Diplomatic Text
Little Wittenham
May 31: 1780
You was so good to say my dear
that a short letter wou'd content you when
I cou'd not write a long one, and I woud
have used this permiʃsion sooner, but was in
bed with a cold, the only time I had to
my- self at Salisbury. We --- arrived here
yesterday, in good health, which is almost
all I have understanding enough to say,
my head being pretty much confused and
my time limited. One thing however I feel
too much not to say it, selfish wretch that
I am, I experienced heart felt satisfaction
in hearing you give orders for the arrangement
arrangement of your appartment for
next winter. I can not help fearing
when a certain event takes place, I shall
lose what I much value. however if my
love for you is worthy your acceptance,
it must banish all selfish withoughts,[1]
& give place only to wishes for your
happineʃs, however to be attained.
I think we shall be at Deal in about
ten days; I will write you a longer letter
from Deal, accept this only as a mark
of the true affection with which I am
Yrs Most Sincerely
M Sharpe.
Our dear friend sends her
cordial love to you. we both wish to know
how you do, when you go to East Bourn,[2]
& a thousand other little matters always
interesting where love subsists. Our dear
friend is purely[3] for her.
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Sharpe probably began to write ‘wishes’ here before reframing the sentence.
2. Hamilton left for Eastbourne with members of the royal family around 12 June 1780 (see for example HAM/1/1/5/16).
3. The ‘chiefly regional’ adjective purely has the sense ‘well, in good health’ (OED s.v., adj. Accessed 13-05-2025).
Normalised Text
Little Wittenham
May 31: 1780
You was so good to say my dear
that a short letter would content you when
I could not write a long one, and I would
have used this permission sooner, but was in
bed with a cold, the only time I had to
my- self at Salisbury. We arrived here
yesterday, in good health, which is almost
all I have understanding enough to say,
my head being pretty much confused and
my time limited. One thing however I feel
too much not to say it, selfish wretch that
I am, I experienced heart felt satisfaction
in hearing you give orders for the
arrangement of your apartment for
next winter. I can not help fearing
when a certain event takes place, I shall
lose what I much value. however if my
love for you is worthy your acceptance,
it must banish all selfish thoughts,
& give place only to wishes for your
happiness, however to be attained.
I think we shall be at Deal in about
ten days; I will write you a longer letter
from Deal, accept this only as a mark
of the true affection with which I am
Yours Most Sincerely
Mary Sharpe.
Our dear friend sends her
cordial love to you. we both wish to know
how you do, when you go to East Bourn,
& a thousand other little matters always
interesting where love subsists. Our dear
friend is purely for her.
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 Mary Sharpe (later Beauvoir) to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/22/24
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)
Place sent: Little Wittenham
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: to be determined
Date sent: 31 May 1780
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mary Sharpe to Mary Hamilton. Sharpe writes that she is happy to hear of the arrangements that Hamilton has made for her apartments next winter. It is not clear what she is referring to, but Sharpe also notes that she cannot help 'fearing that when a certain event takes place, I shall lose what I much value'. With her love for Hamilton she should 'banish all shelfish thoughts' and think only of Hamilton's happiness.
Dated at Little Wittenham.
Length: 1 sheet, 242 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 8 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
