Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/82/2

Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text

[1]
                                                         2
Typed
                             April 9th

      I intreat of you my dearest
Miʃs Hamilton to be so kind, as
to pardon me if I gave you an instants
uneasineʃs Last Night by asking you
a question  ---  by his Majesty's order
I did it very innocently not knowing
that there was any joke concealed
under it. I was sorry to see that
you was so not so chearful after
it, as you usually are, and that
you behaved rather coolly to me afterwards
which gave me infinite pain. If
you knew what pleasure it gives
me to see you smile kindly upon
me, I am sure you never would
be so cruel as ever to frolook[2] grave


upon me. I have a great deal more
to say to you which I can not do now
as we are going to ye Play, and whch.
I must defer till Monday. Adieu
my dearest Miʃs Hamilton, and
allow me to sign myself,
                             Your George P.[3]
Friday
9th. April
      1779[4]

P.S. -- [5]
 ------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------
 ------------  Adieu once more my ever
                                                         dear Girl.
                                                         yr. G. P.

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


Notes


 1. An extract from this letter appears in Anson & Anson (1925: 71-72).
 2. Probably the verb frown was abandoned part-way.
 3. The Latin Princeps is analogous to R. for Rex or Regina after the monarch's name. The doodles in GEO/ADD/3/83/61 may be trials of this style of signature.
 4. The date appears to the left of the signature.
 5. A postscript covering the lower half of the page has been censored. The label P.S. can be made out, just over seven lines of writing have been erased, and only the final sentence remains.

Normalised Text


                                                        

                            

      I entreat of you my dearest
Miss Hamilton to be so kind, as
to pardon me if I gave you an instants
uneasiness Last Night by asking you
a question by his Majesty's order
I did it very innocently not knowing
that there was any joke concealed
under it. I was sorry to see that
you was not so cheerful after
it, as you usually are, and that
you behaved rather coolly to me afterwards
which gave me infinite pain. If
you knew what pleasure it gives
me to see you smile kindly upon
me, I am sure you never would
be so cruel as ever to look grave


upon me. I have a great deal more
to say to you which I can not do now
as we are going to the Play, and which
I must defer till Monday. Adieu
my dearest Miss Hamilton, and
allow me to sign myself,
                             Your George Princeps


P.S. --

Adieu once more my ever
                                                         dear Girl.
                                                         your George Princeps

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



 1. An extract from this letter appears in Anson & Anson (1925: 71-72).
 2. Probably the verb frown was abandoned part-way.
 3. The Latin Princeps is analogous to R. for Rex or Regina after the monarch's name. The doodles in GEO/ADD/3/83/61 may be trials of this style of signature.
 4. The date appears to the left of the signature.
 5. A postscript covering the lower half of the page has been censored. The label P.S. can be made out, just over seven lines of writing have been erased, and only the final sentence remains.

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/3/82/2

Correspondence Details

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

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: c.9 April 1779
notBefore 8 April 1779 (precision: medium)
notAfter 9 April 1779 (precision: high)

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton, apologising for a question that upset her.
    The Prince remarks that Hamilton was cool towards him following the incident.
    Written Friday.
    Signed.
    A section of text beneath the Prince's signature appears to have been intentionally removed.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 166 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:

Transliterator: David Denison, editorial team (completed October 2019)

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

Revision date: 2 November 2021

Document Image (pdf)