HAM/1/22/2

Note from Mary Sharpe (later Beauvoir) to Mary Hamilton

diplomatic | normalised | metadata | image (pdf)

Diplomatic Text

      My dear Miʃs Hamilton
                             I flatter
my- self there is not any thing alarming
in my dearest friends case.^[1] D^r Douglas
who attends her, says she is better than
she has been for some days, tho the disorder
has now appeared so strongly, as to confine
her to her bed. I have just left her & do
not think her at all worse. Adieu till
Monday                Y^rs Affec^tly
                             M. Sharpe
▼
                             Mar - ch 14^th 1779
D^r & M^rs Pennington^[2]
present com^pts^[3]

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)

Notes

1. It seems likely that the unnamed ‘dearest friend’ being nursed by Margaret Pennington and Mary Sharpe is in fact Elizabeth Carter.
2. Margaret Pennington was Elizabeth Carter's sister.
3. The postscript appears between signature and dateline, to the left.

Normalised Text

      My dear Miss Hamilton
                             I flatter
my- self there is not any thing alarming
in my dearest friends case. Dr Douglas
who attends her, says she is better than
she has been for some days, though the disorder
has now appeared so strongly, as to confine
her to her bed. I have just left her & do
not think her at all worse. Adieu till
Monday                Yours Affectionately
                             Mary Sharpe
▼
                             March 14th 1779
Dr & Mrs Pennington
present compliments

(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
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 Sharpe (later Beauvoir) to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/22/2

Correspondence Details

Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)

Place sent: to be determined

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: to be determined

Date sent: 14 March 1779

Letter Description

Summary: Note from Mary Sharpe to Mary Hamilton. Sharpe writes on the health of an unnamed friend [in fact Elizabeth Carter] and reports that her doctor has said that she is better than she has been for some days.

Length: 1 sheet, 79 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, M^rs. or M^rs may occur, but M.^rs or M^r.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: Pete Morris, Artificial Intelligence and Ideas Adoption (AIIA), The University of Manchester Library (Plain text transliteration submitted 22 May 2025)

Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library

Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library

Revision date: 7 April 2026

Single Letter