Diplomatic Text
My dear Miʃs Hamilton,
Your Letter to Mrs Feilding fell into my
hands, from Mrs Feildings being unfortunately sail'd from
Lisbon, but 36 hours before Mr. Feilding arrived there, you
may imagine rejoiced & surprised as we were to ʃee him
at Caldes (where he came on immediately,) our Disappoint-
-ment & Regret about her absence, counterbalanced the
Satisfaction it would otherwise have afforded us, & I have
no Comfort about it, but that She must remain ignorant of
it during her Paʃsage, at the End of which (please God She
performs it safely,) she will meet I hope with many Comforts
at home, to take off her Thoughts in some Measure from this
unlucky Contre temps. I wrote you no Letter by her, as She
could give you so much a clearer Account of us by word of
Mouth, but determin'd to take the first opportunity afterwards,
of thanking you for all your tender and kind Anxiety & Expreʃsions
about my Distreʃses. I thank God they are greatly relieved,
by Seeing my Son restored, & I hope in a way to be perfectly
so in time, but much still remains to be done, as I dare
say Mrs Feilding wil have inform'd you. The Waters here
are said to be very efficacious,[1] he has now for Six Days been
very regular in drinking them, but it requires near as many
Weeks to make a trial of their efficacy, & for that we must
wait before we can determine on what steps to take with
regard to our future Motions. Your first Letter to Falmouth
was received, but the other you mention, (from which I am sure I shd have
received infinite Pleasure,) I have expected in vain, & fear
now, it will never reach me, so pray make me amends as
soon as you can. You must believe, added to the pleasure
any Letter of yours must give me, it is impoʃsible I should
not feel infinitely anxious to hear all I can, of the Interesting
Scenes in which you are engaged, indeed no Circumstance
can be trifling that regards those one Loves & Honours,
as I do those you are surrounded with, & these Sensations in
me are increas'd, by a Distance & Absence I never cease to
regret. It is impoʃsible for me to expreʃs what I felt at reading
the Paragraph in your Letter concerning the dear Prince of
Wales's Gracious & Affectionate Meʃsage to me, if I could love
him better than I have always done, I certainly shd, & I beg you
will make use of such Expreʃsions from me to him, as will best
convey the Gratitude & Affection of my Heart, united with
that Respect I owe him. I suppose you are all by this time
settled at Windsor; how differently my dear Miʃs Hamilton
are you & I situated, to what we were last Year at this time
[2]
roving about on the Suʃsex Downs with our little Roy People.
nothing is so striking to me, as our Ignorance of the future, &
surely we have not a greater ------ Proof that Providence that
ordains all things for our happineʃs & peace of Mind, for how would the cer-
-tainty of any Approaching Evil, darken the brightest Scenes &
------ Extinguish all the powers of Enjoyment. Adieu my dear Miʃs
Hamilton & believe me now & ever Most Affly. & Faithfully Yrs.
CFinch
▼
I cannot quite close my Letter without adding a few Lines concerning
the Friendly behaviour of Mr Graham to my Son on his illneʃs, & to us ever since
we have been here, & the infinite Satisfaction I felt from Mrs Feildings
having made her Voyage back with him & Mrs Graham, with whom She is
quite charm'd, & who from the little I could ʃee of her, & all I hear, is of a
most pleasing engaging Character. I have wrote to Miʃs Goldsworthy by this same
opportunity -- [3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The spa town of Caldas da Rainha in Portugal was known in the eighteenth century for its mineral springs and thermal clinic.
2. Three or four lines blank.
3. This postscript appears at the bottom of the page below the address.
4. This address appears in the middle of the page, written vertically.
Normalised Text
My dear Miss Hamilton,
Your Letter to Mrs Feilding fell into my
hands, from Mrs Feildings being unfortunately sailed from
Lisbon, but 36 hours before Mr. Feilding arrived there, you
may imagine rejoiced & surprised as we were to see him
at Caldes (where he came on immediately,) our Disappointment
& Regret about her absence, counterbalanced the
Satisfaction it would otherwise have afforded us, & I have
no Comfort about it, but that She must remain ignorant of
it during her Passage, at the End of which (please God She
performs it safely,) she will meet I hope with many Comforts
at home, to take off her Thoughts in some Measure from this
unlucky Contre temps. I wrote you no Letter by her, as She
could give you so much a clearer Account of us by word of
Mouth, but determined to take the first opportunity afterwards,
of thanking you for all your tender and kind Anxiety & Expressions
about my Distresses. I thank God they are greatly relieved,
by Seeing my Son restored, & I hope in a way to be perfectly
so in time, but much still remains to be done, as I dare
say Mrs Feilding wil have informed you. The Waters here
are said to be very efficacious, he has now for Six Days been
very regular in drinking them, but it requires near as many
Weeks to make a trial of their efficacy, & for that we must
wait before we can determine on what steps to take with
regard to our future Motions. Your first Letter to Falmouth
was received, but the other you mention, (from which I am sure I should have
received infinite Pleasure,) I have expected in vain, & fear
now, it will never reach me, so pray make me amends as
soon as you can. You must believe, added to the pleasure
any Letter of yours must give me, it is impossible I should
not feel infinitely anxious to hear all I can, of the Interesting
Scenes in which you are engaged, indeed no Circumstance
can be trifling that regards those one Loves & Honours,
as I do those you are surrounded with, & these Sensations in
me are increased, by a Distance & Absence I never cease to
regret. It is impossible for me to express what I felt at reading
the Paragraph in your Letter concerning the dear Prince of
Wales's Gracious & Affectionate Message to me, if I could love
him better than I have always done, I certainly should, & I beg you
will make use of such Expressions from me to him, as will best
convey the Gratitude & Affection of my Heart, united with
that Respect I owe him. I suppose you are all by this time
settled at Windsor; how differently my dear Miss Hamilton
are you & I situated, to what we were last Year at this time
roving about on the Sussex Downs with our little Royal People.
nothing is so striking to me, as our Ignorance of the future, &
surely we have not a greater Proof that Providence
ordains all things for our happiness & peace of Mind, for how would the certainty
of any Approaching Evil, darken the brightest Scenes &
Extinguish all the powers of Enjoyment. Adieu my dear Miss
Hamilton & believe me now & ever Most Affectionately & Faithfully Yours
Charlotte Finch
▼
I cannot quite close my Letter without adding a few Lines concerning
the Friendly behaviour of Mr Graham to my Son on his illness, & to us ever since
we have been here, & the infinite Satisfaction I felt from Mrs Feildings
having made her Voyage back with him & Mrs Graham, with whom She is
quite charmed, & who from the little I could see of her, & all I hear, is of a
most pleasing engaging Character. I have written to Miss Goldsworthy by this same
opportunity --
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/1/12/30
Correspondence Details
Sender: Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)
Place sent: Caldas da Rainha
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 26 June 1781
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton. She writes about Hamilton’s letter to Mrs Fielding and notes that Mrs Fielding had left 36 hours before its arrival for Lisbon. [This letter was sent before she had received the news that her daughter’s ship had been taken by an American vessel.] The letter continues on the health of her son. He has been taking the waters at Caldas which are said to be beneficial but are best taken over a period of time. Finch thanks Hamilton for her letter and notes that it gave her great pleasure to read about the Prince of Wales affection for her. She expects that everyone is now settled in Windsor, ‘how differently my dear Miss Hamilton are you & I situated’.
Dated at Caldas.
Length: 1 sheet, 663 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 24 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