Single Letter

HAM/1/2/5

Letter from John Dickenson to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


      10
X

Kersley 29. Septb. 1785


      The continual Succeʃsion of croʃs
purposes at this ill-fated place
I am afraid will prevent my return
-ing
to my dear Mary on Saturday --
The Fire Engine is perpetually out of
Order -- what with the water and damp
&c &c I cannot get a piece of work com-
-pleated
, which has been and continues
to be extremely difficult & expensive
and I have told the Men that I wont
leave them till it is finished --
My Want of Succeʃs in this Under-
-taking
is only like every other Attempt
that I have made to increase my
Property -- I begin to moralize upon
the Subject, and think I shall very
soon become a Philosopher -- I have
made a Resolution -- not to allow this



Busineʃs to agitate my Spirits
and injure my peace of Mind any
more -- let it turn out how it may --
there will be this consolation always
residing in my breast -- that it was
begun upon a proper principle)[1] --
The true Motive, that induced me
to undertake this Colliery, was,
the hopes, that if it shd. answer, it
might be the cause of producing
that Union of which I am so proud, and
now I have the happineʃs of being your
Husband
-- I am very anxious for its
Succeʃs -- that it might administer
to your pleasures -- I will
no more complain of my want of
good fortune -- now I am blest with
You
-- what more can I wish for -- ?
Nothing in which I am solely concerned --
O that you could always be as happy



as I wish you to be -- then you woud
be the happiest Wife of the happiest
Man in the World, who has the
honor to boast, that he is Your
      Faithful and Affectionate
                             John Dickenson




Mrs. Dickenson
      Taxal

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Notes


 1. There does not appear to be a corresponding opening parenthesis.

Normalised Text


     

Kersley 29. September 1785


      The continual Succession of cross
purposes at this ill-fated place
I am afraid will prevent my returning
to my dear Mary on Saturday --
The Fire Engine is perpetually out of
Order -- what with the water and damp
&c &c I cannot get a piece of work completed
, which has been and continues
to be extremely difficult & expensive
and I have told the Men that I won't
leave them till it is finished --
My Want of Success in this Undertaking
is only like every other Attempt
that I have made to increase my
Property -- I begin to moralize upon
the Subject, and think I shall very
soon become a Philosopher -- I have
made a Resolution -- not to allow this



Business to agitate my Spirits
and injure my peace of Mind any
more -- let it turn out how it may --
there will be this consolation always
residing in my breast -- that it was
begun upon a proper principle) --
The true Motive, that induced me
to undertake this Colliery, was,
the hopes, that if it should answer, it
might be the cause of producing
that Union of which I am so proud, and
now I have the happiness of being your
Husband -- I am very anxious for its
Success -- that it might administer
to your pleasures -- I will
no more complain of my want of
good fortune -- now I am blessed with
You
-- what more can I wish for -- ?
Nothing in which I am solely concerned --
O that you could always be as happy



as I wish you to be -- then you would
be the happiest Wife of the happiest
Man in the World, who has the
honour to boast, that he is Your
      Faithful and Affectionate
                             John Dickenson




Mrs. Dickenson
      Taxal

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



 1. There does not appear to be a corresponding opening parenthesis.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from John Dickenson to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/2/5

Correspondence Details

Sender: John Dickenson

Place sent: Kearsley

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: Taxal, near Chapel-en-le-Frith

Date sent: 29 September 1785

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from John Dickenson to his wife Mary née Hamilton. He complains that he is prevented from returning home as he had planned the following Saturday, as he is finding it difficult to complete his work and he has promised not to leave Kersley [Kearsley] until it is done. He is philosophical about his lack of success and will not let it 'agitate' his mind. He notes that he will not 'complain of my want of good fortune now that I am blessed with you'.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 294 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 2017/18 provided by the Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester.

Research assistant: Georgia Tutt, MA student, University of Manchester

Transliterator: Yujue Yan, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted May 2018)

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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