Diplomatic Text
My dear Sir,
I have just now received your letter of the 7th. Inst. in which you say you
are glad I have proposed to have Mrs. Holman's body open'd for the benefit
of mankind whereas in my last letter to you I most peremptorily forbid
it from my apprehensions of the dangerous consequences from the pu=
trid effluvia to the innocent proprietors of the house who have been
much attach'd to Mrs. Holman, & who have a family of young children;
if you have read my letter I know not how to account for your aʃsertion.
I therefore repeat my prohibition that no such operation shall take
place at No. 50 in Mortimer St. It wou'd be very cruel to hazard the
safety of Persons to whom my dear daughter has thought herself obli=
ged. You have either not received my letter or not read it. Sure I am that
I have never written upon that subject to any other person. With your letter
of yesterday I received a very absurd one of three lines from Mr. Holman
communicating the afflicting information that he had now no hopes
of his dear Jane. I feel the greatest poʃsible regard & affection for
Lady Eliza Halliday, pray tell her so from me. Adieu my Dear Sir, I have
written this with great perturbation & remain most faithfully Yours
Frederick Hamilton
Bath June 8th. 1810
[3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Postmarks 'E 9 JU 9 1810' (indicating that the letter went through the post on 9 June 1810) and 'BATH' above address when unfolded.
2. A large '8' is written to the right of the address, possibly indicating postage due.
3. Remains of a seal, in red wax.
4. This annotation appears in the right margin, written vertically.
Normalised Text
My dear Sir,
I have just now received your letter of the 7th. Instant in which you say you
are glad I have proposed to have Mrs. Holman's body opened for the benefit
of mankind whereas in my last letter to you I most peremptorily forbid
it from my apprehensions of the dangerous consequences from the putrid
effluvia to the innocent proprietors of the house who have been
much attached to Mrs. Holman, & who have a family of young children;
if you have read my letter I know not how to account for your assertion.
I therefore repeat my prohibition that no such operation shall take
place at No. 50 in Mortimer Street. It would be very cruel to hazard the
safety of Persons to whom my dear daughter has thought herself obliged
. You have either not received my letter or not read it. Sure I am that
I have never written upon that subject to any other person. With your letter
of yesterday I received a very absurd one of three lines from Mr. Holman
communicating the afflicting information that he had now no hopes
of his dear Jane. I feel the greatest possible regard & affection for
Lady Eliza Halliday, pray tell her so from me. Adieu my Dear Sir, I have
written this with great perturbation & remain most faithfully Yours
Frederick Hamilton
Bath June 8th. 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/1/4/2/26
Correspondence Details
Sender: Frederick Hamilton
Place sent: Bath
Addressee: John Dickenson
Place received: London
Date sent: 9 June 1810
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Rev. Frederick Hamilton to John Dickenson. He writes that he has just received Dickenson's letter of the 7th in which he proposes that an autopsy is carried out on Mrs Holman for 'the benefit of mankind'. He forbids this as he fears that such an action may infect others, specifically Mrs Mann and the other residents of the house where she was being looked after before she died. Frederick had made it clear in a past letter (HAM/1/4/2/25) that he was against such a procedure.
Dated at Bath.
Length: 1 sheet, 239 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: Leo Thompson-Adams, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted December 2013)
Transliterator: Stephanie Dobson, 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