Diplomatic Text
Sunday. 27th- Janry-
1782
I am truly mortified my dear, at the
neceʃsity I am under of relinquishing the
real pleasure you offered me for this evening,
but my cold is so tiresome, & affects my head
so much, I can hardly hold it up. Yet
for some reasons, which if I was near
you I wou'd tell you, I must go if poʃsible
for an hour to Miʃs Moncktons this evening;
from whence however I shall make my
escape the moment I can. I can not expreʃs
to you how sorry I am I can not go to you,
nor how much I am obliged to you for permitting
me to see you in a snug way. It is the
only way in which I can be satisfied to
to see you, as it is the only way in which
I can know those delightfull qualities of your
heart & soul, which give me a pride as well
as pleasure in the friendship you bestow on
Your
Sincerely Affect
M. Sharpe.
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Sunday.
I am truly mortified my dear, at the
necessity I am under of relinquishing the
real pleasure you offered me for this evening,
but my cold is so tiresome, & affects my head
so much, I can hardly hold it up. Yet
for some reasons, which if I was near
you I would tell you, I must go if possible
for an hour to Miss Moncktons this evening;
from whence however I shall make my
escape the moment I can. I can not express
to you how sorry I am I can not go to you,
nor how much I am obliged to you for permitting
me to see you in a snug way. It is the
only way in which I can be satisfied
to see you, as it is the only way in which
I can know those delightful qualities of your
heart & soul, which give me a pride as well
as pleasure in the friendship you bestow on
Your
Sincerely Affectionate
Mary Sharpe.
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
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/1/22/37
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: to be determined
Date sent: 27 January 1782
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mary Sharpe to Mary Hamilton. The letter relates to Sharpe's distress at not being able to visit Hamilton that night. She is obliged to visit another of her acquaintances but will make her escape from her as soon as she is able to.
Dated at Stanhope Street, [London].
Length: 1 sheet, 170 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
