Diplomatic Text
I have only time to say my
dear, that we intend setting out
to: morrow. Pray receive *the enclosed,[1]
to: morrow. Pray receive *the enclosed,[2]
& the +old gentleman[3] with your
usual kindneʃs, & beleive me ever
Yrs Affectly
M. Sharpe.
Our dr Mrs C
wou'd I am sure send
her cordial love to you
if she was here. Adieu.
Stanhope Street
Sunday evening 28th. May 1780
[*a] lock of Mrs. Carters & a lock of Miʃs Sharpes Hair
[+]a drawing in Bists of Miʃs Sharpes. fram'd in green & Gold -- [4]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. An asterisk links this phrase to the locks of hair mentioned in the annotation at the foot of the page.
2. An asterisk links this phrase to the mention of locks of hair in the annotation at the foot of the page.
3. The cross was presumably intended to link this phrase to the drawing mentioned in the annotation at the foot of the page.
4. This carelessly written annotation must have been linked to the phrases ‘the enclosed’ and ‘old gentleman’ by an asterisk and a cross, respectively, though the cross has been torn away. It is assumed that what is transcribed as ‘Bists’ refers to shades of bistre ‘a brown pigment prepared from common soot’ (OED s.v. Accessed 31-05-2025).
Normalised Text
I have only time to say my
dear, that we intend setting out
to: morrow. Pray receive *the enclosed,
to: morrow. Pray receive *the enclosed,
& the +old gentleman with your
usual kindness, & believe me ever
Yours Affectionately
Mary Sharpe.
Our dear Mrs Carter
would I am sure send
her cordial love to you
if she was here. Adieu.
Stanhope Street
Sunday evening
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/1/22/23
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: to be determined
Date sent: 28 May 1780
Letter Description
Summary: Note from Mary Sharpe to Mary Hamilton. Covering note for a lock of Mrs Carter's and Miss Sharpe’s hair and a drawing [not included in the archive]. Sharpe sends this note to Hamilton and asks her to 'receive the enclosed, & the old gentleman with your usual kindness'.
Dated at Stanhope Street, [London].
Length: 1 sheet, 64 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
