Diplomatic Text
87
1790
My dear Friend
Though your Silence was indeed
very long, I am neither so unjust to my Friends,
or so unkind to my self, as to suspect they have
forgot me, whenever I do not hear from them
so soon or so often, as I would expect. I am
very sorry you had so unanswerable a Reason
for not writing sooner. I heartily Congratulate
you on the Removal of your Apprehensions
for Mr Dickenson. I hope the Method you hav[e]
taken will procure a long Enjoyment of Healt[h]
both to him & your self. I am glad my littl[e]
Friend Louisa had no other Reason, for bei[ng]
dipped in the Sea, than your laudable Ambitio[n]
of her being as tall as a may-pole.[1]
I am obliged to you for menti[on]
ing an Event from which I receive great
pleasure, the generous Behaviour of Mr
Dickensons Father. Indeed I heartily rejoyc[e]
with you on so great a comfort as a State of
Independence.[2] Let the person on whom one de
-pends be ever so reasonable, or ever so kind,
there will always be a number of little Circum
stances & Wishes which no one can gueʃs for an
-other: & which though they may appear too in
significant to deserve to be mentioned, will
be teizingly felt. I am very glad to hear
of your Intention of visiting London, where
I hope to meet you. You are very kind to
think of me at Taxal: but so long a distance
is too much for my Age, & state of Health, which
has been rather worse than usual this damp
Year.
Surely there must have been some Strange
mal entendu in the delivery of your Civilities
to Mrs B. to occasion her giving so outrage
ous a Return to them, as you describe.[3] I had
heard nothing of it till your Letter. She has
[t]aken a House in this Country: but I hear
[d]oes not come to it till next Autumn. She
[is] to remain the winter at Bath: & I hear
[h]as let her House in Stanhope Street. My
Niece is at present on a visit to her
own Family in Berkshire.
I am very sorry to find Lady Wake's
Eyes continue so bad. I heard some time ago
that Sr. Wm was going to be married very
agreeably to her Inclination, which gave me
much pleasure.
I heartily grieve for the Situ[a]
-tion now of Mr & Mrs Iremonger. I hoped by the
last letter I had from her, that her Eyes were
better. It is no wonder that he, poor man,
should think his Case incurable after so
very long a Confinement. Yet as he certainl[y is]
better than he was, I should hope his recov[e]
-ry is at least poʃsible.
I hope to be in London in about a
few days, but I thank you for your Letter be
-fore I set out, as probably I shall have a
good deal to do on my first getting there. I
go with a heavy Heart from the deplorable
state of health in which I expect to find
my Sister Douglas. All the Faculty pronounces
her Case not to be dangerous: but poor Soul
she suffers so much, that my Spirits are enti[re]
ly sunk by the Account.
Chapel Street Jan. 8. 1790
I brought my Letter to Town for the Conveya[nce]
of a Frank, which Miss A. Clarke has been so good to pro
cure me. I had the comfort of finding Ly Cremorne in
very much better Health than last Year. Ld C. too is pretty
well. Mr Iremonger thinks he gains some little Ground. Mrs I.'s
Eyes much the same. My Sister, I thank God upon the whol[e]
better. Mrs Walsingham ------ is in a deplorable State of[4]
of Suffering from a mixture of Gout & Rheumatism. which has
seized one side. I hear she is rather better than she was.
Poor dear Mrs Vesey grown rather more insensible than last
Year. I have only left Room to desire to be kindly remem
bered to Mr Dickenson & Louisa & to subscribe Affectionately
yours E. Carter
To
Mrs Dickenson
▼
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The family had stayed at Parkgate on the Wirral from 3 September to 27 October 1789, and John Dickenson and Louisa first went sea-bathing there on 4 September (see DDX 274/19 pp.161-169).
2. On 30 October 1789, ‘Mr. Ingles [...] brought me a letter from my Father in which he offered me Taxal Estate’ (DDX 274/19 p.169). A few days later, John Dickenson Snr moved out after thirty-one years in residence. As he wrote in a letter on 11 November 1789, ‘J shall leave & quit Taxal this very day. [...] my son, whom J have given the property of this place to [...]’ (A Corpus of late 18C Prose, ed. David Denison & Linda van Bergen, 2002).
3. Presumably Beauvoir's letter from Bath on 31 July 1789 (HAM/1/22/52), in response to John Dickenson having tried to deliver Hamilton's condolences on the death of Beauvoir's husband.
4. Moved this section of 8 lines from bottom of page, written upside down.
Normalised Text
My dear Friend
Though your Silence was indeed
very long, I am neither so unjust to my Friends,
or so unkind to my self, as to suspect they have
forgotten me, whenever I do not hear from them
so soon or so often, as I would expect. I am
very sorry you had so unanswerable a Reason
for not writing sooner. I heartily Congratulate
you on the Removal of your Apprehensions
for Mr Dickenson. I hope the Method you have
taken will procure a long Enjoyment of Health
both to him & your self. I am glad my little
Friend Louisa had no other Reason, for being
dipped in the Sea, than your laudable Ambition
of her being as tall as a may-pole.
I am obliged to you for mentioning
an Event from which I receive great
pleasure, the generous Behaviour of Mr
Dickensons Father. Indeed I heartily rejoice
with you on so great a comfort as a State of
Independence. Let the person on whom one depends
be ever so reasonable, or ever so kind,
there will always be a number of little Circumstances
& Wishes which no one can guess for another
: & which though they may appear too insignificant
to deserve to be mentioned, will
be teasingly felt. I am very glad to hear
of your Intention of visiting London, where
I hope to meet you. You are very kind to
think of me at Taxal: but so long a distance
is too much for my Age, & state of Health, which
has been rather worse than usual this damp
Year.
Surely there must have been some Strange
mal entendu in the delivery of your Civilities
to Mrs Beauvoir to occasion her giving so outrageous
a Return to them, as you describe. I had
heard nothing of it till your Letter. She has
taken a House in this Country: but I hear
does not come to it till next Autumn. She
is to remain the winter at Bath: & I hear
has let her House in Stanhope Street. My
Niece is at present on a visit to her
own Family in Berkshire.
I am very sorry to find Lady Wake's
Eyes continue so bad. I heard some time ago
that Sir William was going to be married very
agreeably to her Inclination, which gave me
much pleasure.
I heartily grieve for the Situation
now of Mr & Mrs Iremonger. I hoped by the
last letter I had from her, that her Eyes were
better. It is no wonder that he, poor man,
should think his Case incurable after so
very long a Confinement. Yet as he certainly is
better than he was, I should hope his recovery
is at least possible.
I hope to be in London in a
few days, but I thank you for your Letter before
I set out, as probably I shall have a
good deal to do on my first getting there. I
go with a heavy Heart from the deplorable
state of health in which I expect to find
my Sister Douglas. All the Faculty pronounces
her Case not to be dangerous: but poor Soul
she suffers so much, that my Spirits are entirely
sunk by the Account.
Chapel Street Jan. 8.
I brought my Letter to Town for the Conveyance
of a Frank, which Miss Anna Clarke has been so good to procure
me. I had the comfort of finding Lady Cremorne in
very much better Health than last Year. Lord Cremorne too is pretty
well. Mr Iremonger thinks he gains some little Ground. Mrs Iremonger's
Eyes much the same. My Sister, I thank God upon the whole
better. Mrs Walsingham is in a deplorable State of
Suffering from a mixture of Gout & Rheumatism. which has
seized one side. I hear she is rather better than she was.
Poor dear Mrs Vesey grown rather more insensible than last
Year. I have only left Room to desire to be kindly remembered
to Mr Dickenson & Louisa & to subscribe Affectionately
yours Elizabeth Carter
To
Mrs Dickenson
▼
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 87
Correspondence Details
Sender: Elizabeth Carter
Place sent: London
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Taxal, near Chapel-en-le-Frith (certainty: medium)
Date sent: not before 8 January 1790
notBefore 8 January 1790 (precision: high)
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton.
The dating is uncertain. The letter was started at an unknown date probably in Deal, then brought to London and continued there on 8 January 1789 after some social encounters, before being enclosed in a frank provided by Anna Maria Clarke.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Chapel Street, 1790 January 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: David Denison (submitted 16 October 2026)
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 October 2026
