Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/82/26

Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text


26

                             Thursday 26th- August
                                                         1779
                                            ½ past 9 oclock

My dearest, dearest, dearest Sister, Friend,[1]

      I hope you did not suspect me of me being disinge=
=nuous
in my accounts or rather in my confeʃsions concerning
ye conversation that paʃsed between W—— R——[2] and myself
about yrself. I give you my honor in ye. most sacred manner that I
do not recollect a single Syllable more paʃsing between him[3]
me, so far from ever attempting to trust myself to him - I
never had any such idea, & I hope that some time or other
I shall be able to make him sensible of his fault, and then
punish him in a manner proper to shew him that I will
never pardon ingratitude for I look upon it almost as ye.
worst of Vices, I do not so much wonder at his conduct
for you must remember my old favorite reflection, “that im



“=pudence
and deceit always go together” Believe me my sweetest
Friend
I have always found it so, as well in people of higher
ranksphere in life as in those of a lower rank. However
you will saythink at least if you do not say it, (but you
scarce ever will conceal from a friend those thoughts which
you can communicate to them in so delicate a manner as you
generally do) que c'est tout a fait hors de charactere pourfor
a young man like me thus to moralize, and in a manner
to teach his own master. I hope you will find ame a pretty
apt Scholar
, and that I ʃhall imbibe with ye. greatest
avidity the excellent præcepts you are so good as to give me, &
that I shall religiously follow them, practice them &
abide by them through ye. rest of my life.
      We are now separated from each other.
I wish to see you, & wish to set with you & to converse
with you freely upon many Topics, but Imy utmost



wish is, never to be separate from you, to belive constantly with
you, & to paʃs our time partly in friendly conversation and
partly in love, and in ye. Joys of Matrimony. I often
when I am in a pensive mode, set & brood over my
favorite object, & build what are vulgarly called Castles in ye
air, I think I see yrself & me happy in our union, & enjoying
ye utmost felicity that can be, & thinking, but then all
of a sudden those thoughts vanish, and I am as it were
left in a maze, and know not which way to follow in
order to fix my wandring ideas. Pray my sweetest
Friend
continue yr. kind admonitions to me, and
continue to treat me with that freedom which you have
hitherto done. May you enjoy all manner of prosperity
in this world and may we hereafter meet never again
                             to separate in ye next, this is ye constant
                             Prayer of
Yr. Palemon.

                                                         turn ------



P.S. Excuse ye. shortneʃs of this Letter, excuse ye.
badneʃs of its style, & the little there is in it for ye. length
of it, but it was wrote in a hurry, for I was afraid of
being interrupted. Pray inform me as soon as you hear
any thing concerning W—— soonerif you shld.. chance to hear
any thing sooner than me, you shall inform me, if I hear any thing sooner
than you, I will inform you. I suppose you have heard of
A——d's being made C——n of W——r,[4] vous voyez qu'on
ne prend rien a la Cour en étant flatteur, en se rendant le
Bouffon de la Cour, et en jouant un Role digne d'un homme
indigne du Charactère d'un homme, indigne de la nature de
l'homme. I beg you will also inform me if you hear any
thing more of W. R's nonsense. Expliquez moi
ma chère pourquoi vous ne vous promenez jamais, et pour=
=quoi
vous n'étiez pas de la Promenade hier au soir. j'ai
mille choses a vous dire au sujet de cette promenade. Encore
                                                         Adieu, Adieu, Adieu
tout ce qui m'est cher au monde
Vôtre Palemon toujours de même

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


Notes


 1. The time of receipt appears to the right of this salutation.
 2. William 'Billy' Ramus (d. 1792) was from 1762 Page of the Bedchamber and in 1769 promoted to Page of the Backstairs. He was dismissed in 1789, during George III's illness, as reported by the Morning Post of March 1789, because ‘detected in observing his Majesty's looks and gestures during the absence of Dr. Willis with a curiousity very offensively minute’. A persistent legend regarding Princess Elizabeth was that the ‘chest pains’ and ‘spasms’ she suffered in youth were the result of giving birth to Ramus's children, to whom she was secretly married. This seems extremely unlikely, although Dorothy Stuart seems to give the idea a measure of credit (see D. M. Stuart, The Daughters of George III, Edinburgh: R. R. Clark, 1939, p.144).
 3. The conjunction & or and is omitted.
 4. William Arnald was Canon of the Twelfth Stall of Windsor from 1779, having 'served from 1776 to 1781 as sub-preceptor to the prince of Wales' (ODNB). The Prince calls him a 'buffoon' in GEO/ADD/3/82/32. Martha Carolina Goldsworthy tells a comical anecdote about the 'new Cannon' [sic] in HAM/1/14/26 of 10 September 1779. The 'urbanity of his manners', as well as an 'unhappy mental derangement' over his last twenty years, are mentioned in an obituary in the Monthly Magazine (1802, 14.457, reference from Wikipedia).

Normalised Text



                            
My dearest, dearest, dearest Sister, Friend,

      I hope you did not suspect me of being disingenuous
in my accounts or rather in my confessions concerning
the conversation that passed between William Ramus and myself
about yourself. I give you my honour in the most sacred manner that I
do not recollect a single Syllable more passing between him
me, so far from ever attempting to trust myself to him I
never had any such idea, & I hope that some time or other
I shall be able to make him sensible of his fault, and then
punish him in a manner proper to show him that I will
never pardon ingratitude for I look upon it almost as the
worst of Vices, I do not so much wonder at his conduct
for you must remember my old favourite reflection, “that impudence



and deceit always go together” Believe me my sweetest
Friend I have always found it so, as well in people of higher
sphere in life as in those of a lower rank. However
you will think at least if you do not say it, (but you
scarce ever will conceal from a friend those thoughts which
you can communicate to them in so delicate a manner as you
generally do) que c'est tout a fait hors de charactere for
a young man like me thus to moralize, and in a manner
to teach his own master. I hope you will find me a pretty
apt Scholar, and that I shall imbibe with the greatest
avidity the excellent precepts you are so good as to give me, &
that I shall religiously follow them, practise them &
abide by them through the rest of my life.
      We are now separated from each other.
I wish to see you, & wish to set with you & to converse
with you freely upon many Topics, but my utmost



wish is, never to be separate from you, to live constantly with
you, & to pass our time partly in friendly conversation and
partly in love, and in the Joys of Matrimony. I often
when I am in a pensive mode, set & brood over my
favourite object, & build what are vulgarly called Castles in the
air, I think I see yourself & me happy in our union, & enjoying
the utmost felicity that can be, & thinking, but then all
of a sudden those thoughts vanish, and I am as it were
left in a maze, and know not which way to follow in
order to fix my wandering ideas. Pray my sweetest
Friend continue your kind admonitions to me, and
continue to treat me with that freedom which you have
hitherto done. May you enjoy all manner of prosperity
in this world and may we hereafter meet never again
                             to separate in the next, this is the constant
                             Prayer of
Your Palemon.

                                                        



P.S. Excuse the shortness of this Letter, excuse the
badness of its style, & the little there is in it for the length
of it, but it was written in a hurry, for I was afraid of
being interrupted. Pray inform me as soon as you hear
any thing concerning Windsor if you should chance to hear
any thing sooner than me, you shall inform me, if I hear any thing sooner
than you, I will inform you. I suppose you have heard of
Arnald's being made Canon of Windsor, vous voyez qu'on
ne prend rien a la Cour en étant flatteur, en se rendant le
Bouffon de la Cour, et en jouant un Role digne d'un homme
indigne du Charactère d'un homme, indigne de la nature de
l'homme. I beg you will also inform me if you hear any
thing more of William Ramus's nonsense. Expliquez moi
ma chère pourquoi vous ne vous promenez jamais, et pourquoi
vous n'étiez pas de la Promenade hier au soir. j'ai
mille choses a vous dire au sujet de cette promenade. Encore
                                                         Adieu, Adieu, Adieu
tout ce qui m'est cher au monde
Vôtre Palemon toujours de même

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



 1. The time of receipt appears to the right of this salutation.
 2. William 'Billy' Ramus (d. 1792) was from 1762 Page of the Bedchamber and in 1769 promoted to Page of the Backstairs. He was dismissed in 1789, during George III's illness, as reported by the Morning Post of March 1789, because ‘detected in observing his Majesty's looks and gestures during the absence of Dr. Willis with a curiousity very offensively minute’. A persistent legend regarding Princess Elizabeth was that the ‘chest pains’ and ‘spasms’ she suffered in youth were the result of giving birth to Ramus's children, to whom she was secretly married. This seems extremely unlikely, although Dorothy Stuart seems to give the idea a measure of credit (see D. M. Stuart, The Daughters of George III, Edinburgh: R. R. Clark, 1939, p.144).
 3. The conjunction & or and is omitted.
 4. William Arnald was Canon of the Twelfth Stall of Windsor from 1779, having 'served from 1776 to 1781 as sub-preceptor to the prince of Wales' (ODNB). The Prince calls him a 'buffoon' in GEO/ADD/3/82/32. Martha Carolina Goldsworthy tells a comical anecdote about the 'new Cannon' [sic] in HAM/1/14/26 of 10 September 1779. The 'urbanity of his manners', as well as an 'unhappy mental derangement' over his last twenty years, are mentioned in an obituary in the Monthly Magazine (1802, 14.457, reference from Wikipedia).

Metadata

Library References

Repository: Windsor Castle, The Royal Archives

Archive: GEO/ADD/3 Additional papers of George IV, as Prince, Regent, and King

Item title: Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: GEO/ADD/3/82/26

Correspondence Details

Sender: George, Prince of Wales (later George IV)

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: c.26 August 1779
notBefore 25 August 1779 (precision: medium)
notAfter 26 August 1779 (precision: high)

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton, on his conversation with 'W. R.' regarding Hamilton, and his hopes that they will never separate.
    The Prince reflects on the punishment he will give to 'W.R.'. He describes his wish that Hamilton and himself could be happily married.
    Written Thursday, ½ past 9 o'clock.
    Signed 'Palemon'.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 675 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: Transcription and Research Assistant funding in 2018/19 provided by the Student Experience Internship programme of the University of Manchester.

Research assistant: Emma Donington Kiey, undergraduate student, University of Manchester

Transliterator: Emma Donington Kiey (submitted June 2019)

Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors

Revision date: 2 November 2021

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