Single Letter

HAM/1/7/12/7

Letter from Mrs Catherine Walkinshaw to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


7.

My Dear Miʃs Hamilton


      I return you a great many thanks for the favour of your
obliging letter which I had the pleasure to receive by last post, your
agreeable account of the Queens perfect health, and of all the young
Royall family
gives me a most infinet satisfaction, as it is impossible
any body can have all their happineʃs more at heart then I have, as
to the Charmin Queen, is it posible to know her and not to love
respect and esteem her, it may perhaps be takeing too great a liberty to expreʃs
my self so freely of a great Queen, but the warmth of my heart for her makes
me say so much, I rejoice at the discription of the Beautyfull Prince Alfred
I was much pleased with his haveing that good old English name,
I am sure all those attentions his Majesty bestows upon England, in
distinguishing them by the names of his Royall Children, ought to please
and I hope it does, I have never had the honour of seeing Prince Adolphus,
my unfortunate bad health for two years past, has prevented by being able to attend



at the times thy wear to be seen, but I have allways heard with pleasure
of his being a charmin Child, and shall hope some time this winter to be able
to pay my Duty as I bliʃs god my health is now better a great dell then it
has been a great while, I was glad to hear you had the pleasure of seeing
so many of your friends well, I like your discription of Lady Cathcart
I think it is much preferable to being a beauty, if he likes her and
she behaves well that is sufficient, I own to you I feel so interested for all
that family, that I can never be indifferent about any thing Concerns
them, the long uninterupted friendship my Dear Lady Cathcart honourd
me with, makes me love every thing that belongd to either my Lord or her,
I am glad Mrs Graham is better, and think she did right to prefer
Lisbon, I have known more people recover Consumptive illneʃs's that
have gone there, then to the south of France, poor Dutches of Athol
writ me a very melancholy letter about her, apprehending her worse
then I hope she is, I was affraid the nursing would keep her in Scotland
this winter which I am sorry for, as you dont mention Lady
Stormont
s two sons
I hope thy are well, Dutches Athol wrot me
                                                         Miʃs Cathcart was to goe with Mrs Graham



I must now my Dear Madam give you a little trouble again about
this same knotting Silk, Cadman must have given you a fine
blundering meʃsange, I dont think wee shall be in town befor
new years day, and therefor should be much obliged if you will get
me some of the Silk, and give it to Mr Cadman he knows how to send
it safe, it is fine, Idle work at candle light, and I dar not streʃs
my eyes with any thing better, what I have is all finished, and if
her Majesty wants it befor I come, I can send it very safe, so be so
good to let me know, and send the other soon, I hope you have
had perfect health your self, the Sea Air is charmin, I think it did
me much good, and this goeing Constantly upon the road is very fine
for weak nerves, all which I hope you have got intirly the better
of, and I was very glad to hear Lady Charlote Finch was so perfectly
recovered, Lady Mary Hume told me she was realy perfectly well, I
respect Lady Charlote and was glad to hear it, Adieu
                             my Dear Miʃs Hamilton
                             ever Sincerly your affectionat and
                             much obliged Cath: Walkinshaw
Hale by Downton Wilts[1]
      Novr 29 1780[2]

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


Notes


 1. Hale is just over the Hampshire border from Downton.
 2. The dateline appears to the left of the closing salutation.

Normalised Text



My Dear Miss Hamilton


      I return you a great many thanks for the favour of your
obliging letter which I had the pleasure to receive by last post, your
agreeable account of the Queens perfect health, and of all the young
Royal family gives me a most infinite satisfaction, as it is impossible
any body can have all their happiness more at heart than I have, as
to the Charming Queen, is it possible to know her and not to love
respect and esteem her, it may perhaps be taking too great a liberty to express
my self so freely of a great Queen, but the warmth of my heart for her makes
me say so much, I rejoice at the descripton of the Beautiful Prince Alfred
I was much pleased with his having that good old English name,
I am sure all those attentions his Majesty bestows upon England, in
distinguishing them by the names of his Royal Children, ought to please
and I hope it does, I have never had the honour of seeing Prince Adolphus,
my unfortunate bad health for two years past, has prevented my being able to attend



at the times they were to be seen, but I have always heard with pleasure
of his being a charming Child, and shall hope some time this winter to be able
to pay my Duty as I bless god my health is now better a great deal than it
has been a great while, I was glad to hear you had the pleasure of seeing
so many of your friends well, I like your description of Lady Cathcart
I think it is much preferable to being a beauty, if he likes her and
she behaves well that is sufficient, I own to you I feel so interested for all
that family, that I can never be indifferent about any thing Concerns
them, the long uninterrupted friendship my Dear Lady Cathcart honoured
me with, makes me love every thing that belonged to either my Lord or her,
I am glad Mrs Graham is better, and think she did right to prefer
Lisbon, I have known more people recover Consumptive illness's that
have gone there, than to the south of France, poor Duchess of Atholl
wrote me a very melancholy letter about her, apprehending her worse
than I hope she is, I was afraid the nursing would keep her in Scotland
this winter which I am sorry for, as you don't mention Lady
Stormonts two sons I hope they are well, Duchess Atholl wrote me
                                                         Miss Cathcart was to go with Mrs Graham



I must now my Dear Madam give you a little trouble again about
this same knotting Silk, Cadman must have given you a fine
blundering message, I don't think we shall be in town before
new years day, and therefore should be much obliged if you will get
me some of the Silk, and give it to Mr Cadman he knows how to send
it safe, it is fine, Idle work at candle light, and I dare not stress
my eyes with any thing better, what I have is all finished, and if
her Majesty wants it before I come, I can send it very safe, so be so
good to let me know, and send the other soon, I hope you have
had perfect health your self, the Sea Air is charming, I think it did
me much good, and this going Constantly upon the road is very fine
for weak nerves, all which I hope you have got entirely the better
of, and I was very glad to hear Lady Charlotte Finch was so perfectly
recovered, Lady Mary Hume told me she was really perfectly well, I
respect Lady Charlotte and was glad to hear it, Adieu
                             my Dear Miss Hamilton
                             ever Sincerely your affectionate and
                             much obliged Catherine Walkinshaw
Hale by Downton Wiltshire
      November 29 1780

(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations,
spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. Hale is just over the Hampshire border from Downton.
 2. The dateline appears to the left of the closing salutation.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Mrs Catherine Walkinshaw to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/7/12/7

Correspondence Details

Sender: Catherine Walkinshaw

Place sent: Hale

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 29 November 1780

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Catherine Walkinshaw to Mary Hamilton, concerning the Royal Family. She thanks Hamilton for her letter giving her an account of the Royal family's health. She is pleased that Prince Alfred has been given 'that good old English name'.
    The letter also relates to the health of her relatives and comments that Mrs Graham is now better and that she was right to go to Lisbon, as Walkinshaw has known more people to recover from consumptive illness there than in the south of France.
    Original reference No. 7.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 653 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: Amy Price, 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: 2 November 2021

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