Diplomatic Text
[1]
Bath
July 31. 1789
Madam,
To my infinite surprize I was
informed yesterday by Mrs Rundell that you had
desired Mr Dickenson to call on me with a
meʃsage of kind condolence on my present
heavy affliction. Thanks to Mrs Rundell's
good judgement, I was spared the distreʃsing
neceʃsity I shoud have been under of giving
pain to a stranger, by confeʃsing my opinion
of the impropriety of a person who has behaved
to me as Miʃs Hamilton did, intruding on my
distreʃs. The breach of an intimacy which you
thought fit to seek, arose you must be well aware
entirely on your side; and wou'd never have
happened had you chosen to have remained
silent on the subject of my difference with
Mrs Carter, in which after all I can not think
you had any right to interfere. My difference
with Mrs C—— has been ended this two years.
I can not suppose you was ignorant of this
during your stay in town the winter before last.
I heard nothing of you however, tho' I paʃsed
you more than once in the Street; and I applauded
the proper sense you seemed to have of the degradation
it wou'd be to my character to permit the cultivation
of my friendship and acquaintance to depend on
my being or not being the intimate of Mrs Carter.
Little shou'd I have expected that it wou'd
have been thought proper to attempt a renewal
of acquaintance at a moment so glaringly
insulting to the memory of my beloved husband.
Mr Dickenson was here long before I had
the misfortune to lose him. Why was he not then
desired to inform me of your good wishes?
The subject is too painfull to dwell on long. my
chief reason for writing is to say, that in preventing
Mr Dickenson from the trouble of calling on me,
Mrs Rundell acted entirely according to my
wish; and that whilst I have life and understand=
=ing no attention can be accepted by me from
any one whose behaviour has been disrespectfull
during his life, or implied an insult since his
departure on the memory of one, to whom I owe
several years of past happineʃs, & to whom
under Providence I shall ever feel indebted
for whatever comfort (when time shall have softened
the keen edge of my present affliction) I ever enjoy
in any future part of my life, to whatever length it
may please the Almighty to extend it.
I am
Madam
Yr Obet. Humble Servt
MBeauvoir.
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This letter to Mary Hamilton, then at home in Taxal, was enclosed in a note to John Dickenson, who was taking the waters in Bath (see HAM/1/22/53).
Normalised Text
Bath
July 31. 1789
Madam,
To my infinite surprise I was
informed yesterday by Mrs Rundell that you had
desired Mr Dickenson to call on me with a
message of kind condolence on my present
heavy affliction. Thanks to Mrs Rundell's
good judgement, I was spared the distressing
necessity I should have been under of giving
pain to a stranger, by confessing my opinion
of the impropriety of a person who has behaved
to me as Miss Hamilton did, intruding on my
distress. The breach of an intimacy which you
thought fit to seek, arose you must be well aware
entirely on your side; and would never have
happened had you chosen to have remained
silent on the subject of my difference with
Mrs Carter, in which after all I can not think
you had any right to interfere. My difference
with Mrs Carter has been ended this two years.
I can not suppose you was ignorant of this
during your stay in town the winter before last.
I heard nothing of you however, though I passed
you more than once in the Street; and I applauded
the proper sense you seemed to have of the degradation
it would be to my character to permit the cultivation
of my friendship and acquaintance to depend on
my being or not being the intimate of Mrs Carter.
Little should I have expected that it would
have been thought proper to attempt a renewal
of acquaintance at a moment so glaringly
insulting to the memory of my beloved husband.
Mr Dickenson was here long before I had
the misfortune to lose him. Why was he not then
desired to inform me of your good wishes?
The subject is too painful to dwell on long. my
chief reason for writing is to say, that in preventing
Mr Dickenson from the trouble of calling on me,
Mrs Rundell acted entirely according to my
wish; and that whilst I have life and understanding
no attention can be accepted by me from
any one whose behaviour has been disrespectful
during his life, or implied an insult since his
departure on the memory of one, to whom I owe
several years of past happiness, & to whom
under Providence I shall ever feel indebted
for whatever comfort (when time shall have softened
the keen edge of my present affliction) I ever enjoy
in any future part of my life, to whatever length it
may please the Almighty to extend it.
I am
Madam
Your Obedient Humble Servant
Mary Beauvoir.
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/1/22/52
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)
Place sent: Bath
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Taxal, near Chapel-en-le-Frith
Date sent: 31 July 1789
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe) to Mary Hamilton [Sharpe is now married and signs herself 'M. Beauvoir'.]. The letter relates to a dispute between Sharpe and Hamilton. To Sharpe's surprise, Mrs Rundell had informed her that Hamilton had asked Mr Dickenson to call on Sharpe to present Hamilton's condolence on Sharpe's 'heavy affliction' [the death of her husband]. It was only on Mrs Rundell's good judgement that Sharpe was saved from the 'distressing necessity I should have been under of giving pain to a stranger, by confessing my opinion of the impropriety of a person who has behaved to me as Miss Hamilton did, intruding on my distress'. Sharpe writes that the breach of intimacy between them was caused by Hamilton alone and 'would never have happened had you chosen to stay silent on the subject of my difference with Mrs Carter', on which subject Sharpe does not think Hamilton had any right to interfere. Sharpe's falling-out with Mrs Carter has been ended for the last two years, and Sharpe assumes that Hamilton would have known this. Sharpe also notes that on a number of occasions Hamilton had walked past her in the street without acknowledging her. Sharpe applauds 'the proper sense [...] [Hamilton] seemed to have of the degradation it wou[l]d be to my character to permit the civilities of my friendship and acquaintance to depend on my being or not being the intimate of Mrs Carter'. Sharpe did not think it possible that Hamilton would attempt to renew their friendship at such a moment. She viewed it as 'glaringly insulting to the memory of my beloved husband'. She writes to inform Hamilton that as long as she has 'life and understanding' she will accept no attention from anyone whose 'behaviour has been disrespectful during his life'.
Dated at Bath.
Length: 1 sheet, 423 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: 16 October 2026
