Diplomatic Text
Deal.
August 17: 1780
I can only say a few words my dear
in answer to yours, as I - am under a
neceʃsity of writing another letter for
the post. It will not be in our power to
stay at East Bourn so as to make lodgings
neceʃsary, as I supp-ose there is an Inn
where we may sleep a night; longer than
which it will not be in our power to
prolong our stay, owing to some unforeseen
circumstances which however we can not
permit to deprive us of the satisfaction
of having a peep at you. I rejoyce
in the thought of seeing you even for such
a little while. Our dear friend desires her
her love to you. I hope we shall see you in
a little more than a fortnight; but will
let you know exactly, as soon as I know
my-self. Will you be so good to send a
line to Stanhope Street as soon as you can,
to say whether there is an Inn at East
Bourn, and tell us the road, and how
far you are from London. Adieu my dear
I must only add that I am
most Affctly Yours
M. Sharpe
Miʃs Sharpe[1]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Deal.
August 17: 1780
I can only say a few words my dear
in answer to yours, as I am under a
necessity of writing another letter for
the post. It will not be in our power to
stay at East Bourn so as to make lodgings
necessary, as I supp-ose there is an Inn
where we may sleep a night; longer than
which it will not be in our power to
prolong our stay, owing to some unforeseen
circumstances which however we can not
permit to deprive us of the satisfaction
of having a peep at you. I rejoice
in the thought of seeing you even for such
a little while. Our dear friend desires
her love to you. I hope we shall see you in
a little more than a fortnight; but will
let you know exactly, as soon as I know
my-self. Will you be so good to send a
line to Stanhope Street as soon as you can,
to say whether there is an Inn at East
Bourn, and tell us the road, and how
far you are from London. Adieu my dear
I must only add that I am
most Affectionately Yours
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/1/22/28
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)
Place sent: Deal
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: to be determined
Date sent: 17 August 1780
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mary Sharpe to Mary Hamilton. Sharpe will not be able to visit Eastbourne long enough 'as to make lodgings necessary' because of some 'unforseen circumstances'. She will not, however, deprive herself of the 'satisfaction of having a peep at' Hamilton. She hopes to visit possibly in a fortnight but will let Hamilton know the date as soon as she knows it herself. Sharpe ends her letter by asking once more of an inn at Eastbourne.
Dated at Deal, [Kent].
Length: 1 sheet, 199 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
