consult with Lady Warwick, who behaved to me as well as
I could possibly wish, in what part of France to fix my residence
, after having absolutely objected against Aix or Marseille
the former for being a dear place & crowded with English, the
latter for being disagreeable, we then thought Thoulouse might
answer my purpose till we also started strong objections against
that place; in short as she perceived that my inclination was for
Italy, she advised me to go there without further ceremony, as
I should then be at a certainty of fixing in a place perfectly agreeable
to me & not liable to the trouble of moving from
one place to another; as for what people might say, it was
of no consequence, as it is as usual to go into Italy on account
of one's health as to any part of France; she gave me her
opinion upon this matter with so much sincerity & affection,
& as it agreed so perfectly with my inclination I lost no time
in proceeding on my journey & am now thus far on my way to
Florence, where I hope to be agreeably settled & at no great expense
Badioli Lady Warwick's upper Servant, who is a Florentine and
an extraordinary clever fellow has written to a relation of his at
Florence who he assures me will fix me there to my mind. I am
to find good Apartments ready for me & two Servants a Man
& a maid; with this small appointment I think I can go on
upon my plan without any danger of exceeding. We have had
a long, troublesome & expensive journey Mrs. Hamilton is much
fatigued & has caught a violent cold by being exposed to a
heavy rain on our passage over Mont Cenis. We expect to
arrive at Florence in eight days more, we go very slow as
we go by Voiture. I shall defer writing to you again till I
have been at least a fortnight at the place of my destination
that I may be able to give you a full & explicit account of
every thing you may be desirous of knowing. Adieu my Dear
Brother present my most affectionate Compliments with my Wife's to
Mrs. Hamilton & Mary & remember us to our poor Child I am &
shall ever remain most faithfully & Affectionately
Yours
Frederick Hamilton
Turin September 19th. 1764
direct to me Gentilhomme Anglois
à Florence
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from Frederick Hamilton to Charles Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/7/21
Correspondence Details
Sender: Frederick Hamilton
Place sent: Turin
Addressee: Charles Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 19 September 1764
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Frederick Hamilton to his brother Charles Hamilton, relating to his visit to the Continent for the benefit of his health.
Dated at Turin [Italy].
Length: 1 sheet, 450 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited 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: Transcription and XML version created as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1.
Transliterator: Christine Wallis, editorial team (completed 31 July 2020)
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: 2 November 2021