Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/82/21

Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text

[1]
                                                         21
                                                         2d. August 1779


      ▼
      Pardon me my dearest, my dearest
my dearest Sister, Friend, when I
tell you that yr. Letter this Morning hurt
me very much. I conjure you by all
that is dear to you, if you ever had
or still have ye. smallest spark of
affection for me, never let me hear
you mention again yr. imprudence in accepting
of my friendship, I conjure you also to
continue to call me by ye. tender Name
of Friend & to treat me as such, or
else you will break my heart, for love
esteem you I shall unto my last
breath. I have now not a moment more
to spare, I am & ever shall be,
Yr. sincerly affectionate Friend

                                                         a la mode du Female.

      P.S. If I present you with ye B——
at W—— it shall be done so as not to alarm yr.
delicacy in the least. Keep up yr. spirits. Adieu Adieu Adieu[2]

[3]

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


Notes


 1. The order of the correspondence at the beginning of August 1779 differs from the sequence in the Georgian Papers Online catalogue. In GEO/ADD/3/83/39, Hamilton renounces her plans to leave royal employ. It would be astonishing if the Prince made no reference to this if the present letter was written afterwards; we have therefore reversed their order. The next letter in the sequence, GEO/ADD/3/82/22, expresses the Prince's relief, though not explicitly for Hamilton's remaining at Court.
 2. Moved postscript here from the top of the page.
 3. The second page is blank.

Normalised Text


                                                        
                                                        
      ▼
      Pardon me my dearest, my dearest
my dearest Sister, Friend, when I
tell you that your Letter this Morning hurt
me very much. I conjure you by all
that is dear to you, if you ever had
or still have the smallest spark of
affection for me, never let me hear
you mention again your imprudence in accepting
of my friendship, I conjure you also to
continue to call me by the tender Name
of Friend & to treat me as such, or
else you will break my heart, for love
esteem you I shall unto my last
breath. I have now not a moment more
to spare, I am & ever shall be,

Your sincerely affectionate Friend

                                                         a la mode du Female.

      P.S. If I present you with the Bracelet
at Windsor it shall be done so as not to alarm your
delicacy in the least. Keep up your spirits. Adieu Adieu Adieu

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



 1. The order of the correspondence at the beginning of August 1779 differs from the sequence in the Georgian Papers Online catalogue. In GEO/ADD/3/83/39, Hamilton renounces her plans to leave royal employ. It would be astonishing if the Prince made no reference to this if the present letter was written afterwards; we have therefore reversed their order. The next letter in the sequence, GEO/ADD/3/82/22, expresses the Prince's relief, though not explicitly for Hamilton's remaining at Court.
 2. Moved postscript here from the top of the page.
 3. The second page is blank.

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/3/82/21

Correspondence Details

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

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: c.2 August 1779
notBefore 1 August 1779 (precision: medium)
notAfter 2 August 1779 (precision: high)

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton, on his pain at her letter regarding her imprudence in accepting his friendship.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 154 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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