Diplomatic Text
Saturday. 15th 1783 Febry
Not having heard to the contrary,
I flatter my- self I shall have the pleasure
of seeing my dear Miʃs Hamilton next Wednesday.
I have several times wished to call on you;
but I confeʃs there is one person in the world
whom it wou'd pain me to meet, which has deterred
me from calling on you in person. As it is a
subject I do not enter on with any one, I shall not
name the person I allude to, nor wou'd I even have
said thus much, but to clear my- self from an
appearance of willfully permitting our acquaintance
to dwindle into meer unmeaning visiting.
My esteem for you, makes me wish to cultivate
an intimacy, which your situation now renders
practicable;[1] and as such is my desire, I scruple
not to expreʃs it with oppeneʃs and honesty. If
If your inclinations and mine coincide in
this matter, I hope we may next Wednesday
fix some afternoon for a comfortable snug dish
of tea together either at your house or mine;
If not, I shall never feel ashamed of having given this
testimony of regard to the virtues and integrity
of heart which Miʃs Hamilton is beleived to
poʃseʃs by
------
------
------ [3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Hamilton now resides in Clarges Street, having left the employ of the Queen.
2. Hamilton probably showed Beauvoir's letter to Elizabeth Carter; she certainly ran her response past Carter (see MS Eng 1778 31).
3. These cancelled lines are written vertically.
Normalised Text
Saturday. 15th 1783 February
Not having heard to the contrary,
I flatter my- self I shall have the pleasure
of seeing my dear Miss Hamilton next Wednesday.
I have several times wished to call on you;
but I confess there is one person in the world
whom it would pain me to meet, which has deterred
me from calling on you in person. As it is a
subject I do not enter on with any one, I shall not
name the person I allude to, nor would I even have
said thus much, but to clear my- self from an
appearance of wilfully permitting our acquaintance
to dwindle into mere unmeaning visiting.
My esteem for you, makes me wish to cultivate
an intimacy, which your situation now renders
practicable; and as such is my desire, I scruple
not to express it with openness and honesty.
If your inclinations and mine coincide in
this matter, I hope we may next Wednesday
fix some afternoon for a comfortable snug dish
of tea together either at your house or mine;
If not, I shall never feel ashamed of having given this
testimony of regard to the virtues and integrity
of heart which Miss Hamilton is believed to
possess by
Affectionate & Obliged friend.
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: Note from Mary Sharpe (later Beauvoir) to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/22/55
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, later Douglas)
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: London (certainty: medium)
Date sent: 15 February 1783
Letter Description
Summary: Note from Mary Beauvoir (née Sharpe, wife of Osmond Beauvoir) to Mary Hamilton. She hopes to see Hamilton that week. She is unable to call on her in person as 'there is one person in the world whom it would pain me to meet'. The letter continues on this subject and on Beauvoir's regard for Hamilton.
Dated at Stanhope Street, [London].
Formerly catalogued as HAM/1/9/62.
Length: 1 sheet, 215 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 7 June 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: 17 July 2026
