Diplomatic Text
My dear Miʃs Hamilton,
One of my Servants as well as a Person
that has call'd here having inform'd me that they
hear for certain, that Lord Pomfret is committed
to the Tower,[1] you will not wonder that I stay at
home, envious to hear the particulars of what has
paʃs'd to day in the Houʃe upon this unhappy
Subject, therefore hope you will excuse me to the
Princeʃses for not coming to Night.
Yrs. ever Sincerely
C.Finch
Monday Evening 7th- Novbr. 1780
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. George Fermor, 2nd Earl of Pomfret, was Lady Charlotte Finch's older brother. On 6 November 1780 the House of Lords met to discuss charges against Pomfret relating to his quarrel with the Duke of Grafton over a servant. A motion was subsequently passed to have him committed to the Tower of London 'for high contempt of the House, in sending a challenge, and for using language to another peer unfit to be used by one peer to another' (The London Magazine, or the Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer, Vol. 49, 1780, pp.565-566). He was released after making a formal apology in the Lords on 17 November. This incident would, no doubt, have been the cause of great anxiety (and probably embarrassment) to his sister.
Normalised Text
My dear Miss Hamilton,
One of my Servants as well as a Person
that has called here having informed me that they
hear for certain, that Lord Pomfret is committed
to the Tower, you will not wonder that I stay at
home, envious to hear the particulars of what has
passed to day in the House upon this unhappy
Subject, therefore hope you will excuse me to the
Princesses for not coming to Night.
Yours ever Sincerely
Charlotte Finch
Monday Evening 7th- November 1780
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: Note from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/12/27
Correspondence Details
Sender: Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)
Place sent: unknown
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 7 November 1780
Letter Description
Summary: Note from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton. She writes that one of her servants and another person who has called on her have heard that Lord Pomfret [George Fermor, 2nd Earl of Pomfret (1722-1785)] is committed to the Tower and as such Hamilton will not be surprised that Finch has chosen to stay at home as she is ‘anxious to hear the particulars’ on this unhappy subject. She asks that Hamilton will excuse her to the princesses for not visiting.
Length: 1 sheet, 84 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 16 April 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