Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/83/9

Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales

Diplomatic Text



5th Septr- My friend -- I am not going to torment you ▼
with my usual remonstrances on the impropriety of our
correspondence  ---  -- my heart & mind are satisfied as to the
perfect rectitude of my intentions both now & hereafter --
Our coinciding minds & similarity of sentiments pro-
mise the continuance of a friendship beyond which I
wish not to see -- there is only one circumstance wch. preys
upon my mind, & wch. I own the idea of wch. renders me at
times very unhappy -- it is the unfortunate neceʃsity of acting
in a clandestine manner -- it hurts at once my delicacy &
my pride, & if by any unforeseen chance it should hereafter
be discovered -- the two persons most dear to you, would
naturally judge me with great severity -- This event, were
it to happen would absolutely break my heart -- for I
never could have courage or resolution to make my own
defence -- indeed how could I excuse my conduct, being
so conscious of its being apparently wrong -- Your Mother
would detest me as being a most designing artful
                                                         character -- not a human


creature -- I am well persuaded -- not even my best friends
would do me strict justice -- though they might judge
differently on ye. affair -- How would those who are
devoid of sentiment deride the declaration of a dis-
interested & pure friendship subsisting between
persons of such different situations in life
      I will teaze[2] you no longer on this subject


Typed[3]

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


Notes


 1. Moved annotation here from the right margin, at the end of the first line.
 2. This means ‘worry or irritate’ rather than the lighter modern sense (OED s.v. tease v. 1, 2a. Accessed 16-11-2020).
 3. This annotation appears at the bottom right, written at an angle.

Normalised Text



5th September My friend -- I am not going to torment you ▼
with my usual remonstrances on the impropriety of our
correspondence -- my heart & mind are satisfied as to the
perfect rectitude of my intentions both now & hereafter --
Our coinciding minds & similarity of sentiments promise
 the continuance of a friendship beyond which I
wish not to see -- there is only one circumstance which preys
upon my mind, & which I own the idea of renders me at
times very unhappy -- it is the unfortunate necessity of acting
in a clandestine manner -- it hurts at once my delicacy &
my pride, & if by any unforeseen chance it should hereafter
be discovered -- the two persons most dear to you, would
naturally judge me with great severity -- This event, were
it to happen would absolutely break my heart -- for I
never could have courage or resolution to make my own
defence -- indeed how could I excuse my conduct, being
so conscious of its being apparently wrong -- Your Mother
would detest me as being a most designing artful
                                                         character -- not a human


creature -- I am well persuaded -- not even my best friends
would do me strict justice -- though they might judge
differently on the affair -- How would those who are
devoid of sentiment deride the declaration of a disinterested
 & pure friendship subsisting between
persons of such different situations in life
      I will tease you no longer on this subject


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



 1. Moved annotation here from the right margin, at the end of the first line.
 2. This means ‘worry or irritate’ rather than the lighter modern sense (OED s.v. tease v. 1, 2a. Accessed 16-11-2020).
 3. This annotation appears at the bottom right, written at an angle.

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 Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales

Shelfmark: GEO/ADD/3/83/9

Correspondence Details

Sender: Mary Hamilton

Place sent: unknown

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

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 5 September 1779

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales, on her concerns regarding the clandestine nature of their friendship; and fears of the King and Queen's reactions if discovered.
    [Draft.]
   

Length: 1 sheet, 239 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 July 2019)

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

Revision date: 10 December 2021

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