Diplomatic Text
My dearest Wife
It would greatly enhance my
present felicity to be able to expreʃs to you,
(who are the Cause of it) in terms equal to the
warmth of my feelings, how sensible I am of
the Bleʃsings I enjoy from an Union with You --
Mankind would be still more attached to
this Earthly State could every Individual after
the experience of [m]ore than[1] fourteen Years, with
equal sincerity & satisfaction as myself, hail
with Joy the return of that day on which his
Wife was born -- May you most amiable
of Women & Best of Wifves live many Years, and
continue to afford to our Daughter a bright
Example of every moral Virtue, unaffected Religion
& perfect Consistency of Character & diffuse around
You Cheerfulneʃs & agreeable & rational pleasure
to those who are so happy as to enjoy yr- society
and I could almost add perfect Bliʃs to the
Man who doats upon You & who's greatest
Pride is to have it in his power to subscribe
himself
Your affectionate Husband
John Dickenson
To
Mrs. Dickenson
23
Mr. Dickenson to
Mrs. D. on the
14th anniversary of
their Wedding.[2]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
My dearest Wife
It would greatly enhance my
present felicity to be able to express to you,
(who are the Cause of it) in terms equal to the
warmth of my feelings, how sensible I am of
the Blessings I enjoy from an Union with You --
Mankind would be still more attached to
this Earthly State could every Individual after
the experience of more than fourteen Years, with
equal sincerity & satisfaction as myself, hail
with Joy the return of that day on which his
Wife was born -- May you most amiable
of Women & Best of Wives live many Years, and
continue to afford to our Daughter a bright
Example of every moral Virtue, unaffected Religion
& perfect Consistency of Character & diffuse around
You Cheerfulness & agreeable & rational pleasure
to those who are so happy as to enjoy your society
and I could almost add perfect Bliss to the
Man who dotes upon You & whose greatest
Pride is to have it in his power to subscribe
himself
Your affectionate Husband
John Dickenson
To
Mrs. Dickenson
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from John Dickenson to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/2/40
Correspondence Details
Sender: John Dickenson
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 5 February 1800
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from John Dickenson to his wife Mary née Hamilton. He writes of his love for Hamilton and describes her as the 'Best of wives'.
Length: 1 sheet, 182 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 21 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