Diplomatic Text
My heart has been very severely
wrung this day my dearest Madam[1]
by unexpectedly hearing of an event, --
sad sad indeed to me, -- but O how much
more sad to you & Admiral Murray.
The grief that oppreʃses me prevents
my sayingadding more than that I intreat
you will have the goodneʃs to let
me know how you are in health, if
not by your own hand by that of some
mutual friend. And I earnestly beg for the
sake of that very excellent Woman[2]
who is lost to us (for a time only I
think) that you will esteem me
amongst the number of Yr very sincere
attached & afft: friends you poʃseʃs My: Dickenson
It wld be some little satisfaction to me to
me to be inform'd if my dr departed friend
recd. a very long letter I sent abt. 6 weeks ago
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The addressee can only be the sister of Wilhelmina Murray who resides with the Murrays and joins in warm salutations to Mary Hamilton and her family in all Wilhelmina's letters from 1785 to 1794 (HAM/1/5/2/7, etc.; note especially HAM/1/5/2/20).
2. Wilhelmina Murray had died on 28 December 1795.
Normalised Text
My heart has been very severely
wrung this day my dearest Madam
by unexpectedly hearing of an event, --
sad sad indeed to me, -- but O how much
more sad to you & Admiral Murray.
The grief that oppresses me prevents
my adding more than that I entreat
you will have the goodness to let
me know how you are in health, if
not by your own hand by that of some
mutual friend. And I earnestly beg for the
sake of that very excellent Woman
who is lost to us (for a time only I
think) that you will esteem me
amongst the number of very sincere
attached & affectionate friends you possess Mary Dickenson
It would be some little satisfaction to me
to be informed if my dear departed friend
received a very long letter I sent about 6 weeks ago
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 Mary Hamilton to Anne King
Shelfmark: HAM/1/5/2/22
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Hamilton
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: Anne King
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 1 January 1796
Letter Description
Summary: Draft letter from Mary Hamilton, apparently to Wilhelmina Murray's sister. She sends condolences to her and to Admiral [George] Murray after 'unexpectedly hearing of an event [Wilhelmina's death], sad sad indeed to me – but O how much more sad to you & Admiral Murray'. She adds that it would be 'some little satisfaction to me' to be informed if her 'd[ea]r departed friend' had received a very long letter Mary sent about six weeks ago.
Length: 1 sheet, 145 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 2014/15 and 2015/16 provided by the Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester.
Research assistant: Isabella Formisano, former MA student, University of Manchester
Transliterator: Kathryn Baldwin, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted May 2016)
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: 10 December 2021