The Mary Hamilton Papers : Letters from Mary Hamilton to Barbara Evelyn Isabella ('Bell') Gunning and Charlotte Margaret Gunning (later Digby)

The Mary Hamilton Papers

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Two letters from Mary Hamilton to Isabella and Charlotte Gunning. The first letter, directed in a frank to Charlotte but almost certainly intended for Isabella, is dated 27 August 1783. It concerns Charlotte Gunning's health and news of Sir William and Lady Wake.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The second letter is incorrectly dated November 1789 for 1779. This incomplete letter to Charlotte Gunning relates to the unwanted attentions of a suitor [possibly a Mr Bourdieu who proposed marriage to her]. Hamilton writes that ‘little fool B has offer[e]d that great fool of a woman 100 Guineas to procure a small lock of my Hair – my answer was, That provided he W[ou]ld cut off his hair he should have the combings of mine’ which her maid ‘might give him to make a little bob wig & to be worn without powder’. She notes that he wrote a letter from ‘Babel’ to enquire after her. She is anxious that he used her full name in the note and that ‘from his manner of talking & writing about me – any person that did not know me might imagine I encouraged it’.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Original reference No. 23.</p>