Diplomatic Text
Bristol Novbr. 18
1782
My dearest Madam
Your very kind letter
has caused me the utmost astonishment. Mo[st]
heartily do I congratulate you on your eman[ci]
pation. If you found that a Court life and
happineʃs, were incompatible you have acted
nobly in daring to regain your peace of
mind ofby sacrifices, which to so grateful and
good a heart as yours must have been painf[ul]
I represent to myself what a struggle you
must have had before you acquired firmneʃs
enough to form your resolution, or courage
enough to declare it. I rejoyce with you that
those difficulties are at an end, and that you
retire with the esteem and affection of a
wise and good Queen; this last I think w[as]
[a]bsolutely neceʃsary to the ease of a mind
[so] delicate as yours. -- I am not well nor
have I time to say many words, but I mad[e]
[i]t a duty not to let another post go out
[w]ithout bearing you this slight testimony of
my regard. -- I hope we shall have man[y]
comfortable meetings. -- I shall be due to
[d]ear Mrs. Garrick about the 8th. or 10th.
of Next Month; pray let me hear from you
before that nighttime; tho' I shall scarcely, I fear
go so soon, as my removal depends on a
very aged and infirm Father, whose declining
state makes my schemes very undecided.
I am much flatter'd by your early commun[i]
-cation of your plan. Do let me know every
thing that concerns you, and believe me most
faithfully my dearest Madam
Yr. ever obliged
H More
We always stay
at Hampton till Feb:
but I shall get at peep at you in Town[1]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
Bristol November 18
1782
My dearest Madam
Your very kind letter
has caused me the utmost astonishment. Most
heartily do I congratulate you on your emancipation
. If you found that a Court life and
happiness, were incompatible you have acted
nobly in daring to regain your peace of
mind by sacrifices, which to so grateful and
good a heart as yours must have been painful
I represent to myself what a struggle you
must have had before you acquired firmness
enough to form your resolution, or courage
enough to declare it. I rejoice with you that
those difficulties are at an end, and that you
retire with the esteem and affection of a
wise and good Queen; this last I think was
absolutely necessary to the ease of a mind
so delicate as yours. -- I am not well nor
have I time to say many words, but I made
it a duty not to let another post go out
without bearing you this slight testimony of
my regard. -- I hope we shall have many
comfortable meetings. -- I shall be due to
dear Mrs. Garrick about the 8th. or 10th.
of Next Month; pray let me hear from you
before that time; though I shall scarcely, I fear
go so soon, as my removal depends on a
very aged and infirm Father, whose declining
state makes my schemes very undecided.
I am much flattered by your early communication
of your plan. Do let me know every
thing that concerns you, and believe me most
faithfully my dearest Madam
Your ever obliged
Hannah More
We always stay
at Hampton till February
but I shall get a peep at you in Town
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: Houghton Library Repository, Harvard University
Archive: Elizabeth Carter and Hannah More letters to Mary Hamilton
Item title: Letter from Hannah More to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: MS Eng 1778 117
Correspondence Details
Sender: Hannah More
Place sent: Bristol
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 18 November 1782
Letter Description
Summary: More, Hannah, 1745-1833. Autograph manuscript letter (signed) to Mary Hamilton; Bristol, 1782 November 18.
Length: 1 sheet, 279 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First transcribed for the project 'The Collected Letters of Hannah More' (Kerri Andrews & others) and 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: 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: Kerri Andrews, Senior Lecturer, Edge Hill University (submitted 11 August 2020)
Cataloguer: Bonnie B. Salt, Archivist, Houghton Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 17 October 2022