Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/2/39

Note from John Dickenson to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text

[1]
[Aft]er Breakfast we set off for Man——  ------------------------ 
home -- I found No. 18 -- You L ---  -- I say in ------------ 
per[2] me with being 3 days in writing a bit of a letter
surely you must have lost one of my previous journals --
my Journey has been employed in shopping & talking to
pretty Girls in Satterfields Shop[3] -- I have made almost
all my purchases that are to go by Imperial here &
I will promise any thing against disappointment
attended the purchase I meant for Peg & I have
since looked at 500 prints & at last met with
one that I hope will please the Lady -- I bought
Mems. for Jas., tall Hannah, Cooksey -- 2 Virgins --
 ------------  Creatures, which shall be particular  --- 
 ------------------------  at the curious marking --
 ------------------------------------------------------------[4]


      278[5]
28[6]
                             3- Decbr
                             1799.[7]
 ------  -- Father is a little out of humor with
      ▼
Quakers on acct. of one of that fraternity having
▼ nicked him out of 6 Guineas in one of his Carriage
horses -- Mrs. Brearcliffe[8] told a Story yesterday --
at a considerable meetg in Manr. lately, after dinner
on the King's Health being drank a Quaker was ▼
preʃsed to drink the toast, which he declined,
but taking up his Glaʃs said “May George never
be sick” & the Sentiment was warmly applauded
Now I say in spite of Mrs. Grant that this
fineʃse & this kind of mortal Reservation is [a]
way of cheating the Devil --  ------------------------ 
 ------------------------------------------------------------[9]

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. The top part of this sheet has been cut away with attention to the text on p.2, not p.1, and an indeterminate amount of text is missing. The remaining lines on this page have been coarsely scribbled through, but the still-readable parts give intriguing hints on (probably) the couple's arrangements for filing letters, for shopping, and for rewarding servants. It is not certain which side of the sheet was written first.
 2. Possibly the second half of pamper.
 3. John Satterfield was a draper and wholesaler who owned a shop in St Ann's Square, Manchester.
 4. A cut has removed another line, apart from traces of its second half, and perhaps further lines beyond that too.
 5. Moved erased annotation (ann1) here from position between lines 1 and 2. It looks as if ‘27’ was corrected to ‘28’, then erased and replaced by a new ‘28’ a little lower down.
 6. Moved annotation (ann2) here from left-hand side of this page, written vertically across the start of lines 3 and 4.
 7. Moved date here from the right-hand margin, written vertically.
 8. Sarah Brearcliffe (d. 1802) left a bequest of £3000 to maintain fifteen old housekeepers in Salford and Manchester.
 9. The cut at the bottom of the sheet has removed at least one line of text.

Normalised Text


After Breakfast we set off for Manchester  ------------------------ 
home -- I found No. 18 -- You L ---  -- I say in ------------ 
per me with being 3 days in writing a bit of a letter
surely you must have lost one of my previous journals --
my Journey has been employed in shopping & talking to
pretty Girls in Satterfields Shop -- I have made almost
all my purchases that are to go by Imperial here &
I will promise any thing against disappointment
attended the purchase I meant for Peg & I have
since looked at 500 prints & at last met with
one that I hope will please the Lady -- I bought
Memorandums for James, tall Hannah, Cooksey -- 2 Virgins --
 ------------  Creatures, which shall be particular  --- 
 ------------------------  at the curious marking --
 ------------------------------------------------------------


     

                            
 ------  -- Father is a little out of humour with
      ▼
Quakers on account of one of that fraternity having
▼ nicked him out of 6 Guineas in one of his Carriage
horses -- Mrs. Brearcliffe told a Story yesterday --
at a considerable meeting in Manchester lately, after dinner
on the King's Health being drunk a Quaker was ▼
pressed to drink the toast, which he declined,
but taking up his Glass said “May George never
be sick” & the Sentiment was warmly applauded
Now I say in spite of Mrs. Grant that this
finesse & this kind of mortal Reservation is a
way of cheating the Devil --  ------------------------ 
 ------------------------------------------------------------

(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. The top part of this sheet has been cut away with attention to the text on p.2, not p.1, and an indeterminate amount of text is missing. The remaining lines on this page have been coarsely scribbled through, but the still-readable parts give intriguing hints on (probably) the couple's arrangements for filing letters, for shopping, and for rewarding servants. It is not certain which side of the sheet was written first.
 2. Possibly the second half of pamper.
 3. John Satterfield was a draper and wholesaler who owned a shop in St Ann's Square, Manchester.
 4. A cut has removed another line, apart from traces of its second half, and perhaps further lines beyond that too.
 5. Moved erased annotation (ann1) here from position between lines 1 and 2. It looks as if ‘27’ was corrected to ‘28’, then erased and replaced by a new ‘28’ a little lower down.
 6. Moved annotation (ann2) here from left-hand side of this page, written vertically across the start of lines 3 and 4.
 7. Moved date here from the right-hand margin, written vertically.
 8. Sarah Brearcliffe (d. 1802) left a bequest of £3000 to maintain fifteen old housekeepers in Salford and Manchester.
 9. The cut at the bottom of the sheet has removed at least one line of text.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Note from John Dickenson to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/2/39

Correspondence Details

Sender: John Dickenson

Place sent: Manchester

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 3 December 1799

Letter Description

Summary: Note from John Dickenson to his wife Mary née Hamilton, relating to the King’s health.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 226 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: Transcription and XML version created as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1.

Transliterator: Christine Wallis, editorial team (completed 7 July 2020)

Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library

Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library

Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors

Revision date: 2 November 2021

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