Diplomatic Text
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Our Dear little Prince looks so charmingly to day,
that I cannot help taking up my Pen to indulge myself in
bragging of it, as my last Letters have mention'd fresh Irrup-
-tion; he now bathes two days out of Three, which seems to agree
very well with him, & he certainly is clearer to day in his Face,
than I have ever seen him since we came. I had the plea-
-sure of Shewing him Yesterday to Lord North, who made me a
very obliging Visit thō he was hereat Walmer but for a Short time, his bu-
-sineʃs being to endeavour to get Sea-men for manning the
Ships that are in so much want of Men; he tells me that he
& my Lady do not mean to come to Settle here before September,
which is the time Lord Guilford usually is at Waldershare. We
talk'd of Lord Lewishams Match, wch. gives such Satisfaction
to all parties.[1] This Mornings Post has brought the Account
of the Death of Lord Rockingham, which did not surprise me
as I had heard so bad an Account of him the Post before,[2] Ld
Fitzwilliam comes into his great Estate, with a Charge of
Fifteen thousand pounds apiece to his three Sisters, Ly Mary
Milbanke, Ly Charlotte Wentworth, & Lady Harriet Sturgeon,
& how near, for want of his having Children, does this vast
Estate come, to young Sturgeon Ly Harriets Son, who in failure
of Lord Fitzwilliam & his Brother (a poor Sickly Young Man,)
stands heir to the whole. I am afraid the Death of the Bishop
of Salisbury makes a great difference in Lady Mary Humes
Situation as to Circumstances, which I am very sorry for.
I beg my Dear you will present my humble Duty to their
Majesties & their Royl Highneʃses & accept of my thanks for
your last Letters, Mrs Feilding sends her Love to you.
Ever most sincerely &
Affly. Yrs.
Charlotte Finch
Com̄ps to every body.[3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
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Our Dear little Prince looks so charmingly to day,
that I cannot help taking up my Pen to indulge myself in
bragging of it, as my last Letters have mentioned fresh Irruption
; he now bathes two days out of Three, which seems to agree
very well with him, & he certainly is clearer to day in his Face,
than I have ever seen him since we came. I had the pleasure
of Showing him Yesterday to Lord North, who made me a
very obliging Visit though he was at Walmer but for a Short time, his business
being to endeavour to get Sea-men for manning the
Ships that are in so much want of Men; he tells me that he
& my Lady do not mean to come to Settle here before September,
which is the time Lord Guilford usually is at Waldershare. We
talked of Lord Lewishams Match, which gives such Satisfaction
to all parties. This Mornings Post has brought the Account
of the Death of Lord Rockingham, which did not surprise me
as I had heard so bad an Account of him the Post before, Lord
Fitzwilliam comes into his great Estate, with a Charge of
Fifteen thousand pounds apiece to his three Sisters, Lady Mary
Milbanke, Lady Charlotte Wentworth, & Lady Harriet Sturgeon,
& how near, for want of his having Children, does this vast
Estate come, to young Sturgeon Lady Harriets Son, who in failure
of Lord Fitzwilliam & his Brother (a poor Sickly Young Man,)
stands heir to the whole. I am afraid the Death of the Bishop
of Salisbury makes a great difference in Lady Mary Humes
Situation as to Circumstances, which I am very sorry for.
I beg my Dear you will present my humble Duty to their
Majesties & their Royal Highnesses & accept of my thanks for
your last Letters, Mrs Feilding sends her Love to you.
Ever most sincerely &
Affectionately Yours
Charlotte Finch
Compliments to every body.
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/1/12/42
Correspondence Details
Sender: Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)
Place sent: Deal
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 3 July 1782
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton. She writes that Prince Alfred looks so ‘charming’ today that she cannot resist taking up her pen to brag about it. He bathes every two days out of three. She presented him to Lord North [probably Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (1732-1792), prime minister] yesterday who visited for a short time and was in the area to ‘endeavour to get Sea men for manning the ships that are in so much want of men’. Finch notes that her post today brought her news of the account of the death of Lord Rockingham which she writes did not surprise her as she has had news on him before in the post. She reports that Lord Fitzwilliam will come into his Estate and his three sisters will get fifteen thousand pounds a piece and that as Lord Fitzwilliam has no children, the estate, the son of one of his sisters may be heir to it all. Finch is afraid that the death of the Bishop of Salisbury has had a profound effect of the situation and circumstance of Mary Humes.
Dated at Deal Castle [Kent].
Length: 1 sheet, 333 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 5 May 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