Diplomatic Text
I cou'd not write to you last night my
dear Miʃs Hamilton but I was so far from
well I had no heart to take a pen.
This evening I am better & have the happineʃs
to tell you my dear patient is better tho still
in bed & very low. She desires her kind love
to you & hopes to have many comfortable
breakfasts with you. Adieu
Yrs Affectly
M. Sharpe.
March 18th 1779
Miʃs Hamilton[1]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The direction is split in two as ‘Hamilt’ + ‘on’, with different orientations, by unfolding.
Normalised Text
I could not write to you last night my
dear Miss Hamilton but I was so far from
well I had no heart to take a pen.
This evening I am better & have the happiness
to tell you my dear patient is better though still
in bed & very low. She desires her kind love
to you & hopes to have many comfortable
breakfasts with you. Adieu
Yours Affectionately
Mary Sharpe.
Miss Hamilton
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/1/22/6
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)
Place sent: to be determined
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: to be determined
Date sent: 18 March 1779
Letter Description
Summary: Note from Mary Sharpe to Mary Hamilton. Sharpe's 'patient', whom she has been nursing, is well. She sends her love and hopes that she will have many 'comfortable breakfasts' with Hamilton.
Length: 1 sheet, 74 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: 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
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 7 April 2026
