Single Letter

HAM/1/11/10

Letter from Lady Dartrey (later Lady Cremorne) to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


9

Chelsea 13th. Septr. 1781
      Thursday night

My drst: Miʃs Hamilton
      It is very late, & I have so bad a head Ach
(by having looked my Eyes out at the delightful Contents
of the Museum, this Morng:) that I can only write you
a Line instead of a Letter -- I recd: late this Evening
the Queen's most gracious Present, & as I am not
certain whether I ought to send a Letter to her
Majesty
but through the hands of some of her
Servants. I send you the inclosed -- if it is most
proper -- you will present it -- but as her Majesty
did not (as with the former Books) send them through
you, & you think therefore I should send the Letter
directly to her Majesty you will be so good to
give it to The Page, to give it in the manner; it ought to be presented.
I never can say what I feel for the Queen's
goodneʃs, I only wish there was a peculiar
Language to be used only for the sincere, & then I
should write with more comfort & confidence.
only think how provoking, that the Book is not
yet done which I was to present to the Queen -- but I am



delighted to think Mr: Davies has found his Table
of Cebes, & has goodnaturedly insisted upon my
having it; so it is gone to be bound -- I shall send
up to London early in hopes of being able to
get it & send with my Letter. Adieu my head
is so aching I can scarcely see what I write, so
I must go to sleep to be able to write better tomorrow
                                                         Yrs: very Affly:
                                                              PDartrey
[1]Friday ½ past 4 o'Clock
I wished I dared tell the Queen
how much we long to See her Majesty
at our little Cottage -- I never should have
presumed to have thought of her honouring
our Humble Dwelling; if She had not given
me such encouragement by her gracious
goodneʃs to me. my head ach is gone (I thank
God). as to the Gown Lord D—— knows nothing
of the account, & he begs me to say, your
liking it, is the payment he prefers to any other; so



you must never think anything more about it.
you do him honor by wearing his Country's Manufacture
adieu -- send me one Line if you can in ansr:
& tell me how you do;[2]



                             my duty
                             to the Princeʃses

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


Notes


 1. This passage starts to the left of the signature.
 2. The rest of the line is missing, as part of the sheet has been cut away.

Normalised Text



Chelsea 13th. September
      Thursday night

My dearest Miss Hamilton
      It is very late, & I have so bad a head Ache
(by having looked my Eyes out at the delightful Contents
of the Museum, this Morning) that I can only write you
a Line instead of a Letter -- I received late this Evening
the Queen's most gracious Present, & as I am not
certain whether I ought to send a Letter to her
Majesty but through the hands of some of her
Servants. I send you the enclosed -- if it is most
proper -- you will present it -- but as her Majesty
did not (as with the former Books) send them through
you, & you think therefore I should send the Letter
directly to her Majesty you will be so good to
give it to The Page, to give it in the manner; it ought to be presented.
I never can say what I feel for the Queen's
goodness, I only wish there was a peculiar
Language to be used only for the sincere, & then I
should write with more comfort & confidence.
only think how provoking, that the Book is not
yet done which I was to present to the Queen -- but I am



delighted to think Mr: Davies has found his Table
of Cebes, & has goodnaturedly insisted upon my
having it; so it is gone to be bound -- I shall send
up to London early in hopes of being able to
get it & send with my Letter. Adieu my head
is so aching I can scarcely see what I write, so
I must go to sleep to be able to write better tomorrow
                                                         Yours very Affectionately
                                                              Philadelphia Dartrey
Friday ½ past 4 o'Clock
I wish I dared tell the Queen
how much we long to See her Majesty
at our little Cottage -- I never should have
presumed to have thought of her honouring
our Humble Dwelling; if She had not given
me such encouragement by her gracious
goodness to me. my head ache is gone (I thank
God). as to the Gown Lord Dartrey knows nothing
of the account, & he begs me to say, your
liking it, is the payment he prefers to any other; so



you must never think anything more about it.
you do him honour by wearing his Country's Manufacture
adieu -- send me one Line if you can in answer
& tell me how you do;



                             my duty
                             to the Princesses

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quotations,
spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. This passage starts to the left of the signature.
 2. The rest of the line is missing, as part of the sheet has been cut away.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Lady Dartrey (later Lady Cremorne) to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/11/10

Correspondence Details

Sender: Philadelphia Hannah, Baroness Cremorne Dawson (née Freame)

Place sent: Chelsea

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 13 September 1781

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Lady Dartrey to Mary Hamilton. She writes that she has had a headache by having looked her 'eyes out at the delightful contents of the Museum'. Queen Charlotte has sent Dartrey a present and she is unsure if she can thank her directly or she should do so by someone at Court and asks Hamilton to pass an enclosed letter to the Queen if she thinks it proper to do so. She also writes that the book that she had intended on presenting to the Queen is not yet ready and that she would be honoured if she could see the Queen at her house and that she would never have presumed to suggest such a thing if she had not given her 'such encouragement by her gracious goodness' to her.
    Dated at Chelsea.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 409 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 January 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

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