Single Letter

HAM/1/4/7/19

Letter from Frederick Hamilton to Charles Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


      Dear Brother,

      I was really concern'd to find by a letter I receiv'd some time ago from
Ly. Cathcart, that you thought you had reason to be displeased with my
conduct towards you; & particularly that I did not show that confidence
in you, that you have so just a claim to from me. Tho' there may be
some appearance of foundation for a censure of this sort, yet I am sure,
that upon reflexion, you have too much candor & humanity not to make
the reasonable allowances for the caution neceʃsary to be observed in my
perplex'd & unfortunate circumstances. I am conscious to myself of being
incapable of the least reserve with you, when we are together, but still
there are some things that it wou'd be imprudent to communicate by letter; let
me therefore finally aʃsure you, & I intreat you to believe me having
never yet deceiv'd you, that my silence to you, upon things that you
have a right to be inform'd of, can proceed from no other reasons than
those I have mention'd. I am already unfortunate enough, & must
therefore feel the most sensible regret in being deprived of your



friendship, upon which I have always relied & which wou'd at all times be
a real comfort to me. I paʃs my time here but very heavily, when
I may change the scene is as yet very uncertain tho' I am determin'd
not to reside here much longer. My presence in Ireland will I fear
be soon indispensably neceʃsary, for my affairs there are in as bad a state
as poʃsible from Mr. Buttle's having totally neglected them, he will not
now condescend to acknowledge the receipt of my letters. I have added to
this the chance of losing my Manager in the North who I hear is very
ill. Let me caution you not to employ Mr. Buttle any more & not to let him
have the keeping of any of your Papers. Your Leases are at present in the
Hands of a Person whose honesty I can answer for, I think he shou'd be
caution'd not to trust any of them out of his hands without your positive
orders which I will remember to do the next time I write to him. I
beg to be remember'd affectionately to Mrs. Hamilton & to my Niece. I am
ever
                                                         Dear Brother,
                                                         Yours most faithfully and
                                                              Affectionately
                                                                   Frederick Hamilton
York Novr. 23d. 1763.[1]



                             Mr. Frederick Hamilton
                             Nov. 23d 1763.

      from York

(hover over blue text or annotations for clarification;
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. This line appears to the left of the closing salutation.

Normalised Text


      Dear Brother,

      I was really concerned to find by a letter I received some time ago from
Lady Cathcart, that you thought you had reason to be displeased with my
conduct towards you; & particularly that I did not show that confidence
in you, that you have so just a claim to from me. Though there may be
some appearance of foundation for a censure of this sort, yet I am sure,
that upon reflexion, you have too much candour & humanity not to make
the reasonable allowances for the caution necessary to be observed in my
perplexed & unfortunate circumstances. I am conscious to myself of being
incapable of the least reserve with you, when we are together, but still
there are some things that it would be imprudent to communicate by letter; let
me therefore finally assure you, & I entreat you to believe me having
never yet deceived you, that my silence to you, upon things that you
have a right to be informed of, can proceed from no other reasons than
those I have mentioned. I am already unfortunate enough, & must
therefore feel the most sensible regret in being deprived of your



friendship, upon which I have always relied & which would at all times be
a real comfort to me. I pass my time here but very heavily, when
I may change the scene is as yet very uncertain though I am determined
not to reside here much longer. My presence in Ireland will I fear
be soon indispensably necessary, for my affairs there are in as bad a state
as possible from Mr. Buttle's having totally neglected them, he will not
now condescend to acknowledge the receipt of my letters. I have added to
this the chance of losing my Manager in the North who I hear is very
ill. Let me caution you not to employ Mr. Buttle any more & not to let him
have the keeping of any of your Papers. Your Leases are at present in the
Hands of a Person whose honesty I can answer for, I think he should be
cautioned not to trust any of them out of his hands without your positive
orders which I will remember to do the next time I write to him. I
beg to be remembered affectionately to Mrs. Hamilton & to my Niece. I am
ever
                                                         Dear Brother,
                                                         Yours most faithfully and
                                                              Affectionately
                                                                   Frederick Hamilton
York November 23d. 1763.



                            

(consult diplomatic text or XML for annotations, deletions, clarifications, persons,
quotations,
spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. This line appears to the left of the closing salutation.

Metadata

Library References

Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Frederick Hamilton to Charles Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/7/19

Correspondence Details

Sender: Frederick Hamilton

Place sent: York

Addressee: Charles Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 23 November 1763

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Frederick Hamilton (HAM/1/4/1) to his brother Charles Hamilton. He writes that he had heard from his sister that Charles Hamilton had 'reason to be displeased' with his conduct towards him, specifically that he has not 'shown that confidence in you, that you have so just a claim to from me'. Frederick Hamilton assures Charles that he has never deceived him, and that if he has been silent on things he should have informed him about, they are such as 'it wou[l]d be imprudent to communicate by letter', whereas he would have no such reservations if they were together.
    The letter continues on Frederick Hamilton's business interests in Ireland and Scotland. Dated at York.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 410 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 2017/18 provided by the Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester.

Research assistant: Georgia Tutt, MA student, University of Manchester

Transliterator: Usama Ali, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted May 2018)

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

Document Image (pdf)