Diplomatic Text
Dear Miʃs Hamilton
I had the pleasure of your letter of the 31st. of May
a few days ago, & am much surprised to find that Mr.
Brown's Clerk has neglected to make you your annual Re=
mittance. Mr Brown before he sat out for Bath, near four
months ago, sent me my Rents in the usual manner with
his Account, in which your Fifty Pounds are expreʃsly char=
ged to me. I will write immediately to Mr. Balfour to have
this Error rectified; if Mr. Brown's nephew, who is his Executor,
is returned to Edinburgh, the busineʃs will be soon settled;
in the mean time I will desire Mr. Balfour to be punctual
in sending your money.
I am extremely obliged to you for your great goodneʃ in
mentioning me to a certain Great Person, but at the
same time I am sorry you exposed yourself to the danger
of giving offence; you will do me the justice to remember that
I aʃsured you I meant you shou'd always find me a safe friend,
and that I shou'd never expose you to any hazards on
my account; nothing is in these times obtain'd but by way
of barter; I have certainly well founded pretensions, but I shall
never urge them further; as for the S_ts, they are contemptible
Persons. -- I happen'd to see Lord Dartrey paʃsing my window the
very day he landed; I immediately went out to him and
had a good deal of conversation with him, in which you was
the principal subject, you may believe he retains the impreʃsions
you left him with as strong as you cou'd wish.
I am glad to hear you are upon good Terms where you mention
you was certainly in a very critical situation. I am rejoiced
that you have got out of it so well. Latour is now ex=
tremely beautiful, tho' the weather is still cold & unfavourable.
My Daughter Jane improves very much, she has really great
abilities & sufficient steadineʃs. I have removed my Son from
the School where he has been for two years; & have not yet
determined where to place him; he is a handsome Boy with
very good dispositions but backward for his age, but as he
is now perfectly strong & healthy I hope he will with proper
management recover his lost time Mrs. Hamilton desires
to be affectionately rememberd to you. I am Dr. Miʃs Hamilton
Your faithful & Affecte. Uncle
Frederick Hamilton
Latour, near Clontarf -- Dublin
June 12th. 1781[1]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Dear Miss Hamilton
I had the pleasure of your letter of the 31st. of May
a few days ago, & am much surprised to find that Mr.
Brown's Clerk has neglected to make you your annual Remittance
. Mr Brown before he set out for Bath, near four
months ago, sent me my Rents in the usual manner with
his Account, in which your Fifty Pounds are expressly charged
to me. I will write immediately to Mr. Balfour to have
this Error rectified; if Mr. Brown's nephew, who is his Executor,
is returned to Edinburgh, the business will be soon settled;
in the mean time I will desire Mr. Balfour to be punctual
in sending your money.
I am extremely obliged to you for your great goodnes in
mentioning me to a certain Great Person, but at the
same time I am sorry you exposed yourself to the danger
of giving offence; you will do me the justice to remember that
I assured you I meant you should always find me a safe friend,
and that I should never expose you to any hazards on
my account; nothing is in these times obtained but by way
of barter; I have certainly well founded pretensions, but I shall
never urge them further; as for the Stormonts, they are contemptible
Persons. -- I happened to see Lord Dartrey passing my window the
very day he landed; I immediately went out to him and
had a good deal of conversation with him, in which you was
the principal subject, you may believe he retains the impressions
you left him with as strong as you could wish.
I am glad to hear you are upon good Terms where you mention
you was certainly in a very critical situation. I am rejoiced
that you have got out of it so well. Latour is now extremely
beautiful, though the weather is still cold & unfavourable.
My Daughter Jane improves very much, she has really great
abilities & sufficient steadiness. I have removed my Son from
the School where he has been for two years; & have not yet
determined where to place him; he is a handsome Boy with
very good dispositions but backward for his age, but as he
is now perfectly strong & healthy I hope he will with proper
management recover his lost time Mrs. Hamilton desires
to be affectionately remembered to you. I am Dear Miss Hamilton
Your faithful & Affectionate Uncle
Frederick Hamilton
Latour, near Clontarf -- Dublin
June 12th. 1781
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 Frederick Hamilton to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/1/19
Correspondence Details
Sender: Frederick Hamilton
Place sent: Clontarf
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 12 June 1781
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Rev. Frederick Hamilton to Mary Hamilton. He replies to Mary Hamilton's own letter of 31 May 1781 in which she informed her uncle of Mr Brown's [Hamilton's late financial man in Scotland] failure to pay her annual remittance. Her uncle writes her that he will write to Mr Balfour at once to rectify this.
Mary Hamilton had mentioned her uncle to a 'certain great person' [presumably Queen Charlotte] and her uncle is grateful to her for this but notes that he is sorry that she had exposed herself by possibly giving offence. He continues that nothing can be obtained at these times without 'barter'.
The letter continues on family news.
Length: 1 sheet, 417 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Image to Text' (David Denison & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2013-2019), now incorporated 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: Research Assistant funding in 2013/14 provided by G.L. Brook bequest, University of Manchester.
Research assistant: George Bailey, undergraduate student, University of Manchester
Transliterator: Joanna Tripney, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted December 2013)
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