Diplomatic Text
Horton July 5th 1787
My dear Friend!
Where are you, what is become of you? que
faites vous? why do you never write -- you wrote
me a few lines, weeks, nay I believe Month's ago
which I answered immediatly, promising me a
longer letter soon -- you were in distreʃs, in anxiety
about Mr Dickenson's Father who was ill in conse-
-quence of his fall -- what is become of all this? he
is well, I hope, quite recovered, & you have forgot, even
the source of your misery -- Mr D. your dear
little Louisa, all happy all well! I like to think
so, to please myself with the idea but why will
you not allow me to hear the account, the
confirmation of your happineʃs from yourself.
pray, pray write my dear Friend -- surely you
have not forgot that your letters give me the
greatest pleasure -- I will now tell you something
of myself -- I am here depuis deux jours -- I
spent a fortnight here immediatly after the Birthday,
when I brought Bell down; whom my Father had
been so good as to leave with me, from the beginning
of May when he came to fix here -- I returned
to London for a Drawingroom & staid almost a fortnig[ht]
& here I am now for the Summer -- Summer it
is thank God at last -- for when I was here in June
we had fires every day -- now indeed the weather is
heavenly, intensely hot, but we keep ourselves
perfectly cool in the Salloon, where Bell & I have
made our comfortable etabliʃsement, & where we
loll, & indulge our disposition to idleneʃs for hours.
Ly Wake was here in my absence, Bell says that,
she is very well and Miʃs Wake vastly grown & improve[d]
we are going this Evening to Courteenhall, the very
first visit I shall have made, but I am impatient
to see Ly Wake, & to have some comfortable conversa[tion]
with her, in London we met two or three times
but you know what a morning visit is there.
I had the pleasure of seeing Ly. Cremorne the other
morning at Chapel at St James's, she stayed as well
as myself to receive the Sacrament, & I had only an
opportunity afterwards of taking hold of her hand &
asking her how she did -- she looked well -- I pitied her from
my Soul.[1] tell me my dear what are your Plans for
this Summer, & how far I shall enter into them
I will tell you what is my destination -- I remain here
till the 5th of September without any interruption.
I shall then return for two fortnights, one about the
end of September & beginning of October, & one the end
of October & beginning of November -- Now my dear
tell me when you come into Northamtonshire
for I conclude that you are under some promises
to Lady Wake and the Cathcarts, whom by the by we are
going to tomorrow, I flatter myself we have entered
into your plans -- we depend on seeing you & Mr D.
& I shall really be seriously angry with you if you do
not come whilst I am here -- let me know what
I am to hope for -- think my dear Friend that you
we have been here six years, that you have been
almost as often in Northamtonshire, & yet that
3 hours are the outside of the time you have paʃsed
with me -- I am thank God very well & recovering
my looks a little -- delighted to be here, to be at
liberty, to have no dreʃsing, to go to bed at 11 &
to breathe fresh air -- I am quite happy, in excellen[t]
[spiri]ts, singing & laughing the whole day -- do y[ou]
know me my dear Friend from this descript[ion]
come & see how you like me -- come amongst
us & make us happy -- God bleʃs you & yours
& continue to you, long, long all the Bleʃsings
you enjoy -- we all join &[2] love to you & Compts
to Mr D -- adieu once more, your affec
CMGunning
[3]
[7]
July 1787[8]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Possibly a reference to the declining health of Lady Cremorne's son, who died that autumn (see HAM/1/11/34-HAM/1/11/36).
2. After join, in would be normal. An ampersand may have been substituted through anticipation of the next phrase.
3. Remains of a seal, in red wax.
4. Postmark '87 NORTHAMPTON' split to left and right of address when unfolded.
5. A large '5' is written to the left of the address panel, likely indicating postage due.
6. This line appears to the left of the address.
7. Remains of a seal, in red wax.
8. This annotation is written vertically in the right-hand margin of the page.
Normalised Text
Horton July 5th 1787
My dear Friend!
Where are you, what is become of you? que
faites vous? why do you never write -- you wrote
me a few lines, weeks, nay I believe Month's ago
which I answered immediately, promising me a
longer letter soon -- you were in distress, in anxiety
about Mr Dickenson's Father who was ill in consequence
of his fall -- what is become of all this? he
is well, I hope, quite recovered, & you have forgotten, even
the source of your misery -- Mr Dickenson your dear
little Louisa, all happy all well! I like to think
so, to please myself with the idea but why will
you not allow me to hear the account, the
confirmation of your happiness from yourself.
pray, pray write my dear Friend -- surely you
have not forgotten that your letters give me the
greatest pleasure -- I will now tell you something
of myself -- I am here depuis deux jours -- I
spent a fortnight here immediately after the Birthday,
when I brought Bell down; whom my Father had
been so good as to leave with me, from the beginning
of May when he came to fix here -- I returned
to London for a Drawingroom & stayed almost a fortnight
& here I am now for the Summer -- Summer it
is thank God at last -- for when I was here in June
we had fires every day -- now indeed the weather is
heavenly, intensely hot, but we keep ourselves
perfectly cool in the Saloon, where Bell & I have
made our comfortable etablissement, & where we
loll, & indulge our disposition to idleness for hours.
Lady Wake was here in my absence, Bell says that,
she is very well and Miss Wake vastly grown & improved
we are going this Evening to Courteenhall, the very
first visit I shall have made, but I am impatient
to see Lady Wake, & to have some comfortable conversation
with her, in London we met two or three times
but you know what a morning visit is there.
I had the pleasure of seeing Lady Cremorne the other
morning at Chapel at St James's, she stayed as well
as myself to receive the Sacrament, & I had only an
opportunity afterwards of taking hold of her hand &
asking her how she did -- she looked well -- I pitied her from
my Soul. tell me my dear what are your Plans for
this Summer, & how far I shall enter into them
I will tell you what is my destination -- I remain here
till the 5th of September without any interruption.
I shall then return for two fortnights, one about the
end of September & beginning of October, & one the end
of October & beginning of November -- Now my dear
tell me when you come into Northamtonshire
for I conclude that you are under some promises
to Lady Wake and the Cathcarts, whom by the by we are
going to tomorrow, I flatter myself we have entered
into your plans -- we depend on seeing you & Mr Dickenson
& I shall really be seriously angry with you if you do
not come whilst I am here -- let me know what
I am to hope for -- think my dear Friend that
we have been here six years, that you have been
almost as often in Northamtonshire, & yet that
3 hours are the outside of the time you have passed
with me -- I am thank God very well & recovering
my looks a little -- delighted to be here, to be at
liberty, to have no dressing, to go to bed at 11 &
to breathe fresh air -- I am quite happy, in excellent
spirits, singing & laughing the whole day -- do you
know me my dear Friend from this description
come & see how you like me -- come amongst
us & make us happy -- God bless you & yours
& continue to you, long, long all the Blessings
you enjoy -- we all join & love to you & Compliments
to Mr Dickenson -- adieu once more, your affectionate
Charlotte Margaret Gunning
Mrs Dickenson
Taxal
Chapel le Frith
Derbyshire
single Sheet
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 Margaret Gunning to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/15/1/22
Correspondence Details
Sender: Charlotte Margaret Digby (née Gunning)
Place sent: Horton, Northamptonshire
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Taxal, near Chapel-en-le-Frith
Date sent: 5 July 1787
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Charlotte Gunning to Mary Hamilton. She chides Hamilton for never writing, and entreats her for news of whether John Dickenson's father has recovered from illness. She spent a fortnight at Horton with her sister Bell, before returning to London for a 'drawing room'. She is now at Horton for the summer, enjoying life in the country: 'the weather is heavenly, intensely hot, but we keep ourselves perfectly cool in the Salloon, where Bell & I have made our comfortable etablissement,& where we loll, & indulge our disposition to idleness for hours'. This evening she is visiting Lady Wake at Courteenhall [near Northampton]. 'I am impatient to see L[ad]y Wake, & to have some comfortable conversa[tion] with her, in London we met two or three times but you know what a morning visit is there.' Gunning saw Lady Cremorne the other morning in chapel at St James's; she looked well but Gunning 'pitied her from my Soul' [perhaps a reference to the declining health of Cremorne's son Thomas, who died in October 1787 (see HAM/1/11/33-HAM/1/11/37)].
She longs to see Hamilton and her husband over the summer: 'I shall really be seriously angry with you if you do not come whilst I am here'. The Gunnings have been in Northamptonshire for six years and Hamilton has visited almost as often, yet '3 hours are the outside of the time you have passed with me'.
Dated at Wolton Lodge.
Original reference No. 15.
Length: 1 sheet, 692 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: Isabella Formisano, former MA student, University of Manchester
Transliterator: Adam Selby, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted May 2016)
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