Single Letter

HAM/1/4/1/16

Letter from Frederick Hamilton to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


Oct 9th 1780

Dear Miʃs Hamilton,

      I hope you have receiv'd my last with the enclosed,
which I sent by the return of the Post after the receipt of yours.
I thought you might have been returned from East Bourne long
before this time; but the news Papers of this week inform me that
you are still there; they must be wrong, the weather has been
for some time past too rough & stormy for sea bathing. The same
Papers also mention an horrid catastrophe by lightning close
to your quarters by which I fear you must have been terribly
alarmed. As it is universally understood here that Lord Carlisle
is very soon to succeed our Lord Lieutenant, I wrote a few days ago
to Lady Stormont, reminding her that the opportunity was now come
in which she & Ld. S. agreed an application in my favor might be
made with greater probability of succeʃs than it coud have been
done last winter. I entreated her to use her interest with Ld. S. to
second my hopes in the manner that wou'd be most agreeable to
himself, and I hinted at the same time, that if the memorial she
permitted me to leave in her hands coud be presented under his
patronage, I had great hopes that the truths contained in it,
might procure it a favorable acceptance. It appears to me
                                                         however



however that I have no reason to be very sanguine in my expecta=
tions
, as I have not yet perceived any decided symptoms of zeal
in my favor in those Persons who are alone able to serve me. What
I wish them to do is certainly proper, & woud do credit to themselves,
but this is an argument that wou'd not become me to
pursue further. I hope you have availed yourself of the
opportunity of bathing in the sea, which I am sure your
friend Doctor Turton recommended to you. I have taken
a very good House in Sackville Street which I hope will be
ready to receive me by the second week of next month
for storms and bad weather seem to have set in earlier
than usual. I have been employ'd during the course of the
summer in making considerable improvements to this place
which may now be called a very complete Villa. When
your are settled in your winter quarters I shall be very happy
to hear from you. Mrs. Hamilton desires to be affectionately
remember'd to you. Mrs. Stratford is well & has lately added a
Daughter to her family. My Son was here for six weeks and
returned to School some time ago, he is in perfect health and
is in other respects just as I cou'd wish him to be I am
                                                         Dear Miʃs Hamilton
                                                         Your faithful & Affectionate Uncle
                                                                   Frederick Hamilton
Latour -- Clontarf
      near Dublin
October 9th. 1780.[1]

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


Notes


 1. These three lines appear to the left of the closing salutation and signature.

Normalised Text



Dear Miss Hamilton,

      I hope you have received my last with the enclosed,
which I sent by the return of the Post after the receipt of yours.
I thought you might have been returned from East Bourne long
before this time; but the news Papers of this week inform me that
you are still there; they must be wrong, the weather has been
for some time past too rough & stormy for sea bathing. The same
Papers also mention an horrid catastrophe by lightning close
to your quarters by which I fear you must have been terribly
alarmed. As it is universally understood here that Lord Carlisle
is very soon to succeed our Lord Lieutenant, I wrote a few days ago
to Lady Stormont, reminding her that the opportunity was now come
in which she & Lord Stormont agreed an application in my favour might be
made with greater probability of success than it could have been
done last winter. I entreated her to use her interest with Lord Stormont to
second my hopes in the manner that would be most agreeable to
himself, and I hinted at the same time, that if the memorial she
permitted me to leave in her hands could be presented under his
patronage, I had great hopes that the truths contained in it,
might procure it a favourable acceptance. It appears to me
                                                        



however that I have no reason to be very sanguine in my expectations
, as I have not yet perceived any decided symptoms of zeal
in my favour in those Persons who are alone able to serve me. What
I wish them to do is certainly proper, & would do credit to themselves,
but this is an argument that would not become me to
pursue further. I hope you have availed yourself of the
opportunity of bathing in the sea, which I am sure your
friend Doctor Turton recommended to you. I have taken
a very good House in Sackville Street which I hope will be
ready to receive me by the second week of next month
for storms and bad weather seem to have set in earlier
than usual. I have been employed during the course of the
summer in making considerable improvements to this place
which may now be called a very complete Villa. When
you are settled in your winter quarters I shall be very happy
to hear from you. Mrs. Hamilton desires to be affectionately
remembered to you. Mrs. Stratford is well & has lately added a
Daughter to her family. My Son was here for six weeks and
returned to School some time ago, he is in perfect health and
is in other respects just as I could wish him to be I am
                                                         Dear Miss Hamilton
                                                         Your faithful & Affectionate Uncle
                                                                   Frederick Hamilton
Latour -- Clontarf
      near Dublin
October 9th. 1780.

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



 1. These three lines appear to the left of the closing salutation and signature.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Frederick Hamilton to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/4/1/16

Correspondence Details

Sender: Frederick Hamilton

Place sent: Clontarf

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 9 October 1780

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Rev. Frederick Hamilton to Mary Hamilton. He writes relating to the news that Lord Carlisle will soon succeed as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and how this might be an opportunity for his preferment. Frederick Hamilton has written to 'Lady Stormont, reminding her that the opportunity was now come in which she [...] agreed an application in my favo[u]r might be made with greater probability of success' than before. He asks Lady Stormont to use her influence with Lord Stormont to help his case and hints to her that the memorial he had previously left with her 'cou[l]d be presented with his [Lord Stormont's] patronage'. He continues that he is not at this moment optimistic, as he has not detected much enthusiasm from those people who are in a position to help him.
    Frederick Hamilton also writes on family news and of newspaper reports that his niece is still in Eastbourne, though he believes the reports are incorrect as the weather has been too rough for sea bathing. The same newspaper also mentions a 'catastrophe' close to Eastbourne caused by a strike of lightning.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 474 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 2016/17 provided by The John Rylands Research Institute.

Research assistant: Isabella Formisano, former MA student, University of Manchester

Transliterator: Andrew Gott, dissertation student, University of Manchester (submitted June 2012)

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

Document Image (pdf)