Diplomatic Text
37
Deal July 7. 1783
Indeed my dear Friend, I
begun to think that in Respect of a Corres
pondent you might as well have remained
Sechant sur pied[1] amidst the Honours of
a Palace as quietly sat down in the Capacity
of an independant private Gentlewoman in
Clarges Street Piccadilly. I was glad to
receive at length a kind Testimony that
I was alive in your Remembrance, for as
a very little Nephew of mine once said on
a like occasion. “I do not love to be forgot”.
Though I should have rejoyced
to paʃs some Time with you in this place
I cannot object to the Reasons which
prevented your giving me that pleasure,
& which I confeʃs to be perfectly good.
I think with great Satisfaction on the
Comfort that our dear Lady Wake will receive
from your Society. I beg you will aʃsure her
of my most affectionate good Wishes for a
Perfect Restoration of Sr William's Health.
I sensibly feel the Kindneʃs of
your wishing me in your agreeable parties
with our Friends. If it please God I live
till next winter I hope we shall enjoy ------
many happy Hours of delightful Society.
I am determined not give up the Hope
that the Vesey Family will be in Town,
till I cannot help it.
I could not help
laughing at poor Miʃs more's distreʃs with
all her Caution however. I hope the Secret
Will get Air.[2] It is for the Honour of
our Sect more than for miʃs more's
Whose Genius & Character are superiour
to all academical Compliments. I cannot
help being pleased with one Circumstance
of this Declaration, that it is I hope a
proof that the litterati & beaux Esprits[3] of
Rouen are of different principles from those
at Paris, who would scarcely have compli
mented the Genius of our Friend, which
must have been rendered so obnoxious to
them by her Piety.
I hear Sr. W. Hamilton has taken
a view of the sad Devastations in Meʃsina
&c & given an Account of them to the
Royal Society. I suppose the Subject is
philosophically treated in his Letter to
this Learned Body. I wish for the Sake
of such Readers as I am, he would publis[h]
a History of the Facts, & a description
of the Appearance. It would no Doubt
be inexpreʃsibly affecting [bu]t such awful
Events are too interesting not to engage
our's Curiosity.[4]
I maust perfectly agree --- in what you
say of Mrs Garrick's Talent of making her
Guests in so peculiar a Manner feel
themselves welcome. It has often[5] struck
me as a very amiable Trait in her social
Character. There are indeed Many very
happy Circumstances in her disposition &
Behaviour.
Many Thanks for your kind Caution
but my Pain was not on the Side, but
in the middle of my Face, beginning be
tween my Eyes. It was a Strange Sensation
but has for some Time been over. I have
lately been ill with a bilious Attack, but
am tolerably well recovered.
I hope you will take some of the
romantic Views of derbyshire but pray
do not let the Spirit of Adventure drive
you to ride or walk on the Side of preci
pices. remember Miʃs La Roche, & the poor
Irish Dean.[6]
Adieu my dear. If you do not
write before, let me hear from you at least
as soon as you are settled at Buxton. pray
my kind Compliments to Miʃs A. Clarke. affectiona[tely]
Yours E. Carter
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. French séchant sur pied ‘withering on the vine, fading away, bored, impatient’.
2. More attributes her now-frustrated wish for secrecy to ‘a true heartfelt consciousneſs of my unworthineſs’, and she reports being chided by Mrs Carter for wishing to conceal the honour of being made a member of the Académie Royale des Belle Lettres ... de Rouen (see her letter to Hamilton dated 12 July 1783, MS Eng 1778 127 p.3). See also More's letter of 10 July 1783 in French to the Académie to acknowledge and accept the honour.
3. Plural of bel-esprit ‘[a] clever genius, a brilliant wit’ (OED s.v., n. Accessed 03-08-2026).
4. We have interpreted this as ‘our's’ being changed by (partial) erasure to ‘our’.
5. Unclear whether ‘often’ is meant to be cancelled.
6. ‘Dean Langton, of Ireland, was lately killed by a fall from a precipice in the Peak Derbyshire, 300 yards deep; his horse was also killed. But it is said a lady who rode behind him, was providentially saved by some bushes catching hold of her cloaths.’ (Edmund Burke (ed.), The Annual Register. Volume 4. The Annual Register or a View of the History, Politicks, and Literature, of the Year 1761, London, 1761. p.155). For a full discussion of the incident at Dovedale on 28 July 1761, including the name of the lady -- Miss La Roche -- and the various and conflicting accounts available, see Peter Collinge, ‘A Tale that will make the Stoutest Tremble’: An Accidental Death in Eighteenth-Century Derbyshire. EPOCH, 2 Dec 2020.
Normalised Text
Deal July 7. 1783
Indeed my dear Friend, I
began to think that in Respect of a Correspondent
you might as well have remained
Sechant sur pied amidst the Honours of
a Palace as quietly sat down in the Capacity
of an independent private Gentlewoman in
Clarges Street Piccadilly. I was glad to
receive at length a kind Testimony that
I was alive in your Remembrance, for as
a very little Nephew of mine once said on
a like occasion. “I do not love to be forgot”.
Though I should have rejoiced
to pass some Time with you in this place
I cannot object to the Reasons which
prevented your giving me that pleasure,
& which I confess to be perfectly good.
I think with great Satisfaction on the
Comfort that our dear Lady Wake will receive
from your Society. I beg you will assure her
of my most affectionate good Wishes for a
Perfect Restoration of Sir William's Health.
I sensibly feel the Kindness of
your wishing me in your agreeable parties
with our Friends. If it please God I live
till next winter I hope we shall enjoy
many happy Hours of delightful Society.
I am determined not give up the Hope
that the Vesey Family will be in Town,
till I cannot help it.
I could not help
laughing at poor Miss more's distress with
all her Caution however. I hope the Secret
Will get Air. It is for the Honour of
our Sect more than for miss more's
Whose Genius & Character are superior
to all academical Compliments. I cannot
help being pleased with one Circumstance
of this Declaration, that it is I hope a
proof that the literati & beaux Esprits of
Rouen are of different principles from those
at Paris, who would scarcely have complimented
the Genius of our Friend, which
must have been rendered so obnoxious to
them by her Piety.
I hear Sir William Hamilton has taken
a view of the sad Devastations in Messina
&c & given an Account of them to the
Royal Society. I suppose the Subject is
philosophically treated in his Letter to
this Learned Body. I wish for the Sake
of such Readers as I am, he would publish
a History of the Facts, & a description
of the Appearance. It would no Doubt
be inexpressibly affecting but such awful
Events are too interesting not to engage
our Curiosity.
I must perfectly agree in what you
say of Mrs Garrick's Talent of making her
Guests in so peculiar a Manner feel
themselves welcome. It has often struck
me as a very amiable Trait in her social
Character. There are indeed Many very
happy Circumstances in her disposition &
Behaviour.
Many Thanks for your kind Caution
but my Pain was not on the Side, but
in the middle of my Face, beginning between
my Eyes. It was a Strange Sensation
but has for some Time been over. I have
lately been ill with a bilious Attack, but
am tolerably well recovered.
I hope you will take some of the
romantic Views of derbyshire but pray
do not let the Spirit of Adventure drive
you to ride or walk on the Side of precipices
. remember Miss La Roche, & the poor
Irish Dean.
Adieu my dear. If you do not
write before, let me hear from you at least
as soon as you are settled at Buxton. pray
my kind Compliments to Miss Anna Clarke. affectionately
Yours Elizabeth Carter
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 37
Correspondence Details
Sender: Elizabeth Carter
Place sent: Deal
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 7 July 1783
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton. Carter teases Hamilton that, as a correspondent, she might as well have languished at the palace rather than become ‘an independant[sic] private Gentlewoman in Clarges Street Piccadilly’, before accepting her excuse of having been taken up with Lady Wake. Carter laughs at Hannah More's distress at the public honour of being offered membership of a learned society in Rouen. She comments on Sir William Hamilton's account of the volcanic devastation of Messina to the Royal Society, and she reminds Hamilton of a famous accident in the Lake District in connection with Hamilton's projected trip to Buxton.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Deal, 1783 July 7.
Originally catalogued together with MS Eng 1778 37a.
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: 29 September 2026
