Single Letter

HAM/1/10/1/2

Incomplete letter from Caterina Clarke (later Jackson) to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


      Relative to my Mothers death

9.

------------
      Novr. 11th. 1779.
      9 O'Clock

My dearest Miranda

      Do not think you have
been out of my thoughts altho it
is an age since I have told you you were
in them; but you have been nevertheleʃs &
as the last is generally the strongest
impreʃsion I have not thought of you
lately without pain -- I hope your
spirits are better than when you
wrote to me last -- your spirits I say
for your spirits only are affected, but
for God's Sake my dearest don't give way
to melancholy ideas -- if any one has



can upon retrospection of their conduct
in the most trying situations can with
the most perfect aʃsurance applaud them
selves
, without flattery it is yourself --
your letter affected me I know what you
must have felt! I do feel for you &
particularly at this time & I have
wished we were not so much divided
I have thought of you with pain ever
since I recieved it, & it is the only letter
of yours that I never open'd after the
day it came to my hands -- I have
been going to write to you frequently
then I was at a loʃs how to write
to you -- & then I defer'd it in hopes of
coming to you soon -- we have been down[1]

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


Notes


 1. The rest of the letter has been lost.

Normalised Text




------------
      November 11th. 1779.
      9 O'Clock

My dearest Miranda

      Do not think you have
been out of my thoughts although it
is an age since I have told you you were
in them; but you have been nevertheless &
as the last is generally the strongest
impression I have not thought of you
lately without pain -- I hope your
spirits are better than when you
wrote to me last -- your spirits I say
for your spirits only are affected, but
for God's Sake my dearest don't give way
to melancholy ideas -- if any one



upon retrospection of their conduct
in the most trying situations can with
the most perfect assurance applaud themselves
, without flattery it is yourself --
your letter affected me I know what you
must have felt! I do feel for you &
particularly at this time & I have
wished we were not so much divided
I have thought of you with pain ever
since I received it, & it is the only letter
of yours that I never opened after the
day it came to my hands -- I have
been going to write to you frequently
then I was at a loss how to write
to you -- & then I deferred it in hopes of
coming to you soon -- we have been down

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



 1. The rest of the letter has been lost.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Incomplete letter from Caterina Clarke (later Jackson) to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: HAM/1/10/1/2

Correspondence Details

Sender: Caterina Jackson (née Clarke)

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: Kew (certainty: low)

Date sent: 11 November 1779

Letter Description

Summary: Incomplete letter from Caterina Clarke to Mary Hamilton (addressed as 'My dearest Miranda'), expressing her sympathy on the death of Hamilton’s mother.
    Original reference No. 9.
   

Length: 2 sheets, 215 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: Sarah Connor, undergraduate student, University of Manchester

Research assistant: Carla Seabra-Dacosta, MA student, University of Vigo

Transliterator: Joseph Gill, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted May 2017)

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: 3 October 2023

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