Diplomatic Text
My dear Sir,
You have laid me under the greatest poʃsible obligations by
your unwearied attentions to me & my dear unfortunate daughter;
when the fatal moment has paʃs'd I beg you will entrust the
care of her funeral to my worthy friend Mrs. Mann. I wish it to
be very private, but at the same time not unbecoming the
beloved object, every expectense shall be immediately defray'd.
From my regard to Mrs. Mann's health, & of the Proprietors of
the House, who have behaved with great attention to Mrs Hol=
man, I expreʃsly forbid that her body shou'd be open'd in the
House, there is no knowing what a dangerous disorder might
be produced by the putrid effluvia; as this apprehension is
is founded in reason, I shudder at exposing the lives of good
& innocent persons to any hazard, for the same reason I recom=
mend that the funeral shoud be accellerated; with my best
regards to Mrs. Dickenson & your dear Daughter I remain your
Faithful, humble Servant
Frederick Hamilton
Brock St. Bath
June 6th. 1810.[1]
It appeared to me by this letter that somebody had wrote to Mr. Hamilton
to prepare to have the body opened as I should not have proposed such a neceʃsary
Inspection to him. J D.
[3]
[4]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This dateline appears to the left of the closing salutation and signature.
2. Postmarks 'E 7 JU 7 1810' (indicating that the letter went through the post on 7 June 1810) and 'BATH' above address when unfolded.
3. A large '8' is written to the right of the address, possibly indicating postage due.
4. Remains of a seal, in red wax.
5. This annotation appears in the right margin, written vertically.
Normalised Text
My dear Sir,
You have laid me under the greatest possible obligations by
your unwearied attentions to me & my dear unfortunate daughter;
when the fatal moment has passed I beg you will entrust the
care of her funeral to my worthy friend Mrs. Mann. I wish it to
be very private, but at the same time not unbecoming the
beloved object, every expense shall be immediately defrayed.
From my regard to Mrs. Mann's health, & of the Proprietors of
the House, who have behaved with great attention to Mrs Holman
, I expressly forbid that her body should be opened in the
House, there is no knowing what a dangerous disorder might
be produced by the putrid effluvia; as this apprehension is
founded in reason, I shudder at exposing the lives of good
& innocent persons to any hazard, for the same reason I recommend
that the funeral should be accelerated; with my best
regards to Mrs. Dickenson & your dear Daughter I remain your
Faithful, humble Servant
Frederick Hamilton
Brock Street Bath
June 6th. 1810.
No. 49 Welbeck Street
London
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 John Dickenson
Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/2/25
Correspondence Details
Sender: Frederick Hamilton
Place sent: Bath
Addressee: John Dickenson
Place received: London
Date sent: 7 June 1810
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Rev. Frederick Hamilton to John Dickenson. The letter relates to the funeral arrangements for Mrs Holman. Frederick Hamilton wishes it to be a very private affair but at the same time he does not want it to be 'unbecoming the beloved object'. He forbids that Mrs Holman's body be 'open[e]d in the House, there is no knowing what a dangerous disorder might be produced by the putrid effluvia', and he does not want to risk the health of others. Included on the sheet is a note from John Dickenson in which it appears to him that someone had previously written to Frederick Hamilton to have the body opened or he 'should not have proposed such a necessary Inspection' to him.
Dated at Bath.
Length: 1 sheet, 184 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
Research assistant: Carla Seabra-Dacosta, MA student, University of Vigo
Transliterator: Joseph Doherty, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted December 2013)
Transliterator: Limeng Tang, 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