Single Letter

HAM/1/15/1/3

Letter from Charlotte Margaret Gunning to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


2

St James's Sepr. 4th
      1783 --      

As I am sure you will be satisfied
with a few lines my dear dear Friend
I cannot find in my heart to
refuse you that pleasure tho' my
head is quite distracted -- I shall
direct this to Eʃsex[1] -- so that having
written yesterday into Northamtonshire
you will not wait long for the
information you wish about me
wherever you may be -- there I am --
I left my kind Friend Mrs Stuart
after Dinner and since I arrived
have been increasing my head
ache
and flushing by writing
a long letter to my Father who is
at present in Lincolnshire --
Be quite easy on the score of my
Health my dearest Friend, I am
as well as ever -- for my infirmities
& habitual complaint will I fear
never leave me -- on Saturday I
return to the Bark.[2] Since I arrived
I have heard that the Lord Mayer



does not make his appearance
tomorrow -- this is a great relief
to me -- for I should have made
a point of waiting and the transition
from a Domestick to a dreʃsed
Cap would have been at least
disagreeable --
I was out as usual in the Phaeton
this morning, we went to Hamton
to see Lady Carlow &c -- but did
not find them at home --
I propose returning to breathe
the restoring & wholesome air
of the Park on Saturday or Sunday
but I am not sorry to be at home
for a Day or two, in my own quiet
comfortable habitation -- to refresh
& recuellir myself, after so long
an absence -- I have a thousand
things to arrange -- and millions
of letters to write, and a journal
of three weeks to fill up --
I was interrupted in this place by
a speech of Bells which has given



rise to a conversation that has lasted
some time -- it has not left me
happier than I was before -- but
it has so discomposed & overturnedbroke
the chain of my ideas that it
is impoʃsible for me to continue
my letter with any appearance
of consistency or common sense
I conclude -- you know that I
am well, be aʃsured that I love
you -- let this suffice -- adieu
dear Friend -- I need not add
that I am tenderly yours --
I will write on Monday wherever
I am -- adieu again --
remember me kindly




------------
To Miʃs Hamilton
[3]

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. Hamilton annotated a letter from Mrs Vesey as 'Recd. 15th. August 1783 in Eſsex' (HAM/1/6/2/5), and indeed Hamilton's diary (HAM/2/3/1) records 'went to Eſsex' on 7 August and 'returnd Home' on 29 September 1783.
 2. See HAM/1/15/1/7 'he keeps off the fever with Bark', and HAM/1/10/1/25 'constantly taking the tincture of bark', etc.
 3. Several lines of scribbled-out text appear below address when unfolded.

Normalised Text



St James's September 4th
      --      

As I am sure you will be satisfied
with a few lines my dear dear Friend
I cannot find in my heart to
refuse you that pleasure though my
head is quite distracted -- I shall
direct this to Essex -- so that having
written yesterday into Northamtonshire
you will not wait long for the
information you wish about me
wherever you may be -- there I am --
I left my kind Friend Mrs Stuart
after Dinner and since I arrived
have been increasing my headache
and flushing by writing
a long letter to my Father who is
at present in Lincolnshire --
Be quite easy on the score of my
Health my dearest Friend, I am
as well as ever -- for my infirmities
& habitual complaint will I fear
never leave me -- on Saturday I
return to the Bark. Since I arrived
I have heard that the Lord Mayor



does not make his appearance
tomorrow -- this is a great relief
to me -- for I should have made
a point of waiting and the transition
from a Domestic to a dressed
Cap would have been at least
disagreeable --
I was out as usual in the Phaeton
this morning, we went to Hamton
to see Lady Carlow &c -- but did
not find them at home --
I propose returning to breathe
the restoring & wholesome air
of the Park on Saturday or Sunday
but I am not sorry to be at home
for a Day or two, in my own quiet
comfortable habitation -- to refresh
& recuellir myself, after so long
an absence -- I have a thousand
things to arrange -- millions
of letters to write, and a journal
of three weeks to fill up --
I was interrupted in this place by
a speech of Bells which has given



rise to a conversation that has lasted
some time -- it has not left me
happier than I was before -- but
it has so discomposed & broken
the chain of my ideas that it
is impossible for me to continue
my letter with any appearance
of consistency or common sense
I conclude -- you know that I
am well, be assured that I love
you -- let this suffice -- adieu
dear Friend -- I need not add
that I am tenderly yours --
I will write on Monday wherever
I am -- adieu again --
remember me kindly





To Miss Hamilton

(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations,
spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. Hamilton annotated a letter from Mrs Vesey as 'Recd. 15th. August 1783 in Eſsex' (HAM/1/6/2/5), and indeed Hamilton's diary (HAM/2/3/1) records 'went to Eſsex' on 7 August and 'returnd Home' on 29 September 1783.
 2. See HAM/1/15/1/7 'he keeps off the fever with Bark', and HAM/1/10/1/25 'constantly taking the tincture of bark', etc.
 3. Several lines of scribbled-out text appear below address when unfolded.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Charlotte Margaret Gunning to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/15/1/3

Correspondence Details

Sender: Charlotte Margaret Digby (née Gunning)

Place sent: London

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: Waltham Abbey, Essex (certainty: low)

Date sent: 4 September 1783

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Charlotte Gunning to Mary Hamilton. She writes of her health and daily activities. She asks Hamilton to be 'quite easy on the score of my Health [...] for my infirmities & habitual complaint will I fear never leave me'. She went out this morning in the phaeton: 'we went to Hamton to see Lady Carlow &c' [Caroline Dawson, née Stuart (d. 1813), Viscountess Carlow], but they were not at home. She is not sorry to be at home for a day or two, as she has 'a thousand things to arrange – and millions of letters to write, and a journal of three weeks to fill up'. She says that her letter was interrupted by a speech of Bell's [presumably her sister, Barbara Evelyn Isabella Gunning], and the thread of her thoughts has been broken.
    Dated at St James's [London].
    Original reference No. 2.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 390 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 2014/15 and 2015/16 provided by the Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester.

Research assistant: Donald Alasdair Morrison, undergraduate student, University of Manchester

Transliterator: Hope Isaac, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted November 2014)

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

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