Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/4/7/29

Letter from William Flint on behalf of Lord Charles Cathcart and note from Lord Charles Cathcart to Mrs Mary Catherine Hamilton (née Dufresne)

Diplomatic Text


      Copied in manuscript EGA

12.

      Madam     St. Petersburg Novr. 15th- 1771. ▼

      Lord Cathcart not being able to write[1]
to you himself, I am by his Excellency's desire
to acquaint you and Miʃs Hamilton with the Death of Lady Cathcart
which happened upon the 13th Instant from a
disorder in her bowels.
      My Lord and his Children, tho' in the ut:
:most affliction are well in Health.

      I have the Honour to be
▼
                             Madam,

                                                         Your most obedient
                                                         and most humble
                                                         Servant

                                                         William Flint
Honourable Mrs.
Charles Hamilton

      Her[2] Life was innocent
meritorious & Happy.
Her End peaceful glorious
& triumphant, and she
left the poor survivers
every circumstance of
Consolation which
the a Catastrophy so
total could poʃsibly
permit. -- [3]


[4]
[5]
                             To
                                       The Honourable
                             Mrs. Charles Hamilton
                             at Northampton
                                                 by London[6]
52[7]
[8]
[9]

                                                         From St. Petersburg
                                                         Announcement of
                                                         Lady Cathcarts death
                                                         to Mrs. C. Hamilton[10]

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


Notes


 1. The main letter is written a significant margin away from the left-hand side of the document.
 2. This section, although not signed, appears to have been written by Charles Cathcart as a personal addition to the secretarial letter breaking the news of Lady Cathcart's death. Despite the shakiness of the handwriting, comparison with HAM/1/4/7/28 shows several similarities in the shape and angle of the letters, strongly suggesting that it was indeed written by Charles Cathcart.
 3. Moved this section here from left of the closing salutation.
 4. Bishop mark in black ink, dated 6 December, overwritten with figures in ink.
 5. Postmark ‘ST PETERSBOVRG’ in black ink.
 6. The address is crossed by a number of markings by post office employees, including a figure 3.
 7. This number is written vertically.
 8. Bishop mark in black ink, dated 6 December.
 9. Seal, in black wax.
 10. This annotation is written vertically to the right of the address.

Normalised Text


     

      Madam     St. Petersburg November 15th- 1771. ▼

      Lord Cathcart not being able to write
to you himself, I am by his Excellency's desire
to acquaint you and Miss Hamilton with the Death of Lady Cathcart
which happened upon the 13th Instant from a
disorder in her bowels.
      My Lord and his Children, though in the utmost
 affliction are well in Health.

      I have the Honour to be
▼
                             Madam,

                                                         Your most obedient
                                                         and most humble
                                                         Servant

                                                         William Flint
Honourable Mrs.
Charles Hamilton

      Her Life was innocent
meritorious & Happy.
Her End peaceful glorious
& triumphant, and she
left the poor survivors
every circumstance of
Consolation which
a Catastrophe so
total could possibly
permit. --




                             To
                                       The Honourable
                             Mrs. Charles Hamilton
                             at Northampton
                                            by London




                                                        

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



 1. The main letter is written a significant margin away from the left-hand side of the document.
 2. This section, although not signed, appears to have been written by Charles Cathcart as a personal addition to the secretarial letter breaking the news of Lady Cathcart's death. Despite the shakiness of the handwriting, comparison with HAM/1/4/7/28 shows several similarities in the shape and angle of the letters, strongly suggesting that it was indeed written by Charles Cathcart.
 3. Moved this section here from left of the closing salutation.
 4. Bishop mark in black ink, dated 6 December, overwritten with figures in ink.
 5. Postmark ‘ST PETERSBOVRG’ in black ink.
 6. The address is crossed by a number of markings by post office employees, including a figure 3.
 7. This number is written vertically.
 8. Bishop mark in black ink, dated 6 December.
 9. Seal, in black wax.
 10. This annotation is written vertically to the right of the address.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from William Flint on behalf of Lord Charles Cathcart and note from Lord Charles Cathcart to Mrs Mary Catherine Hamilton (née Dufresne)

Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/7/29

Correspondence Details

Sender: William Flint

Place sent: St Petersburg

Addressee: Mary Catherine Hamilton (née Dufresne)

Place received: Northampton

Date sent: 15 November 1771

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from William Flint, writing on behalf of Lord Cathcart, to Mrs Hamilton. He informs her of the death of Lord Cathcart's wife, Jean [née Hamilton, the sister of Charles Hamilton] ‘from a disorder in her bowels’.
    Dated at St Petersburg.
    Original reference No. 12.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 121 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: Tino Oudesluijs, editorial team (completed 4 August 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

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