HAM/1/15/2/20(1)
Note from Mary Hamilton to Charlotte Margaret Gunning (later Digby)
Diplomatic Text
17
15 Sept. Sunday 1781[1]
Babel
------------ Dearest friend -- No post went out last
night & therefore I could not vindicate my seeming
neglect -- indeed my love I wrote on friday as I promised
at Leuctra & gave the letter to Chs: Greville -- he I
make no doubt forgot to send it -- if he has not
yet done so -- pray send to his house in Portman
Square[2] -- I must not delay sending this to ye. post -- I will
write to night for Tomorrow I return Bells letter
will talk of it bye & bye when I write adieu[3]
[Sep]tember[4]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The dating is not clear. The body of the figure ‘5’ looks more like a ‘4’, though the horizontal stroke requires it to be transcribed as here. But Sunday was actually 16 September 1781!
2. A garden square in Mayfair, central London.
3. The remainder of the note has been cut off and is missing.
4. The back of the note is visible at the bottom of p.3 of HAM/1/15/2/20.
Normalised Text
15 September Sunday 1781
Babel
------------ Dearest friend -- No post went out last
night & therefore I could not vindicate my seeming
neglect -- indeed my love I wrote on friday as I promised
at Leuctra & gave the letter to Charles Greville -- he I
make no doubt forgot to send it -- if he has not
yet done so -- pray send to his house in Portman
Square -- I must not delay sending this to the post -- I will
write to night for Tomorrow I return Bells letter
will talk of it when I write adieu
September
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: Note from Mary Hamilton to Charlotte Margaret Gunning (later Digby)
Shelfmark: HAM/1/15/2/20(1)
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Hamilton
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: Charlotte Margaret Digby (née Gunning)
Place received: unknown
Date sent: between 15 and 16 September 1781
notBefore 15 September 1781 (precision: high)
notAfter 16 September 1781 (precision: high)
Letter Description
Summary: In this note, dated 15 or 16 September 1781, Hamilton writes that
her note was too late for the post and she had given it to Charles Greville,
who may have forgotten to post it for her.
Original reference No. 17.
Cataloguer's note: the day of the week does not match the date and therefore a date range has been included.
Length: 1 sheet, 94 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: Tino Oudesluijs, editorial team (completed 14 October 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: 7 May 2026
