Diplomatic Text
[1] [2]
X 13
With Joy I read yr- dear Letter -- I shall talk
no more of Love -- tis a Cold word and cannot expreʃs
what I feel -- your affe. Husband adores, respects
and doats upon you -- Never was there a Man
deserving of so much goodneʃs & excellence --
I have a thousand things to say to my dear Wife
and it is almost 5 OClock -- I am very well and
will be obedient to your Commands -- if I get
a frank I will write again tomorrow --
Adieu God preserve & bleʃs you -- you
are inexpreʃsibly dear to your
John Dickenson
Every body loves you -- My Aff. remembrance
to Lady Wake & Comps. to every body -- Love to Charlotte --
------------------------------------------------------------
Shall ------
promised -- ------
The young woman Mrs. G. wrote ab[t]. came her[e]
this morng & dreʃs'd Miʃs G.s Hair very well --
She is 23 years old -- very little -- an engaging
Countenance -- has been well instructed in
Housekeeping -- has no Objection to living in ye-
Country, or any where that She can be happy --
Mrs. G. said so much abt. her -- that I was induce[d]
to think of her seriously -- and I am of Opinion
She is exactly wt. you want -- I told her wt.
our Situation is -- wt. she wd. be required to do
to wch. She had no Objection -- I mentioned -- that the
Customs in the Country were different -- that
Country Servts-. were also different. in short I said
every thing that I cd. think of to frighten her --
Mrs. G asked a number of questions. if She cd. get
up small Linen -- if she cd. make Gowns &c -- and told her[3]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. This letter is catalogued out of sequence. It probably belongs chronologically between HAM/1/2/8/3 and HAM/1/2/9.
2. This page minus the postscript is quoted by Anson & Anson (1925: 332), perhaps casting doubt on the status of the cross at the top left.
3. The text ends abruptly here. Any remaining text is missing.
Normalised Text
With Joy I read your dear Letter -- I shall talk
no more of Love -- tis a Cold word and cannot express
what I feel -- your affectionate Husband adores, respects
and dotes upon you -- Never was there a Man
deserving of so much goodness & excellence --
I have a thousand things to say to my dear Wife
and it is almost 5 O'Clock -- I am very well and
will be obedient to your Commands -- if I get
a frank I will write again tomorrow --
Adieu God preserve & bless you -- you
are inexpressibly dear to your
John Dickenson
Every body loves you -- My Affectionate remembrance
to Lady Wake & Compliments to every body -- Love to Charlotte --
------------------------------------------------------------
Shall ------
promised -- ------
The young woman Mrs. G. wrote about came here
this morning & dressed Miss G.s Hair very well --
She is 23 years old -- very little -- an engaging
Countenance -- has been well instructed in
Housekeeping -- has no Objection to living in the
Country, or any where that She can be happy --
Mrs. G. said so much about her -- that I was induced
to think of her seriously -- and I am of Opinion
She is exactly what you want -- I told her what
our Situation is -- what she would be required to do
to which She had no Objection -- I mentioned -- that the
Customs in the Country were different -- that
Country Servants were also different. in short I said
every thing that I could think of to frighten her --
Mrs. G asked a number of questions. if She could get
up small Linen -- if she could make Gowns &c -- and told her
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: Letter from John Dickenson to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/2/12
Correspondence Details
Sender: John Dickenson
Place sent: London (certainty: medium)
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Northamptonshire (certainty: low)
Date sent: between February and March 1786
notBefore February 1786 (precision: low)
notAfter March 1786 (precision: low)
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from John Dickenson to his wife Mary née Hamilton. The letter relates to the hiring of a servant. A young woman of twenty-three, with an 'engaging Countenance', dressed Miss G.'s hair very well, and Dickenson quizzed her over willingness to live in the country. 'I am of Opinion She is exactly what you want'.
The letter is undated, but relates to the hiring of a servant and may be dated on the same day as HAM/1/2/10. It was originally placed in the archive next to HAM/1/2/11 and both were numbered 13. However, the two [?unrelated] servant hirings may have led to a mistaken association: the content fits better with HAM/1/2/8/1, HAM/1/2/8/2, HAM/1/2/8/3 and a date of February-March 1786.
Length: 1 sheet, 267 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: Jérémie Josse, 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