Diplomatic Text
96
1798
Many Thanks, my dear Mrs Dickenson for
your kind Letter, & the Account of your chez Vous.[1] It
is always pleasant to be informed of the Situation of
our distant Friends, & every particular becomes doubly
interesting, the further we are removed from a personal
[inte]rcourse.[2] I rejoyce that you have so very agreeable
a Society both beneath your Roof, & in your Neigh-
bourhood. Your Visit from Ly Wake & her dear Daugh-
ters, must have been a very Delightful Circumstance.
I was sorry to find it received any Allay[3] from the
Refusal of Sr. W. It must have been some very import
-ant Reason that could justify his depriving a Mother
to whom he has such Obligations, of the comfort of seeing
the sweet Boy, whom she had so long brought up
with such tender Care. I am very much of your
Opinion with Regard to the conjugal Disagreements:
though the natural partiality of a parent was
influenced by the Representations of the Husband to
Suppose that the whole Blame lay on the wife.[4] I hope
our excellent Friend will find great Comfort in her
second Son, who seems to be a very well disposed young
Man.
I heartily congratulate you, that your vexatious
Transactions with the Palombis are in a fair way to
be ended. All Litigation is sufficiently grievous: but
particularly so among near Relations.[5]
If it pleases God to prolong my Life to next Winter I
shall be happy to meet you in Town.
I was sorry to hear that Mrs B.
had separated from her Sisters. I was not told the
Reason.[6] [7]
I beg to be kindly remembered to Mr Dickenson & Louis[a]
whom I expect to see greatly improved under your
Tuition. Adieu my dear Friend. I write with all the
difficulty an aching Head can throw in my way: but
I was not willing to miʃs an Opportunity of subscribing
my self your obliged & affectionate
E Carter.
deal Oct. 13. 1798
For
Mrs Dickenson[8]
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red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This occurrence slightly predates OED's entry for chez-moi ‘one's own home’ (OED s.v., n. Accessed 30-10-2026).
2. There is a hole where the wafer or seal has been torn away. A little missing text is easily reconstructed.
3. This could be allay ‘abatement; moderation; alleviation’, but usually it is something undesirable which is allayed; more likely it is a late use in the sense ‘impediment’, postdating OED (OED s.v., n.1, II.5, II.7. Accessed 30-10-2026).
4. Jenny Wake (née Gambier), Sir William's second wife.
5. See MS Eng 1778 95 p.4 n.
6. Mary Jackson reports on 17 December 1798 that ‘My Aunt Barnard is going to reside in the Town of Bromley’ (HAM/1/10/2/7 p.2).
7. Moved these two paragraphs (5 lines) here from the foot of the page, written upside down.
8. The direction is written vertically.
Normalised Text
Many Thanks, my dear Mrs Dickenson for
your kind Letter, & the Account of your chez Vous. It
is always pleasant to be informed of the Situation of
our distant Friends, & every particular becomes doubly
interesting, the further we are removed from a personal
intercourse. I rejoice that you have so very agreeable
a Society both beneath your Roof, & in your Neighbourhood
. Your Visit from Ly Wake & her dear Daughters
, must have been a very Delightful Circumstance.
I was sorry to find it received any Allay from the
Refusal of Sir William. It must have been some very important
Reason that could justify his depriving a Mother
to whom he has such Obligations, of the comfort of seeing
the sweet Boy, whom she had so long brought up
with such tender Care. I am very much of your
Opinion with Regard to the conjugal Disagreements:
though the natural partiality of a parent was
influenced by the Representations of the Husband to
Suppose that the whole Blame lay on the wife. I hope
our excellent Friend will find great Comfort in her
second Son, who seems to be a very well disposed young
Man.
I heartily congratulate you, that your vexatious
Transactions with the Palombis are in a fair way to
be ended. All Litigation is sufficiently grievous: but
particularly so among near Relations.
If it pleases God to prolong my Life to next Winter I
shall be happy to meet you in Town.
I was sorry to hear that Mrs B.
had separated from her Sisters. I was not told the
Reason.
I beg to be kindly remembered to Mr Dickenson & Louisa
whom I expect to see greatly improved under your
Tuition. Adieu my dear Friend. I write with all the
difficulty an aching Head can throw in my way: but
I was not willing to miss an Opportunity of subscribing
my self your obliged & affectionate
Elizabeth Carter.
deal October 13. 1798
For
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 96
Correspondence Details
Author(s): Elizabeth Carter
Date of creation: 13 October 1798
Date sent: 13 October 1798
Place sent: Deal
Recipient(s): Mary Hamilton
Place received: Leighton Buzzard (certainty: medium)
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Elizabeth Carter to Mary Hamilton. Carter thanks Hamilton for her account of her situation at home, thinks the visit of Lady Wake and daughters in July must have been a delight, and agrees with Hamilton's scepticism about Sir William blaming his wife for his family not taking part, depriving Lady Wake of her adored grandson. Carter goes on to congratulate Hamilton on the ending of the Palombis' ‘vexatious’ litigation, and to regret the unexplained separation of Mrs B[arnard] from her sisters [Isabella and Anna Maria Clarke].
Original entry in Houghton Library catalogue: Carter, Elizabeth, 1717-1806. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Deal, 1798 October 13.
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: 30 October 2026
