Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/12/78

Note from Harriet Finch to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


MyI cannot[1] let any thing be Sent to
You my dear Miʃs Hamilton from
our House, without its being Accompanied
with my thanks -- by my Scrawl --
for your many & kind Enquiries
after me -- I am much better
today -- & extreamely like my
foolish Self wish to sally forth -- ( ------ tho'
not perfectly well) -- But this
my Mother has Expreʃsly forbid
my Doing --  ------ & indeed this very wet
night it would be very absurd to
think of it -- I was disappointd
to a very great Degree not to attend
you all here at Breakfast yesterdy
Morning -- & struggled much against
my indisposition -- which however at
length got ye better of my great inclina-


[tion][2] to leave my Room --
                             Adieu my dear Miʃs
Hamilton
                             believe me yr Oblig'd
                               & Obedt- Sert
                                       Harriet Finch
28th. Octbr. 1779

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


Notes


 1. Presumably the deleted 'My' was supposed to form the common opening salutation 'My dear Miss Hamilton', which Harriet Finch uses to start many of her letters.
 2. It seems the author intended to break the word across pages but forgot to finish the word.

Normalised Text


I cannot let any thing be Sent to
You my dear Miss Hamilton from
our House, without its being Accompanied
with my thanks -- by my Scrawl --
for your many & kind Enquiries
after me -- I am much better
today -- & extremely like my
foolish Self wish to sally forth -- (though
not perfectly well) -- But this
my Mother has Expressly forbidden
my Doing -- & indeed this very wet
night it would be very absurd to
think of it -- I was disappointed
to a very great Degree not to attend
you all here at Breakfast yesterday
Morning -- & struggled much against
my indisposition -- which however at
length got the better of my great inclination


to leave my Room --
                             Adieu my dear Miss
Hamilton
                             believe me your Obliged
                               & Obedient Servant
                                       Harriet Finch

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



 1. Presumably the deleted 'My' was supposed to form the common opening salutation 'My dear Miss Hamilton', which Harriet Finch uses to start many of her letters.
 2. It seems the author intended to break the word across pages but forgot to finish the word.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Note from Harriet Finch to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/12/78

Correspondence Details

Sender: Harriet Finch

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 28 October 1779

Letter Description

Summary: Note from Harriet Finch to Mary Hamilton, relating to the enquiries that Hamilton had made after her.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 130 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: Christine Wallis, editorial team (completed 29 May 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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