Diplomatic Text
St. James's Monday
My dear Miʃs Hamilton
I received yr kind note last night just
before my Sister[1] returned, & I find that as
usual she had forgot a long Meʃsage I sent you
by her viz. to ------ ask you whether it wd.
be unpleasant to you to see me with Mrs. Dunbar, who
had promised to bring me & Sophia to you this
Morning, if my Cold wd. allow of it, as I thought
that partly from yr. Spirits being agitated &
partly from wishing perhaps to be quiet with
the Friends you have with you, the last
day of yr. Stay it might only be troublesome
to you -- however as it has now ended it is as
well that She has not put you in Expectation
of us, for Mrs. Dunbar has a swelled Face, & the
poor Party is quite at an end so as our Coach is
otherwise employed for the whole Morning, I must now deny
mydelaySelf the Indulgence it always is to me to
see you till I shall want no other Conveyance than
my own feet accroʃs 2 or 3 rooms. Yrs. sincerely
S. Feilding
Finch
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Sophia Fielding's other sisters, Frances Finch and Charlotte Finch, had passed away in 1765 and 1767 respectively. Seeing as the rest of Sophia Fielding's correspondence is dated between 1777 and 1782, it seems most likely that she is referring to Henrietta Finch here.
Normalised Text
St. James's Monday
My dear Miss Hamilton
I received your kind note last night just
before my Sister returned, & I find that as
usual she had forgot a long Message I sent you
by her viz. to ask you whether it would
be unpleasant to you to see me with Mrs. Dunbar, who
had promised to bring me & Sophia to you this
Morning, if my Cold would allow of it, as I thought
that partly from your Spirits being agitated &
partly from wishing perhaps to be quiet with
the Friends you have with you, the last
day of your Stay it might only be troublesome
to you -- however as it has now ended it is as
well that She has not put you in Expectation
of us, for Mrs. Dunbar has a swelled Face, & the
poor Party is quite at an end so as our Coach is
otherwise employed for the whole Morning, I must now deny
mySelf the Indulgence it always is to me to
see you till I shall want no other Conveyance than
my own feet across 2 or 3 rooms. Yours sincerely
Sophia Feilding
Finch
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 Sophia Fielding (née Finch) to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/7/5/20
Correspondence Details
Sender: Sophia Fielding (née Finch)
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: between June 1777 and November 1782
notBefore June 1777 (precision: medium)
notAfter November 1782 (precision: medium)
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Sophia Fielding to Mary Hamilton, relating to general news,
Mrs Dunbar, and Fielding's calling on Hamilton.
Dated at St James’s [London].
Length: 1 sheet, 193 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: Tino Oudesluijs, editorial team (completed 11 November 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: 27 September 2023