Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

HAM/1/19/5

Letter from Mary Anne Napier to Mary Hamilton, with a note from William, 7th Lord Napier

Diplomatic Text


Boston Aprill 12th 1769

[D]ear Madam

      If Mr Napier's letter has reacht Mr Hamilton you'll
see what has so long prevented my Answering yr last
Obligeing Letter I hope none of you imputed my Sillence
to any want of Anxiety to enquire after the Welfare
of friends to whom we have been so much obliged &
whom we regreate we are not likely soon to have
the Pleasure of Seeing -- this I hope will find you
all Well I congratulate you upon the Victory you
have obteined in Election matters: I gueʃs some people
will look rather Small upon the Occaʃsion but hope
Good Neighbourhood will now take the place of Party
rage in yr good Town & its Environs. I'm sorry I dont
know how to rellieve yr Pappa from the trouble of
the Pappers in ye Douglaʃs & Hamilton cause any
other way than by beging he'll put them to any Use
he pleases: the Sentence of the House of Peers haveing
put an End to that affair. Mr Napier does not Love
writeing Letters but wrote one to Mr Hamilton to
Notiffie the Birth of his fourth Daughter the day
it hapned (the 19th of Last Month) I'm now got down Stairs


again after being Ill & confined to my room for three
 ------ Months. yr new Cousin is a fine Jolly Girl she is
Cristened Jane Wilhelmina for her Aunt Cathcart &
her Pappa. the others are much Yours & often talk of
You. we have had no Letters from Ruʃsia later than
those you mention but hear from other people they are
Well & Happy. Part of the Regt: is marcht to Scotland
but those that were here remain till Relieved from some
other Regt: as our Few Men are as mischiviously enclined
as ever we expect to Sett out for Scotland some time
this Month be so good as continue to enclose my Letters
to Mr Hope who will know how to forward them
saffe -- my next to you will proveably be from Edbr: Mr
Napier & the Children join me in offers of best compts
to you Mr & Mrs Hamilton accept the same from
My Dear Miʃs Hamilton Your ever Affect: Cousin
                                                         & most Humble Servant
                                                                   M A Napier
[1]
April 13th Col Napier begs
his Compts may be acceptable
has this instant been favored[2]
wt Mr Hamiltons obliging letter & is extremely Sorry to find
ye Gout still continues to plague him, croʃser no doubt of
ye rancour of ye Babylonians at present tho he sincerely
wishes it may soon blow over but if not he does not
think the Hamilton Family will have ye greatest Loʃs --

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


Notes


 1. The following note is added by Mr Napier. Both the writer and the implicit addressee, Mary Hamilton's father, are referred to only in the third person.
 2. These three lines appear to the left of his wife's signature.

Normalised Text


Boston April 12th 1769

Dear Madam

      If Mr Napier's letter has reached Mr Hamilton you'll
see what has so long prevented my Answering your last
Obliging Letter I hope none of you imputed my Silence
to any want of Anxiety to enquire after the Welfare
of friends to whom we have been so much obliged &
whom we regret we are not likely soon to have
the Pleasure of Seeing -- this I hope will find you
all Well I congratulate you upon the Victory you
have obtained in Election matters: I guess some people
will look rather Small upon the Occasion but hope
Good Neighbourhood will now take the place of Party
rage in your good Town & its Environs. I'm sorry I don't
know how to relieve your Pappa from the trouble of
the Papers in the Douglass & Hamilton cause any
other way than by begging he'll put them to any Use
he pleases: the Sentence of the House of Peers having
put an End to that affair. Mr Napier does not Love
writing Letters but wrote one to Mr Hamilton to
Notify the Birth of his fourth Daughter the day
it happened (the 19th of Last Month) I'm now got down Stairs


again after being Ill & confined to my room for three
Months. your new Cousin is a fine Jolly Girl she is
Christened Jane Wilhelmina for her Aunt Cathcart &
her Pappa. the others are much Yours & often talk of
You. we have had no Letters from Russia later than
those you mention but hear from other people they are
Well & Happy. Part of the Regiment is marched to Scotland
but those that were here remain till Relieved from some
other Regiment as our Few Men are as mischievously inclined
as ever we expect to Set out for Scotland some time
this Month be so good as continue to enclose my Letters
to Mr Hope who will know how to forward them
safe -- my next to you will provably be from Edinburgh: Mr
Napier & the Children join me in offers of best compliments
to you Mr & Mrs Hamilton accept the same from
My Dear Miss Hamilton Your ever Affectionate Cousin
                                                         & most Humble Servant
                                                                   Mary Anne Napier

April 13th Colonel Napier begs
his Compliments may be acceptable
has this instant been favoured
with Mr Hamiltons obliging letter & is extremely Sorry to find
the Gout still continues to plague him, crosser no doubt of
the rancour of the Babylonians at present though he sincerely
wishes it may soon blow over but if not he does not
think the Hamilton Family will have the greatest Loss --

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



 1. The following note is added by Mr Napier. Both the writer and the implicit addressee, Mary Hamilton's father, are referred to only in the third person.
 2. These three lines appear to the left of his wife's signature.

Metadata

Library References

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

Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers

Item title: Letter from Mary Anne Napier to Mary Hamilton, with a note from William, 7th Lord Napier

Shelfmark: HAM/1/19/5

Correspondence Details

Sender: Lady Mary Anne Napier (née Cathcart) and William Napier, 7th Lord

Place sent: Boston

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: Northampton (certainty: medium)

Date sent: 13 April 1769

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Mary Anne Napier [later Lady Napier] to Mary Hamilton, conveying general news of her family. She apologises for her long silence and writes of the birth of her fourth daughter. She also congratulates the Hamiltons on the 'victory you have obt[a]ined in Election matters'.
    Her husband adds a note, dated 13 April.
    Dated at Boston [Lincolnshire].
   

Length: 1 sheet, 444 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: David Denison, editorial team (completed February 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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