Diplomatic Text
[1]
My Dear Miʃs Hamilton
As I cannot hope to ʃee you now before
I leave London, I cannot refrain from expreʃsing to
you upon Paper, how truly & tenderly I feel for you,
& hope you do make use of every Argument of Comfort
that your Situation allows of; & that Providence will
aʃsist your Endeavours of resigning yourself to his
Will. You cannot imagine how much & kindly
you are mention'd by every body at the Queen's Houʃe,
& their Majesties have both been particular in their
Enquiries about you; & expreʃsing their Concern for
you. The Queen order'd me to say she hoped you
would take all poʃsible Care of yourself, & let no
Thought of yr Attendance here be any Disturbance
to you, for she wish'd you to take your own time, &
do every thing that can most contribute to your Ease
of Mind, on so trying an Occasion. I hope my Dear
I shall find you at my return calm & composed, &
willing thankfully to enjoy that portion of happineʃs
& Comfort that a kind Providence allots to all those that
[2]
▼
▼
hurt in his Goodneʃs, who alone knows what is best & fittest for us. I
am happy to think you have so tender & Sensible a Friend as Miʃs
Clarke with you, & beg you will thank her for her last Letter to me.
All I can say kind & feeling on this Subject, my Daurs. sincerely
join in, & I hope my dearest Miʃs Hamilton will believe that
I shall ever be happy to approve myself to you a most Affcte.
Friend & faithful Sert.
CFinch
St James's
Sunday Night
29th. Novbr.. 1778[3]
recd. on the Death of
My beloved Mother.
[4]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This letter appears in Anson & Anson (1925: 68-69).
2. This side of the page is blank.
3. The dateline appears to the left of the signaure.
4. The remains of a seal in red ink appear at the centre of the bottom of the sheet.
5. Moved annotation here from p.2.
6. When considering this page when it would have been folded before sending, this annotation was written vertically to the left of the address line.
7. Moved address here from p.2.
Normalised Text
My Dear Miss Hamilton
As I cannot hope to see you now before
I leave London, I cannot refrain from expressing to
you upon Paper, how truly & tenderly I feel for you,
& hope you do make use of every Argument of Comfort
that your Situation allows of; & that Providence will
assist your Endeavours of resigning yourself to his
Will. You cannot imagine how much & kindly
you are mentioned by every body at the Queen's House,
& their Majesties have both been particular in their
Enquiries about you; & expressing their Concern for
you. The Queen ordered me to say she hoped you
would take all possible Care of yourself, & let no
Thought of your Attendance here be any Disturbance
to you, for she wished you to take your own time, &
do every thing that can most contribute to your Ease
of Mind, on so trying an Occasion. I hope my Dear
I shall find you at my return calm & composed, &
willing thankfully to enjoy that portion of happiness
& Comfort that a kind Providence allots to all those that
▼
▼
hurt in his Goodness, who alone knows what is best & fittest for us. I
am happy to think you have so tender & Sensible a Friend as Miss
Clarke with you, & beg you will thank her for her last Letter to me.
All I can say kind & feeling on this Subject, my Daughters sincerely
join in, & I hope my dearest Miss Hamilton will believe that
I shall ever be happy to approve myself to you a most Affectionate
Friend & faithful Servant
Charlotte Finch
St James's
Sunday Night
29th. November 1778
Miss Hamilton
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 Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/12/6
Correspondence Details
Sender: Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 29 November 1778
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton. She cannot leave London before setting down on paper how tenderly she feels towards Hamilton. Everybody at the Queen’s House speaks ‘kindly’ of Hamilton and both the King and Queen enquire about her and express their concern for her and the Queen has ordered her to tell her to do all possible to take care of herself and not to let any thought of any ‘attendance here by any Disturbance to you, for she wish[e]d you to take your own time’. Finch hopes to find Hamilton calm and composed on her return. She is happy to know that she has such a sensible friend as Miss Clarke with her (see HAM/1/10/1) and asks Hamilton to thank her for her letter.
Dated at St James’s [London].
Length: 1 sheet, 285 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 April 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