Diplomatic Text
to his Brother (17766)
at Northampton from
Ipswich[1]
Dear Brother,
As we have now been here near a month I may venture to
affirm that I have at last fixed upon an agreeable place, for
so I find Ipswich in every particular. The country about it is
charming & the air remarkably good. The people are remarkably
sociable, & have been almost unanimous in showing us every
poʃsible civility, this I attribute in great measure to my friend
Mr. Lloyd who has a very good Estate in the neighbourhood of
Ipswich & who made it his busineʃs to recommend me very par=
ticularly to every Person of consequence in it. Having now no expec=
tations of further Preferment I do not mean to make any more ex=
peditions to Ireland with my family, as I find the expence & trouble
of moving too great, when my Affairs call me there, I can go over
for two or three months at a time alone, without very great in=
convenience, & if I can be allow'd to enjoy what I have in this way I
shall be perfectly satisfied. Finding it impoʃsible to get Lodgings
that can be put up with, I have already purchased a neat small
House & Garden in the best part of the Town which I intend as
a settlement for Mrs. Hamilton in case of my death as she can fix in
no place with equal advantage, & if fortunately that event is pro=
longued only a few years it will I hope be very suitable to her
finances, in the mean time it is a very comfortable residence
for us both, the purchase with furniture &c amounts to at least
£700 which will oblige me to observe a very strict oeconomy for some
time. I shall be very happy to hear of your having taken poʃ=
seʃsion of your new habitation & that you find it perfectly to your
mind; Ld Orwell gave me, the other day, a very satisfactory account of
it; for being particularly connected with Ld Hallifax, he has been very frequent=
ly at Ldy. Ann Jekyl's. Ld. Beauchamp[2] called upon us here last week & con=
firm'd the news of Ld. Bristol's[3] having succeeded his Father as Ld. Lt. of Ireland
if I cou'd ever be certain of any thing, I am sure he is totally unqualified for
that Office, he owes it intirely to Ld. Chatham to whom he has pay'd court for
these ten years past. Pray remember us to Mrs. & Miʃs Hamilton, my Wife
has been confined all this day to her bed by a violent sore throat, a disorder
very frequent here at present as well as fevers. Betty is tolerably well
& desires to be rememberd to her friends at Northampton Adieu Dr. Brother
believe me ever
Yours most Affectionately
Frederick Hamilton
Ipswich September 28th. 1766.[4]
Suffolk
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. These four lines appear to the right of the opening salutation.
2. Lord Beauchamp was the title of Francis Seymour-Conway (1743-1822), later 2nd Marquess of Hertford.
3. George Hervey, 2nd Earl of Bristol, who indeed ‘never visited that country during his short tenure’ as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1766 (Wikipedia).
4. This line appears to the left of the signature.
Normalised Text
Dear Brother,
As we have now been here near a month I may venture to
affirm that I have at last fixed upon an agreeable place, for
so I find Ipswich in every particular. The country about it is
charming & the air remarkably good. The people are remarkably
sociable, & have been almost unanimous in showing us every
possible civility, this I attribute in great measure to my friend
Mr. Lloyd who has a very good Estate in the neighbourhood of
Ipswich & who made it his business to recommend me very particularly
to every Person of consequence in it. Having now no expectations
of further Preferment I do not mean to make any more expeditions
to Ireland with my family, as I find the expense & trouble
of moving too great, when my Affairs call me there, I can go over
for two or three months at a time alone, without very great inconvenience
, & if I can be allowed to enjoy what I have in this way I
shall be perfectly satisfied. Finding it impossible to get Lodgings
that can be put up with, I have already purchased a neat small
House & Garden in the best part of the Town which I intend as
a settlement for Mrs. Hamilton in case of my death as she can fix in
no place with equal advantage, & if fortunately that event is prolonged
only a few years it will I hope be very suitable to her
finances, in the mean time it is a very comfortable residence
for us both, the purchase with furniture &c amounts to at least
£700 which will oblige me to observe a very strict economy for some
time. I shall be very happy to hear of your having taken possession
of your new habitation & that you find it perfectly to your
mind; Lord Orwell gave me, the other day, a very satisfactory account of
it; for being particularly connected with Lord Halifax, he has been very frequently
at Lady Ann Jekyll's. Lord Beauchamp called upon us here last week & confirmed
the news of Lord Bristol's having succeeded his Father as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland
if I could ever be certain of any thing, I am sure he is totally unqualified for
that Office, he owes it entirely to Lord Chatham to whom he has paid court for
these ten years past. Pray remember us to Mrs. & Miss Hamilton, my Wife
has been confined all this day to her bed by a violent sore throat, a disorder
very frequent here at present as well as fevers. Betty is tolerably well
& desires to be remembered to her friends at Northampton Adieu Dear Brother
believe me ever
Yours most Affectionately
Frederick Hamilton
Ipswich September 28th. 1766.
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 Charles Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/7/23
Correspondence Details
Sender: Frederick Hamilton
Place sent: Ipswich
Addressee: Charles Hamilton
Place received: Northampton
Date sent: 28 September 1766
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Frederick Hamilton to his brother Charles Hamilton, concerning his intentions of settling in Ipswich. He writes of his connections there, the benefits of the air and society, and notes that he need only return to Ireland for two or three months each year, which he will be able to do without too much inconvenience. The letter He also writes with news of friends and acquaintances. Lady Beauchamp called on him and confirmed the news that Lord Bristol had succeeded his father as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland – 'I am sure he is totally unqualified for that Office, he owes it intirely [sic] to L[or]d Chatham to whom he has pay'd court for these ten years past'. Dated at Ipswich.
Original reference No. 7.
Length: 1 sheet, 464 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: Shiqi Li, 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: 17 August 2023