Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/5/1/5

Letter from Reverend Archibald Hamilton Cathcart to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


▼
                             Wolverton January 3
                                                         1809
My Dear Cousin

      I am very much obliged to
you for your most kind & accommodating
letter, but for Thursday I have secured myself a bed
at a Certain Magpie Inn Woburn which is a very
snug little place & I shall dine & dreʃs there
& get some of my Friends from the Newport side
to pick me up & drop me enpaʃsant, but I am
equally obliged to you for your kind offer. I
had indeed fully promised myself the pleasure
of a day or two at Leighton House at this time
but I am cruelly deranged by being drawn
such a way from home & however gratified
by doing what is required of me yet it is
with sad reluctance I quit this house on monday next. I am
happy to say Mrs C & the Child are both as
well as poʃsible. Except most heartily wishing
you Mr & Miʃs Dickenson many happy new
years no more till we meet but Ever your
                             most Affect Cousin
                                                         AH Cathcart

      In truth this was written last
night late, the appearance of
the day makes me fear Thursday
will fall short.[1]



Mrs Dickenson[2] [3]
Leighton House
      Leighton Buzard

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


Notes


 1. Moved postscript here from the top of p.1, written upside down.
 2. Postmark ‘STONEY STRATFORD 52’ above address panel.
 3. A large manuscript number ‘5’ in black ink is written to the right of the address, denoting postage due.

Normalised Text


▼
                             Wolverton January 3
                                                         1809
My Dear Cousin

      I am very much obliged to
you for your most kind & accommodating
letter, but for Thursday I have secured myself a bed
at a Certain Magpie Inn Woburn which is a very
snug little place & I shall dine & dress there
& get some of my Friends from the Newport side
to pick me up & drop me enpassant, but I am
equally obliged to you for your kind offer. I
had indeed fully promised myself the pleasure
of a day or two at Leighton House at this time
but I am cruelly deranged by being drawn
such a way from home & however gratified
by doing what is required of me yet it is
with sad reluctance I quit this house on monday next. I am
happy to say Mrs Cathcart & the Child are both as
well as possible. Except most heartily wishing
you Mr & Miss Dickenson many happy new
years no more till we meet but Ever your
                             most Affectionate Cousin
                                                         Archibald Hamilton Cathcart

      In truth this was written last
night late, the appearance of
the day makes me fear Thursday
will fall short.



Mrs Dickenson
Leighton House
      Leighton Buzzard

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



 1. Moved postscript here from the top of p.1, written upside down.
 2. Postmark ‘STONEY STRATFORD 52’ above address panel.
 3. A large manuscript number ‘5’ in black ink is written to the right of the address, denoting postage due.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Reverend Archibald Hamilton Cathcart to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/5/1/5

Correspondence Details

Sender: Archibald Hamilton Cathcart

Place sent: Wolverton, Buckinghamshire

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: Leighton Buzzard

Date sent: 3 January 1809

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Rev. Hon. Archibald Hamilton Cathcart to Mary Hamilton. He thanks Hamilton for her invitation but notes that he has secured himself a room at the Magpie Inn, in Woburn. The letter also reports that Cathcart's wife and baby are both well.
   

Length: 2 sheets, 203 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 2016/17 provided by The John Rylands Research Institute.

Research assistant: Sarah Connor, undergraduate student, University of Manchester

Research assistant: Carla Seabra-Dacosta, MA student, University of Vigo

Transliterator: Amanda Widmalm, MA student, Uppsala University (submitted May 2017)

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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