Diplomatic Text
[1]
to intreat your forgiveneʃs --
wch. however you have by this
time I trust already granted
by receiving a Letter from
me dated Sat. 13th. & tomorrow
you will get another dated 15
------------------------------------------------------------[2]
[3]
That little fool B --- has
offer'd that great fool of a
woman 100 Guineas for to pro-
cure a small lock of my Hair --
My answer was, that provided
he wld. cut off his Hair he should
------------------------------------------------------------[4]
Novbr. 1789? 1779
on poor Bord.[5]
have ye. Combings of mine wch.
my maid might give him to
make a little bob wig & to
be worn without powder[6] --
& yesterday he wrote a letter
to her -- from Babel[7], to enquire
after my health -- to present
his Humble. respects, & hop'd I
was extremely happy -- my
name full length -- what a
tormenting thing to be thus in
ye. power of people & that no
precaution, no remedy can
save me from their impertinence
perhaps too to be exposed, for
from his manner of Talking
& writing about me -- any person
that did not know me might
imagine I encouraged it.
I quite dread going to Louvre[8]
for there one is exposed to
perpetual intrusions, at least
I am, from living in a public
paʃsage --
Adieu adieu -- forgive, love
& write to me, I am delighted
to hear ye. young person is
better -- take care of yourself
Adieu ------ Miranda
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The top half of this page has been cut away.
2. The last line of this page has been cut away.
3. The top half of the left column has been cut away.
4. This line has been cut away.
5. The explanatory annotation is treated here as by the author of the letter, Mary Hamilton, though the dates of writing and of subsequent censorship relative to the main text are unclear.
6. The same episode recurs in GEO/ADD/3/83/49.
7. Code name for Windsor, or one of the buildings there, based on the evidence of HAM/1/15/2/18 in which a letter from 'Babel' is postmarked Windsor.
8. Probably St. James's Palace. The code name 'Louvre' is used in various letters and notes in the HAM/1/15 series, for example in HAM/1/15/2/9 and HAM/1/15/2/11.
Normalised Text
to entreat your forgiveness --
which however you have by this
time I trust already granted
by receiving a Letter from
me dated Saturday 13th. & tomorrow
you will get another dated 15
That little fool B has
offered that great fool of a
woman 100 Guineas to procure
a small lock of my Hair --
My answer was, that provided
he would cut off his Hair he should
have the Combings of mine which
my maid might give him to
make a little bob wig & to
be worn without powder --
& yesterday he wrote a letter
to her -- from Babel, to enquire
after my health -- to present
his Humble. respects, & hoped I
was extremely happy -- my
name full length -- what a
tormenting thing to be thus in
the power of people & that no
precaution, no remedy can
save me from their impertinence
perhaps too to be exposed, for
from his manner of Talking
& writing about me -- any person
that did not know me might
imagine I encouraged it.
I quite dread going to Louvre
for there one is exposed to
perpetual intrusions, at least
I am, from living in a public
passage --
Adieu adieu -- forgive, love
& write to me, I am delighted
to hear the young person is
better -- take care of yourself
Adieu Miranda
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 Mary Hamilton to Charlotte Margaret Gunning
Shelfmark: HAM/1/15/2/27(2)
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Hamilton
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: Charlotte Margaret Digby (née Gunning)
Place received: unknown
Date sent: ?November 1779
notBefore November 1779 (precision: high)
notAfter 1782 (precision: medium)
Letter Description
Summary: This letter is incorrectly dated November 1789, and probably should be 1779. This
incomplete letter relates to the unwanted attentions of a suitor [possibly a Mr Bourdieu who
proposed marriage to her]. Hamilton writes that 'little fool B has offer[e]d that great fool of a
woman 100 Guineas to procure a small lock of my Hair – my answer was, That provided he W[ou]ld cut
off his hair he should have the combings of mine' which her maid will give him to make 'a little bob
wig & to be worn without powder'. She notes that he wrote a letter from 'Babel' to enquire after her.
She is anxious that he used her full name in the note and that 'from his manner of talking & writing
about me – any person that did not know me might imagine I encouraged it'.
Original reference No. 23.
Length: 1 sheet, 219 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: Cassandra Ulph, editorial team (completed 6 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: 28 April 2023