HAM/1/18/170
Letter from David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield, to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
Dear Madam
I return you my sincereʃt Thanks for
your very kind Letter which I have juʃt
received. I wrote to you yesterday to acquaint
you with our Misfortune, and to give you some
account of Lady Stormont. Not knowing your
Motions I directed to you at Mr Jacksons. Lady
Stormont continues to exert Herself to the utmoʃt,
and bears up as well as any Body can do
under the Load of such affliction. That Loʃs
which is so grievous to us all falls with double
weight upon Lady S. and Mrs Graham who were
brought up with their Brother, contracted the
greatest Fondneʃs for Him, and saw their Love
and admiration of Him confirmed by the general, the
universal opinion of all who knew Him. Many a
Day muʃt paʃs over Her before such a Wound can
be
be cured, but as she is not ill, as she gets some
sleep and is prevailed upon to take a little
Exercise I flatter myself that Her general
Health is not likely to suffer.
My youngest Siʃter has had a severe Rhumatic
Disorder which has brought Her very low
but she is beginning to recover. Lord Mansfield
continues much as He was except that His
sufferings seem of late to be a little diminished,
He grieves exceedingly as who does not for
poor Cathcart. all our little Family are well.
Lady Stormont returns you many Thanks for yr
Letter, and joins with me in Compts to Mr Dickinson
I am with the sincereʃt Regard
Dear Madam,
Your moʃt faithful Humble Servt
Stormont
Little Grove octr 14. 1788[1]
Lord Stormont Octbr. 14th
1788 -- relative to
Coll. Cathcarts death
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Dear Madam
I return you my sincerest Thanks for
your very kind Letter which I have just
received. I wrote to you yesterday to acquaint
you with our Misfortune, and to give you some
account of Lady Stormont. Not knowing your
Motions I directed to you at Mr Jacksons. Lady
Stormont continues to exert Herself to the utmost,
and bears up as well as any Body can do
under the Load of such affliction. That Loss
which is so grievous to us all falls with double
weight upon Lady Stormont and Mrs Graham who were
brought up with their Brother, contracted the
greatest Fondness for Him, and saw their Love
and admiration of Him confirmed by the general, the
universal opinion of all who knew Him. Many a
Day must pass over Her before such a Wound can
be cured, but as she is not ill, as she gets some
sleep and is prevailed upon to take a little
Exercise I flatter myself that Her general
Health is not likely to suffer.
My youngest Sister has had a severe Rheumatic
Disorder which has brought Her very low
but she is beginning to recover. Lord Mansfield
continues much as He was except that His
sufferings seem of late to be a little diminished,
He grieves exceedingly as who does not for
poor Cathcart. all our little Family are well.
Lady Stormont returns you many Thanks for your
Letter, and joins with me in Compliments to Mr Dickinson
I am with the sincerest Regard
Dear Madam,
Your most faithful Humble Servant
Stormont
Little Grove octr 14. 1788
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/1/18/170
Correspondence Details
Sender: David Murray, 2nd Earl of Mansfield
Place sent: East Barnet
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: London (certainty: medium)
Date sent: 14 October 1788
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Lord Stormont [later 2nd Earl of Mansfield] to Mary Hamilton, concerning the death of Lady Stormont's brother, Colonel Cathcart.
Dated at Little Grove.
Length: 2 sheets, 265 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: 7 November 2025
