Diplomatic Text
My Dear Miʃs ------
The Docr. has just been here, he does
not discourage us, but says, he finds
still a very smart Fever, which must
keep us in sad Anxiety, as her State
is so precarious till the Fever is
removed, for whilst that lasts in any
Degree on anyso weak a Frame, the Danger
is great. indeed my dear I cannot say
how much I suffer. I am hurt also
that my Anxiety here, keeps me from a
Personal Enquiry after Pʃs Elizabeth, but
have the Comfort of being aʃsured by
Turton he sees nothing alarming about her
& hopes with a little care her Complaint
will go off.[1] I shall hope to have a good
Account of her tonight, when you are
so kind as to ʃend here, I dont know
at what time the Docr. is to call, but
wish you to ʃend between ten & eleven as
by that time one can judge of the
Progreʃs of the day.
Ever Sincerely Yrs.
CFinch
½ past 4
April
1780
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Princess Elizabeth was subject to frequent illnesses in childhood, as noted by many court diarists of the time. For more on Elizabeth's childhood illnesses, see Dorothy Margaret Stuart, Daughters of George III (Macmillan: 1939), Vol. 3 ,Ch. 1.
Normalised Text
My Dear Miss ------
The Doctor has just been here, he does
not discourage us, but says, he finds
still a very smart Fever, which must
keep us in sad Anxiety, as her State
is so precarious till the Fever is
removed, for whilst that lasts in any
Degree on so weak a Frame, the Danger
is great. indeed my dear I cannot say
how much I suffer. I am hurt also
that my Anxiety here, keeps me from a
Personal Enquiry after Princess Elizabeth, but
have the Comfort of being assured by
Turton he sees nothing alarming about her
& hopes with a little care her Complaint
will go off. I shall hope to have a good
Account of her tonight, when you are
so kind as to send here, I don't know
at what time the Doctor is to call, but
wish you to send between ten & eleven as
by that time one can judge of the
Progress of the day.
Ever Sincerely Yours
Charlotte Finch
½ past 4
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: Note from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/12/21
Correspondence Details
Sender: Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: April 1780
Letter Description
Summary: Note from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton. The doctor has just visited Finch and she notes that the patient [probably her daughter, Mrs Fielding] has a 'smart fever' which has made them all anxious. Until the fever dissipates there is danger. Finch writes of how she suffers and that her anxiety here prevents her making enquiries on how Princess Elizabeth does. She asks Hamilton to write her an account of her.
Length: 1 sheet, 171 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: Cassandra Ulph, editorial team (completed 23 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