Diplomatic Text
90
1790
The Vacation of Parliament my
dear Mrs Dickenson, prevented my Thanking
you for your kind letter, till I could get the
conveyance of a Frank.[1] I am greatly obliged to
you for the concern you are so good to expreʃs
for my Situation. My Health has suffered leʃs
than might have been expected. I desire on this
& every other occasion to submit to the divine
will: & I trust that I am resigned. my mind
I thank God is composed, & my Spirits calm. But
my Heart feels the Stroke: & may where I feel
conduce, as it ought, to my Improvement!
dr Douglas behaves with the utmost propriety
but poor Man he is deeply wounded. His
constant & unremitting Affection to my dear
Sister during the whole of their Connexion must
always endear him to her Family: & the
general Merit of his Character entitles him
to their high Esteem.
I had not heard till I received your Letter
of the Alarm you had suffered about your dear
little Girl. I rejoyce that none of you caught
the Infection of that terrible distemper of which
you had once so dangerous an Experience.[2] I hearti
ly congratulate you on the great Improvement of
Mr Dickenson's Health.
Poor Lady Herries has had a sad
Inflammation in her Eyes, added to their gene-
ral Weakneʃs. She is better now, & going to
Brighthelmstone. Sea Bathing did her great
Good last year. Sr Robert I believe has some
Thoughts of going to Paris: whether he takes
her with him I suppose will depend on the
Situation of public Affairs in France. Surely
the wild Schemes at present carrying on there
Cannot long subsist.
The last Time I heard from
Lady Cremorne, she was with Lady Wake in
Eʃsex. As she did not particularly mention
her Health. I hope it was tolerably well.
Lady C. her self had not been well, but when
she wrote, was better. I hope by this Time
Lord Cremorne is returned from Ireland.
Pray did you feel the hot Tuesday in your
Climate, as it was felt here? It was almost
the only day of Heat that we have had since
I came into the Country. The weather at present
is windy & rainy, & cold, & unsummerlike.
Yet the Corn, God be thanked carries
the Appearance of great plenty.
I am much obliged to the Author
of the Verses which make me so elegant
a Compliment. I never heard of his
Name before, so I suppose he is not
an Inhabitant of our part of Kent.
I beg to be affectionately
remembered to Mr Dickenson & Louisa. shall you
not be sufficiently clear of Bricks & mortar
next Spring to give your Friends the Pleasure
of seeing you in London?
Adieu my dear Friend. I am
your most obliged & affectionate
ECarter
deal July 4. 1790
[3]
[4]
Edinbr thirteenth July 1790
Mrs. Dickenson
Taxal
[5]
Chapel le Frith
Derbyshire
Free WPulteney
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. A letter could only be franked by an MP while Parliament was sitting, or in a window of 40 days either side of a session. Perhaps the parliamentary vacation had affected Pulteney's availability rather than his right to frank, which would have lasted from closure of the session on 10 June 1790 until 19 July at least.
2. On 22 April 1790, the family servant Mrs Morrison was diagnosed with a ‘putrid fever’ [epidemic typhus]. Hamilton and Louisa ‘set out to Mr Inglis's in Macclesfield’. Although Morrison was pronounced out of danger on 26 April, Louisa and her mother did not return home to Taxal till 10 May (see DDX 274/19 pp.194-197).
3. The address is in the hand of Sir William Pulteney, MP for Shrewsbury, provider of the frank.
4. Stamp in red ink reading ‘JY 13’.
5. Stamp in red ink reading ‘FREE’.
Normalised Text
The Vacation of Parliament my
dear Mrs Dickenson, prevented my Thanking
you for your kind letter, till I could get the
conveyance of a Frank. I am greatly obliged to
you for the concern you are so good to express
for my Situation. My Health has suffered less
than might have been expected. I desire on this
& every other occasion to submit to the divine
will: & I trust that I am resigned. my mind
I thank God is composed, & my Spirits calm. But
my Heart feels the Stroke: & may where I feel
conduce, as it ought, to my Improvement!
dr Douglas behaves with the utmost propriety
but poor Man he is deeply wounded. His
constant & unremitting Affection to my dear
Sister during the whole of their Connexion must
always endear him to her Family: & the
general Merit of his Character entitles him
to their high Esteem.
I had not heard till I received your Letter
of the Alarm you had suffered about your dear
little Girl. I rejoice that none of you caught
the Infection of that terrible distemper of which
you had once so dangerous an Experience. I heartily
congratulate you on the great Improvement of
Mr Dickenson's Health.
Poor Lady Herries has had a sad
Inflammation in her Eyes, added to their general
Weakness. She is better now, & going to
Brighthelmstone. Sea Bathing did her great
Good last year. Sir Robert I believe has some
Thoughts of going to Paris: whether he takes
her with him I suppose will depend on the
Situation of public Affairs in France. Surely
the wild Schemes at present carrying on there
Cannot long subsist.
The last Time I heard from
Lady Cremorne, she was with Lady Wake in
Essex. As she did not particularly mention
her Health. I hope it was tolerably well.
Lady Cremorne her self had not been well, but when
she wrote, was better. I hope by this Time
Lord Cremorne is returned from Ireland.
Pray did you feel the hot Tuesday in your
Climate, as it was felt here? It was almost
the only day of Heat that we have had since
I came into the Country. The weather at present
is windy & rainy, & cold, & unsummerlike.
Yet the Corn, God be thanked carries
the Appearance of great plenty.
I am much obliged to the Author
of the Verses which make me so elegant
a Compliment. I never heard of his
Name before, so I suppose he is not
an Inhabitant of our part of Kent.
I beg to be affectionately
remembered to Mr Dickenson & Louisa. shall you
not be sufficiently clear of Bricks & mortar
next Spring to give your Friends the Pleasure
of seeing you in London?
Adieu my dear Friend. I am
your most obliged & affectionate
Elizabeth Carter
deal July 4. 1790
Edinburgh thirteenth July 1790
Mrs. Dickenson
Taxal
Chapel le Frith
Derbyshire
Free William Pulteney
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 90
Correspondence Details
Sender: Elizabeth Carter and William Pulteney
Place sent: Edinburgh
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Taxal, near Chapel-en-le-Frith
Date sent: 13 July 1790
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton. Carter discusses the effect of her sister's death on herself and on her brother-in-law. She has learnt from Hamilton of a scare about Louisa catching a dangerous illness, and of their escape. She reports that Lady Wake has suffered from inflammation in her eyes and has gone to Brighton, where sea-bathing had previously done her eyes much good. Lady Cremorne had been with Lady Wake in Essex; Carter hopes that Lord Cremorne has returned from Ireland. Carter comments on verses by an author previously unknown to her which pay her ‘so elegant a Complimewnt’.
Elizabeth Carter wrote the letter in Deal, after which it was given to the MP William Pulteney, who sent it to Mary Hamilton from Edinburgh 9 days later.
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Deal, July 4., 1790
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: 18 October 2026
