Diplomatic Text
Deal Miʃs S.
June: 178: 1780
That I have deferred so longtill now
writing to you my dear, was owing to the
wish I had of complying with your kind
desire of a long letter. I have had many
opportunities of sending you a few lines,
but none till now of accomplishing a
letter suitable to your kind desire & my
inclination. We arrived here yesterday
was sennight; my poor dear Mrs Carter
had a very bad cold, which is now almost
gone. but this dre-ary weather does not agree
with her head; nor much with mine. however
I am pretty tolerable. You desire a full
account of my journey, & first I must
tell you I met with no annoyance from
any of the evils you have so wickedly
wickedly innumerated. We stayed two days at
Salisbury which I suppose you know is one of
the neatest towns poʃsible, with a little clear stream,
which some despise, but which I think delightfull,
runing[1] thro' all the streets by the side of the
troto --- ires.[2] Mrs Carter calls the steeple of
the cathedral “the Lady Coventry of architecture”
from which appellation I leave you to form
your ideas of its beauty. from hence we
went to Stour, the beautifull seat of Mr Hoare[3]
where we stayed towo days in a little habitation
more resembling a cottage than an Inn, kept by
a widow woman whose children are the only
aʃsistants she has. Our room had a pretty bow
window which faced a beautifull hill covered
with wood belonging to Mr Hoare, which I
enjoyed exceedingly. To give a description of
Mr Hoares grounds in a letter, can not be done
They are very extensive, & as charming as
variety of ground, wood, ------------ water cascades & grottos,
grottos can make them. When we thought of
taking leave of Stour we met with a disapoint=
ment, as we found we cou'd not by any means
contrive to get to Glastonbury consistent with
our other schemes. We were therefore obliged
to give it up, & go directly to Bath, where we
saw Miʃs Cooper whom I think seems better
than usual. From Bath we went to Mr
H. Carter's at Wittenham. In our way from
Bath thither we stoped at a little place called
Faireford to see the church, the account of which
our dear Mrs Carter will give you.[4]
I must inform you that I have just had a
letter, very true I aʃsure you, a letter from
Mr Smelt, who with Mrs Smelt desires to
be most affectionately remembered to
you. I think you are not one of those
who ridicule any attachment to persons
one has known but a very little while,
therefore you can beleive that I feel a
very sincere regard for this truly amiable
character.
I have now as far as I am able obeyed yr
commands in regard to the account of our
journey, which for your amusement I wish
was better worth your knowledge, and now a word
or two about East Bourn. We certainly intend
you a visit there, but it can not be till the
middle of August. If you do not stay
there till that time I shall be very sorry,
tho I am not certain that in that case I shall
not bring our dear Mrs Carter to see you at
Kew. Pray when you write next, which I
trust will be soon, direct to Mill Hill, where
I go next Friday: & in your letter give me
the route to East Bourne, from London, with
some information whether there is any Inn
at that place. I hope you find your
excursion there agree-able, & the country
pleasant. The comfortable state of spirits
which from the stile of your letter I hope you
are in, gives me great pleasure, as yr happineʃs
will ever be most warmly the wish of
Yr Very sincerely Affect
M. Sharpe.
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. It looks as if Sharpe may have ‘corrected’ the second <n> of running into an <i>.
2. This use of trottoir ‘paved footway on each side of a street; a pavement’ antedates OED by nine years (OED s.v. Accessed 01-06-2025). The uncertain spelling perhaps suggests an unfamiliar word.
3. The banker Henry Hoare (1705-1785) ‘laid out the gardens at Stourhead in Wiltshire’ (Wikipedia).
4. Carter introduces her description as follows: ‘I find our dear Miſs Sharpe is so fatigued with leading you along, that she has fallen fast asleep, before she got you into the west door’ (see MS Eng 1778 3d p.2); Fairford Church is also praised by Queen Charlotte around this time (see HAM/1/1/2/3 p.2).
Normalised Text
Deal
June: 18: 1780
That I have deferred till now
writing to you my dear, was owing to the
wish I had of complying with your kind
desire of a long letter. I have had many
opportunities of sending you a few lines,
but none till now of accomplishing a
letter suitable to your kind desire & my
inclination. We arrived here yesterday
was sennight; my poor dear Mrs Carter
had a very bad cold, which is now almost
gone. but this dre-ary weather does not agree
with her head; nor much with mine. however
I am pretty tolerable. You desire a full
account of my journey, & first I must
tell you I met with no annoyance from
any of the evils you have so
wickedly enumerated. We stayed two days at
Salisbury which I suppose you know is one of
the neatest towns possible, with a little clear stream,
which some despise, but which I think delightful,
running through all the streets by the side of the
trottoirs. Mrs Carter calls the steeple of
the cathedral “the Lady Coventry of architecture”
from which appellation I leave you to form
your ideas of its beauty. from hence we
went to Stour, the beautiful seat of Mr Hoare
where we stayed two days in a little habitation
more resembling a cottage than an Inn, kept by
a widow woman whose children are the only
assistants she has. Our room had a pretty bow
window which faced a beautiful hill covered
with wood belonging to Mr Hoare, which I
enjoyed exceedingly. To give a description of
Mr Hoares grounds in a letter, can not be done
They are very extensive, & as charming as
variety of ground, wood, water cascades & ,
grottos can make them. When we thought of
taking leave of Stour we met with a disappointment
, as we found we could not by any means
contrive to get to Glastonbury consistent with
our other schemes. We were therefore obliged
to give it up, & go directly to Bath, where we
saw Miss Cooper whom I think seems better
than usual. From Bath we went to Mr
H. Carter's at Wittenham. In our way from
Bath thither we stopped at a little place called
Faireford to see the church, the account of which
our dear Mrs Carter will give you.
I must inform you that I have just had a
letter, very true I assure you, a letter from
Mr Smelt, who with Mrs Smelt desires to
be most affectionately remembered to
you. I think you are not one of those
who ridicule any attachment to persons
one has known but a very little while,
therefore you can believe that I feel a
very sincere regard for this truly amiable
character.
I have now as far as I am able obeyed your
commands in regard to the account of our
journey, which for your amusement I wish
was better worth your knowledge, and now a word
or two about East Bourn. We certainly intend
you a visit there, but it can not be till the
middle of August. If you do not stay
there till that time I shall be very sorry,
though I am not certain that in that case I shall
not bring our dear Mrs Carter to see you at
Kew. Pray when you write next, which I
trust will be soon, direct to Mill Hill, where
I go next Friday: & in your letter give me
the route to East Bourne, from London, with
some information whether there is any Inn
at that place. I hope you find your
excursion there agree-able, & the country
pleasant. The comfortable state of spirits
which from the style of your letter I hope you
are in, gives me great pleasure, as your happiness
will ever be most warmly the wish of
Your Very sincerely Affectionate
Mary Sharpe.
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/1/22/25
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)
Place sent: Deal
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Eastbourne (certainty: high)
Date sent: 18 June 1780
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mary Sharpe to Mary Hamilton. The letter provides an account of Sharpe's journey to Deal, including staying at an Inn which was kept by a widow woman and whose assistance consists only of her children. Sharpe also asks Hamilton to write to her with directions to Eastbourne from London, and with information as to whether or not there is 'any Inn at that place'.
Dated at Deal, [Kent].
Length: 1 sheet, 648 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
