Diplomatic Text
48a[1]
12th. Febry. 1784.
If it is in my power my dear Friend
I will certainly accompany you to Mrs I.[2] but
▼ I have a doubtful Engagement, which I hope will
not take place on that day. -- We must hope
for better Times to succeed this unsociable
weather which I regret equally with you.
but what are our Grievances to those of poor
helpleʃs Multitudes. Adieu my dear[3]
Miʃs Hamilton
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Moved annotation with reference number from halfway down support.
2. We assume that Carter is referring to an appointment on the following Tuesday, 17 February 1784, as Hamilton's diary for that date notes that ‘I went on to Mrs. Iremongers Mrs. Carter soon came to us & a very agreeable afternoon I spent. there were only us three’ (see HAM/2/7 p.95).
3. If Carter had closed the note with her usual initials or signature, they must have been torn off.
Normalised Text
If it is in my power my dear Friend
I will certainly accompany you to Mrs Iremonger but
▼ I have a doubtful Engagement, which I hope will
not take place on that day. -- We must hope
for better Times to succeed this unsociable
weather which I regret equally with you.
but what are our Grievances to those of poor
helpless Multitudes. Adieu my dear
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 48a
Correspondence Details
Sender: Elizabeth Carter
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 12 February 1784
Letter Description
Summary: Note from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton, promising to keep an engagement with Mrs Iremonger ‘[i]f it is in my power’.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton, 1784 February 12.
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: 2 October 2026
