Diplomatic Text
44
Deal Sept: 13. 1783
It gave me pleasure my dear
Friend to hear that Lady Wake & you had
taken a Ramble, which I think would be
very good for you both: Especially for poor
dear Lady Wake whose Spirits must have
been for some Time in so harraʃsed a State.
I wish Sr Wm migay keep his Design of
going to Bath. There is nothing so wearing
to the Mind as seeing any person for whom
one is nearly[1] cinterested, Suffering by ill Health,
& neglecting every means that might contri-
bute to render it better. Indeed to live in
the midst of perpetual Uncertainty, even in
Smaller Instances, is tiresome enough. Life is
Chiefly made up of little Circumstances: & it
is by these that people, often without any
ill Intention, contrive to plague Each other
from morning till night, much more than
by important Objects, which happen but
Seldom. I do not wonder therefore, that our
poor Friend's Spirits suffer by this constant
Fluctuation. It is better however to be liable
to the Uncertainties of others than one's own:
I mean in a moral Sense: for otherwise, these
Volatile Heads seem to suffer very little from
their own Irresolution: & I charitably hope
have very little Idea, of the pain, which
they inflict on others.
I perfectly agree with you, that
it is one of the first Bleʃsings of Life to
be poʃsest of the Esteem & Affection of the
wise & Ggood. Such Friendships not only con
tribute in a very high degree to our Im
provement, & Happineʃs here, but look forward
beyond the short Date of Time, to the Ages of
Eternity.
I return you Miʃs More's delightful
poem. I do not recollect any difference from
that Copy I saw before.
I am obliged to you for your
description of the Meteor, which we were so
unlucky to miʃs the Sight of.[2] In Return
I will give you it's Dimensions &c. The distance
was 130 Miles: Length of the Track, 547
miles: Diameter of the Ball 1070 Yards. I believe
you may depend on this as a true Account.
Pray are you an Antiquarian? If
you are, I think you must have examined
if there are any Remains of Waltham Abbey.
If there are, I beg you will give me a descrip
tion of them. Harold was buried there. Is
there any Tradition that marks the Spot?
I think one Cor Surveys any place with parti
cular Interest, that is marked by any histori
cal Event relating to an Eminent Character.
I believe I told you in my last, that the
Vesey Family had been so good to spend a
Day with me: but I cannot prevail on them
to make me another Visit. Indeed the days
are rather too short for such an Expedition.
Mr Vesey appears extremely the better for
Margate. I suppose you have heard that dear
Lady dartrey has had two Fits of an Ague,
which have sadly weakened her. I long to hear
from her again, that she has had no Return of
this wretched disorder.
my Love attends Ly Wake & I am
my dear, affectionately yours
ECarter
------[3]
[4]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. A sense of nearly somewhere between OED sense 2 ‘[i]n a special degree or manner; particularly’ and 3 ‘[w]ith a close connection or relation, esp. through blood or friendship’ (OED s.v. adv., A.2 and A.3. Accessed 15-08-2026).
2. See MS Eng 1778 43 p.3.
3. Half a line of writing has been erased (possibly causing the fading in the line above as well) and crossed out. The hand is not Carter's, but it is unknown whose it was and who was responsible for its cancellation or censorship.
4. This page is blank.
Normalised Text
Deal September 13. 1783
It gave me pleasure my dear
Friend to hear that Lady Wake & you had
taken a Ramble, which I think would be
very good for you both: Especially for poor
dear Lady Wake whose Spirits must have
been for some Time in so harassed a State.
I wish Sir William may keep his Design of
going to Bath. There is nothing so wearing
to the Mind as seeing any person for whom
one is nearly interested, Suffering by ill Health,
& neglecting every means that might contribute
to render it better. Indeed to live in
the midst of perpetual Uncertainty, even in
Smaller Instances, is tiresome enough. Life is
Chiefly made up of little Circumstances: & it
is by these that people, often without any
ill Intention, contrive to plague Each other
from morning till night, much more than
by important Objects, which happen but
Seldom. I do not wonder therefore, that our
poor Friend's Spirits suffer by this constant
Fluctuation. It is better however to be liable
to the Uncertainties of others than one's own:
I mean in a moral Sense: for otherwise, these
Volatile Heads seem to suffer very little from
their own Irresolution: & I charitably hope
have very little Idea, of the pain, which
they inflict on others.
I perfectly agree with you, that
it is one of the first Blessings of Life to
be possessed of the Esteem & Affection of the
wise & good. Such Friendships not only contribute
in a very high degree to our Improvement
, & Happiness here, but look forward
beyond the short Date of Time, to the Ages of
Eternity.
I return you Miss More's delightful
poem. I do not recollect any difference from
that Copy I saw before.
I am obliged to you for your
description of the Meteor, which we were so
unlucky to miss the Sight of. In Return
I will give you it's Dimensions &c. The distance
was 130 Miles: Length of the Track, 547
miles: Diameter of the Ball 1070 Yards. I believe
you may depend on this as a true Account.
Pray are you an Antiquarian? If
you are, I think you must have examined
if there are any Remains of Waltham Abbey.
If there are, I beg you will give me a description
of them. Harold was buried there. Is
there any Tradition that marks the Spot?
I think one Surveys any place with particular
Interest, that is marked by any historical
Event relating to an Eminent Character.
I believe I told you in my last, that the
Vesey Family had been so good to spend a
Day with me: but I cannot prevail on them
to make me another Visit. Indeed the days
are rather too short for such an Expedition.
Mr Vesey appears extremely the better for
Margate. I suppose you have heard that dear
Lady dartrey has had two Fits of an Ague,
which have sadly weakened her. I long to hear
from her again, that she has had no Return of
this wretched disorder.
my Love attends Lady Wake & I am
my dear, 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 44
Correspondence Details
Sender: Elizabeth Carter
Place sent: Deal
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Upshire, near Waltham Abbey (certainty: medium)
Date sent: 13 September 1783
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton. Carter implicitly criticises Sir William Wake for the strain he puts on Lady Wake by his capriciousness and neglect of his own health. She returns a copy of Hannah More's poem, noting that she ‘do[es] not recollect any difference from that Copy I saw before’. She thanks Hamilton for her description of the meteor and trumps it with a very precise-sounding set of measurements. She asks if Hamilton can provide any information on ruins at Waltham Abbey or a local tradition of the burial of King Harold. She closes with news of the Veseys and of Lady Dartrey.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Deal, 1783 September 13.
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: 2 October 2026
