MS Eng 1778 58

Note from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton

diplomatic | normalised | metadata | image (pdf)

Diplomatic Text

I was not so unreasonable to expect you my dear Friend, & I the
less regret your not coming as this Thaw makes a sad poor
wretch of me. If I wasam well enough this Evening, & Mr
V—— w^d carry me I sh^d be happy to wait on Mrs D. But I fear
neither will be the case.^[1] Ever Affectionately yours
EC.
30^th. Dec^br. 1784^[2]

      Candles
      Candels

                                                         Miʃs Hamilton

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red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)

Notes

1. It appears that Hamilton (but not Carter) visited Mrs Delany in the afternoon of 30 December 1784, while on 31 December Carter was at the Veseys' house (see HAM/2/15/3 pp.9-10).
2. Judging from the handwriting and positioning, it seems likely that Hamilton added ‘30^th. Dec^br.’ contemporaneously but only added ‘1784’ as a separate annotation, possibly some twenty years later.

Normalised Text

I was not so unreasonable to expect you my dear Friend, & I the
less regret your not coming as this Thaw makes a sad poor
wretch of me. If I am well enough this Evening, & Mr
Vesey would carry me I should be happy to wait on Mrs Delany. But I fear
neither will be the case. Ever Affectionately yours
Elizabeth Carter

Miss Hamilton

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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 58

Correspondence Details

Sender: Elizabeth Carter

Place sent: London (certainty: medium)

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: London (certainty: medium)

Date sent: 30 December 1784

Letter Description

Summary: Note from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton, suggesting that circumstances are likely to prevent them visiting Mrs D[elany] together that evening.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton, 1784 December 30.

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, M^rs. or M^rs may occur, but M.^rs or M^r.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

Revision date: 29 September 2026

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