Diplomatic Text
28 Decbr
1779 --
My Dearest --
Tho I have nothing very lively to comunicate
yet my Vanity aʃsures me that a
few lines from your Friend will not
be unacceptable, & that you will
be pleased to hear that I am well
& happy, whether all the Company
is I will not venture to aver, for I
think I have seen masks of Ennui
in a Person or Persons who upon Paper
shall be nameleʃs. The Weather
certainly has not been propitious,
We have never walked, therefore except
ten Minutes at Breakfast I never see
my Gentlemen till 4 o' Clock I thenafter that
as usual I stay till I have drank Coffee
then leave them to attend the Princeʃs's
& return when the Q is so gracious
as to tell one I may go & drink
Tea, our three first Evgs after that
were spent in a Circle /for tho I tried
I could not destroy it/ round Mrs
Hagedorns Fire till past ten, last
Night we had Musick & a Commerce
Party which I liked, it consisted of
the Princeʃs's, Genl Budé Col Hotham
& my Brother, & very comfortable
we were, it is a great delight the
knowing he is in the House but you
see my Dearest by this dull Journal
how very little I really see of him,
it rains to day, therefore I hope
the Princes will be able to Hunt
once before they leave Windsor, last
Night they got Straits as that
was to have been this Morgs diversion
but useleʃs, & they are all gone
out to walk in Weather
that you & I would not
--- ingly have sent our
[Foo]tmen, this my Drt
is a fruitful Narrative of our
Xm̄as Hollidays Amusement, tho
there is a comfortable circumstance
I have omitted viz that we do
not breakfast till pt nine, by wc̄h
means we avoid dreʃsing by Candle
Light -- Adieu my Dearest
Affectionately Yr.
MC Goldsworthy
[1]
[2]
Miʃs Hamilton
St James's[3]
[4]
[5]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Remains of a red seal, in wax.
2. Remains of a stamp, reading '29', indicating that the day this letter went through the post was 29 December 1779.
3. A large '2' is written to the right of the address, likely indicating postage due.
4. Postmark 'WINDSOR' below address panel when unfolded.
5. Remains of a red seal, in wax.
Normalised Text
28 December
1779 --
My Dearest --
Though I have nothing very lively to communicate
yet my Vanity assures me that a
few lines from your Friend will not
be unacceptable, & that you will
be pleased to hear that I am well
& happy, whether all the Company
is I will not venture to aver, for I
think I have seen masks of Ennui
in a Person or Persons who upon Paper
shall be nameless. The Weather
certainly has not been propitious,
We have never walked, therefore except
ten Minutes at Breakfast I never see
my Gentlemen till 4 o'Clock after that
as usual I stay till I have drunk Coffee
then leave them to attend the Princess's
& return when the Queen is so gracious
as to tell one I may go & drink
Tea, our three first Evenings after that
were spent in a Circle /for though I tried
I could not destroy it/ round Mrs
Hagedorns Fire till past ten, last
Night we had music & a Commerce
Party which I liked, it consisted of
the Princess's, General Budé Colonel Hotham
& my Brother, & very comfortable
we were, it is a great delight the
knowing he is in the House but you
see my Dearest by this dull Journal
how very little I really see of him,
it rains to day, therefore I hope
the Princes will be able to Hunt
once before they leave Windsor, last
Night they got Straits as that
was to have been this Mornings diversion
but useless, & they are all gone
out to walk in Weather
that you & I would not
--- ingly have sent our
Footmen, this my Dearest
is a fruitful Narrative of our
Christmas Holidays Amusement, though
there is a comfortable circumstance
I have omitted viz that we do
not breakfast till past nine, by which
means we avoid dressing by Candle
Light -- Adieu my Dearest
Affectionately Yours
Martha Carolina Goldsworthy
Miss Hamilton
St James's
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 Martha Carolina Goldsworthy to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/14/34
Correspondence Details
Sender: Martha Carolina Goldsworthy
Place sent: Windsor
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: London
Date sent: 29 December 1779
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Martha Carolina Goldsworthy to Mary Hamilton. She notes that she has little to communicate to Hamilton, but she is sure that she would still like a few lines from her friend. The letter continues with news of the Princesses and with how she spends her time.
Dated at the Queen's Lodge.
Original reference No. 32.
Length: 1 sheet, 330 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Image to Text' (David Denison & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2013-2019), now incorporated 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: XML version: Research Assistant funding in 2017/18 provided by the Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester.
Research assistant: Georgia Tutt, MA student, University of Manchester
Transliterator: Ellie Jarvis, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted May 2018)
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