Diplomatic Text
4a
Indeed my dear Miʃs Hamilton I fully proposed to
have come to you this Morning, but I am so unwell that I
dare not attempt it. I am going to Chelsea at one o'clock[1] when I
am engaged to dine, & must keep my Self quiet till I set out. -- Miʃs
Sharpe I hope is rather better upon the whole since she left Town.[2]
I design to wait on you on Saturday Afternoon, if this little tiresome
[complaint] which I have had for some days lurking about me, does
[not prevent] me. Yours affectionately
ECarter
[Thursda]y morning 26th- April 1781 -- [3]
Miʃs Hamilton[4]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. When Carter writes a non-possessive apostrophe, as here and in the French expression in the second paragraph of the next letter (MS Eng 1778 5 p.1), it is sometimes placed on the line like a comma rather than above x-height; we have chosen to transcribe them as apostrophes.
2. Sharpe left on Wednesday 18 April; see MS Eng 1778 4.
3. The first words of the first three lines on p.2 are covered by the support to which the note is pasted. They were read through the paper by enhancing the image of p.1 in Mirador and flipping it vertically in an external viewer.
4. The direction is written at bottom right on what would have been a blank space when folded.
Normalised Text
Indeed my dear Miss Hamilton I fully proposed to
have come to you this Morning, but I am so unwell that I
dare not attempt it. I am going to Chelsea at one o'clock when I
am engaged to dine, & must keep my Self quiet till I set out. -- Miss
Sharpe I hope is rather better upon the whole since she left Town.
I design to wait on you on Saturday Afternoon, if this little tiresome
complaint which I have had for some days lurking about me, does
not prevent me. Yours affectionately
Elizabeth Carter
Thursday morning 26th- April --
Miss Hamilton
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: Houghton Library Repository, Harvard University
Archive: Elizabeth Carter and Hannah More letters to Mary Hamilton
Item title: Note from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: MS Eng 1778 4a
Correspondence Details
Sender: Elizabeth Carter
Place sent: London (certainty: medium)
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 26 April 1781
Letter Description
Summary: Note from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton, cancelling a morning visit because she is unwell.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton, 1781 April 26.
Length: 1 sheet, 000 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 26 February 2026)
Cataloguer: Bonnie B. Salt, Archivist, Houghton Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 27 July 2026
