HAM/1/7/5/11
Copy of letter from Sophia Fielding (née Finch) to her daughter Sophia
Diplomatic Text
[1]
Vigo in Galicia on the Coast of Spain
Thursday June 28 1781
My dear dear Sophia
You will have heard before this time from Mrs. Habback
that Your poor Mama is a prisoner, I hope You will not be very
uneasey for me when You know how well I am treated, the Governor
of this Place and old Spanish General near 90. gave us a great
dinner Yesterday, & we met all the Officers in the force here, &
Capt. Hill the American Captain who took us, & poor Capt. Dillon
whom he had taken, he poor Man look'd very Melancholy, but
every body was complimenting Capt. Hill upon his humane &
generous behaviour to us, we hope in a few days to get leave to
go to Oporto in Portugal, & to get some Ship to convey us from
thence to England, but I hope You will never expect me now till
You see me, you will believe my greatest grief in being taken was
being so long from seeing my dear litle Lambs & from either seeing
or hearing any thing of Your dear dear Papa, we were oblig'd to sail
from Lisbon June 17th- before the other Packet came in, so I have
heard nothing of any body I love since May 15th- give my love to dear
Lady Louisa, & tell her I fea[r] it may be still a Month before I can
Thank her at Harleyford for all her goodness &c
You cannot think what a comfort I have in being with
Mr. & Mrs. Graham &c
to Miʃs Fielding
to Miʃs Fielding
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This is a copy of a letter of Sophia Fielding, written in an unknown hand. The handwriting, writing practices and general layout of this letter differ from that of other letters written by Sophia Fielding. The circumstances of copying are not known, and the original letter appears to be lost.
Normalised Text
Vigo in Galicia on the Coast of Spain
Thursday June 28 1781
My dear dear Sophia
You will have heard before this time from Mrs. Habback
that Your poor Mama is a prisoner, I hope You will not be very
uneasy for me when You know how well I am treated, the Governor
of this Place and old Spanish General near 90. gave us a great
dinner Yesterday, & we met all the Officers in the force here, &
Captain Hill the American Captain who took us, & poor Captain Dillon
whom he had taken, the poor Man looked very Melancholy, but
every body was complimenting Captain Hill upon his humane &
generous behaviour to us, we hope in a few days to get leave to
go to Oporto in Portugal, & to get some Ship to convey us from
thence to England, but I hope You will never expect me now till
You see me, you will believe my greatest grief in being taken was
being so long from seeing my dear little Lambs & from either seeing
or hearing any thing of Your dear dear Papa, we were obliged to sail
from Lisbon June 17th- before the other Packet came in, so I have
heard nothing of any body I love since May 15th- give my love to dear
Lady Louisa, & tell her I fear it may be still a Month before I can
Thank her at Harleyford for all her goodness &c
You cannot think what a comfort I have in being with
Mr. & Mrs. Graham &c
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: Copy of letter from Sophia Fielding (née Finch) to her daughter Sophia
Shelfmark: HAM/1/7/5/11
Correspondence Details
Sender: Sophia Fielding (née Finch)
Place sent: Vigo
Addressee: Sophia Charlotte Fitzgerald (née Feilding)
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 28 June 1781
Letter Description
Summary: Copy of letter from Sophia Fielding to her daughter Sophia. The letter
relates to her being taken prisoner in Spain (see HAM/1/12/29). Fielding
writes to Sophia that she knows that she would have already heard of her
situation but that she need not worry as she is being treated very well.
The Governor of Vigo is an ‘old Spanish General’ and he gave them a
‘great dinner yesterday’. She writes that she has met all the officers
including the American Captain [Hill] whose ship captured the vessel that
Fielding was travelling on.
Fielding hopes to be allowed to travel to Portugal in a few days and from
there to find a ship to take her to England. She should expect her when
she sees her and her greatest upset in being taken prisoner is being so
long away from her children. The letter continues on the subject and
notes that it has been a comfort having Mr and Mrs Graham with her.
Dated at Vigo in Galicia [Spain].
Length: 1 sheet, 262 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 10 November 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