HAM/1/18/169
Letter from David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
Little Grove octr. 13. 1788
Dear Madam
I am too well acquainted with your
Friendship for Ly Stormont and me not to
know how much you will feel for our present
Distreʃs. It is a great Comfort to me to be
able to aʃsure you that she bears up as
well as can be expected under the Preʃsure
of so very severe a Misfortune.[1] Every Endeavour
was used to prepare Her by Degrees for this
dreadful Shock. and tho She is and
muʃt long be under the deepeʃt affliction
yet I have great Reason to hope that
Her General Health will not be affected.
She desires to be particularly rememberd to you
and Mr Dickenson to whom I beg my beʃt Compts
I am with the sincereʃt attachment
Dear Madam
Yr moʃt faithful Humble Servt
Stormont.
Viscount Stormont
Ocbr. 13- 1788
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The death at sea off Sumatra on 10 June 1788 of her brother Charles Allen Cathcart, next youngest of seven siblings. He was also a cousin of Mary Hamilton's.
Normalised Text
Little Grove october 13. 1788
Dear Madam
I am too well acquainted with your
Friendship for Lady Stormont and me not to
know how much you will feel for our present
Distress. It is a great Comfort to me to be
able to assure you that she bears up as
well as can be expected under the Pressure
of so very severe a Misfortune. Every Endeavour
was used to prepare Her by Degrees for this
dreadful Shock. and though She is and
must long be under the deepest affliction
yet I have great Reason to hope that
Her General Health will not be affected.
She desires to be particularly remembered to you
and Mr Dickenson to whom I beg my best Compliments
I am with the sincerest attachment
Dear Madam
Your most faithful Humble Servant
Stormont.
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 David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield, to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/18/169
Correspondence Details
Sender: David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield
Place sent: East Barnet
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: London (certainty: medium)
Date sent: 13 October 1788
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Lord Stormont [later 2nd Earl of Mansfield] to Mary Hamilton, relating to the ‘misfortune’ and ‘distress’ that Lady Stormont is suffering. [The letter relates to the death of her brother, the Hon. Charles Allan Cathcart (1759–1788), son of the 9th Lord Cathcart].
Dated at Little Grove.
Length: 1 sheet, 136 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: XML version first created without transcription as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1. Transcription added after the funded period under the supervision of David Denison and Nuria Yáñez-Bouza.
Transliterator: Irene Boubeta-Rodríguez, undergraduate student, University of Vigo (Plain text transliteration submitted 21 April 2025)
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: 8 November 2025
