Diplomatic Text
Thursday Night
Sepr. 9th 1784 --
My Dear Miʃs Hamilton
Busineʃs has so increasd
upon me that I realy have not
a moment to my self however
I will call upon you Tomorrow
if poʃsible tho' I hate taking
leave -- if it shoud so happen
(as I am summond to the Secretarys
office in the bargain tomorrow)
that I shoud not be able to call
upon you accept my warmest
thanks for your constant
affectionate
affectionate behaviour to me
and be aʃsured that wherever
I may be you have a most
sincere Friend -- May
health & happineʃs attend you
I flatter myself in a very
few years I may have the
happineʃs of embracing you
again & that you will introduce
me to Mr. Dickison whose
acquaintance I am ambitious
of as he is your choice & I have
a thorough opinion of your
judgement, be so good as to
make my respectfull Compts.
to the Ducheʃs of Portland
& Mrs. Delany when you see
them -- Vive la vielle Cour
for they are worth a million
of the new fangled Ladies
aʃsure Miʃs Clarke that
I will take particular care
of her parcel for my Friend
Sacramosa[1] -- I send you
one too --- copied by Ly. H. Extracts
of her mothers Letters but when
I looked over the other papers
I coud not find in my heart
to part with them -- Pray
write to me & if I am a good
Correspondent to any One it
will be to you.
Adieu My Dear Niece
yours ever most
affectionately
W:H.
P.S. A Lock of hair is
likewise inclosed --
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Sir William and Anna Maria Clarke have discovered that they share a mutual friend in Chevalier Sagramoso; see HAM/2/14 p.42.
2. This annotation appears at the bottom of the page, written upside down.
Normalised Text
Thursday Night
September 9th 1784 --
My Dear Miss Hamilton
Business has so increased
upon me that I really have not
a moment to my self however
I will call upon you Tomorrow
if possible though I hate taking
leave -- if it should so happen
(as I am summoned to the Secretarys
office in the bargain tomorrow)
that I should not be able to call
upon you accept my warmest
thanks for your constant
affectionate behaviour to me
and be assured that wherever
I may be you have a most
sincere Friend -- May
health & happiness attend you
I flatter myself in a very
few years I may have the
happiness of embracing you
again & that you will introduce
me to Mr. Dickison whose
acquaintance I am ambitious
of as he is your choice & I have
a thorough opinion of your
judgement, be so good as to
make my respectful Compliments
to the Duchess of Portland
& Mrs. Delany when you see
them -- Vive la vielle Cour
for they are worth a million
of the new fangled Ladies
assure Miss Clarke that
I will take particular care
of her parcel for my Friend
Sacramosa -- I send you
one too copied by Lady Hamilton Extracts
of her mothers Letters but when
I looked over the other papers
I could not find in my heart
to part with them -- Pray
write to me & if I am a good
Correspondent to any One it
will be to you.
Adieu My Dear Niece
yours ever most
affectionately
William Hamilton
P.S. A Lock of hair is
likewise enclosed --
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 Sir William Hamilton to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/4/22
Correspondence Details
Sender: Sir William Hamilton
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 9 September 1784
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Sir William Hamilton to Mary Hamilton. He intends to visit his niece the next day before he returns to Naples but if he is unable to do so he wishes to thank her for her kind and ‘affectionate behaviour’ to him. He hopes that in a few years he has the ‘happiness of embracing you again’. He sends his respects to Mrs Delany and the Duchess of Portland and writes of the women that they are ‘worth a million of the new fangled Ladies’. Sir William sends Hamilton a book copied by his late wife ‘Extracts of her Mother’s Letters’ (see HAM/1/4/5/18) but notes that he cannot part from Lady Hamilton’s papers. He includes a lock of his hair with the letter’ [not included in the archive].
Length: 1 sheet, 265 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: Cassandra Ulph, editorial team (completed 31 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