Diplomatic Text
26
Misplaced
written before last letter
It was not till last night my
dear Friend that I received the pills, or
you would certainly have heard from me
immediately. I beg you will in the most
respectful & grateful manner expreʃs
my Thanks to the Queen for her great
Goodneʃs & Condescension to me. Whether
the Medecine has any Effect or not, upon
a very untractable Head, my Heart must
always feel what I owe her majesty,
for honouring me with such a Testi
mony of her Regard. I will certainly
give the pills a fair Tryal & for that
Reason I will not not begin them till
I can take them without Interruption
after my Return from a little Excursion
which I am going to make, I believe,
to paris. Mr pulteney is going to fix his
Daughter there for some Time,[1] & as they
both wish me to accompany them in the
Voyage & Journey, I cannot refuse
putting my Self to this Inconvenience
for a poor Child, who has lost a Mother,
Who was my kind & generous Friend.
If it please God I live & prosper, I
Shall I hope be at Home before the
End of this Month. I expect to hear
to Night when we are to set out: I
believe it will be Saturday. Be so good
with my most affectionate Compliments to
acquaint dear Lady Charlotte Finch &
Mrs Feilding, with this little Expedition.
Be so good when I have the
pleasure of hearing from you to let me
know if I am to take a pill every
Day: & for how long. Adieu my dear
Friend ever affectionately your's
ECarter
Deal oct: 8 1782
PS.Have you writ to Miʃs S.? I know
nothing of her Situation. There is I
find a universal Report of some Interrupt
-ion of the Scheme. Whether this be
true, or What is the Reason if it is, I
know not. I should be heartily glad to
hear She is well & happy. -- do pray
write to her, as I am sure to hear
from You will give her pleasure
[2]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Francis Napier gossips on 25 January 1784: ‘By the bye I hear Miʃs Pulteney has run away from the Convent’ (see HAM/1/20/85 p.3).
2. This page is blank.
Normalised Text
It was not till last night my
dear Friend that I received the pills, or
you would certainly have heard from me
immediately. I beg you will in the most
respectful & grateful manner express
my Thanks to the Queen for her great
Goodness & Condescension to me. Whether
the Medicine has any Effect or not, upon
a very untractable Head, my Heart must
always feel what I owe her majesty,
for honouring me with such a Testimony
of her Regard. I will certainly
give the pills a fair Trial & for that
Reason I will not begin them till
I can take them without Interruption
after my Return from a little Excursion
which I am going to make, I believe,
to paris. Mr pulteney is going to fix his
Daughter there for some Time, & as they
both wish me to accompany them in the
Voyage & Journey, I cannot refuse
putting my Self to this Inconvenience
for a poor Child, who has lost a Mother,
Who was my kind & generous Friend.
If it please God I live & prosper, I
Shall I hope be at Home before the
End of this Month. I expect to hear
to Night when we are to set out: I
believe it will be Saturday. Be so good
with my most affectionate Compliments to
acquaint dear Lady Charlotte Finch &
Mrs Feilding, with this little Expedition.
Be so good when I have the
pleasure of hearing from you to let me
know if I am to take a pill every
Day: & for how long. Adieu my dear
Friend ever affectionately your's
Elizabeth Carter
Deal october 8 1782
PS.Have you written to Miss Sharpe? I know
nothing of her Situation. There is I
find a universal Report of some Interruption
of the Scheme. Whether this be
true, or What is the Reason if it is, I
know not. I should be heartily glad to
hear She is well & happy. -- do pray
write to her, as I am sure to hear
from You will give her pleasure
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: Letter from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: MS Eng 1778 26
Correspondence Details
Sender: Elizabeth Carter
Place sent: Deal
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 8 October 1782
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton, to warn her that she is about to take a trip to Paris with Mr Pulteney and his daughter, who is to be installed there for some time. She has just received the pills [for her headaches] recommended by the Queen and will give them ‘a fair Tryal’ on her return from Paris.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Deal, 1782 October 8.
Length: 2 sheets, 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: 16 August 2026
