Diplomatic Text
27 Novbr continued.[1] Miʃs —— the Honble- —— told me of such a
conversation of Miʃs Luttrell's -- the Ducheʃs of Cumberland's
Sister, that I quite detest her, it was little short of
Treason -- Politics are ever an improper conversationTopic for a
Woman -- but how highly improper for her -- The Duke is
a very weak man, & by having connected himself with a
sensible[2] daring set is led by them -- I say no more,
but I trust you will ever be upon your guard & not
aʃsociate with such a Crew.[3]
I do not much admire Miss S B -- I think it is only
in ye. common stile of novels & I should throw it aside
if you had not lent it to me[4] --
[5]
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. It is likely that this fragment belongs with GEO/ADD/3/83/26 of the same date, especially given the deletion at the end of that fragment.
2. The intended sense of the polysemous adjective sensible is most likely ‘substantial, considerable’ (OED s.v. sensible 5b. Accessed 28-10-2020).
3. The background is discussed under Henry Frederick, Prince, duke of Cumberland and Strathearn in ODNB.
4. For earlier exchanges about the novel Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph, see GEO/ADD/3/82/66 and GEO/ADD/3/82/67.
5. This page is blank.
Normalised Text
27 November continued. Miss —— the Honourable —— told me of such a
conversation of Miss Luttrell's -- the Duchess of Cumberland's
Sister, that I quite detest her, it was little short of
Treason -- Politics are ever an improper Topic for a
Woman -- but how highly improper for her -- The Duke is
a very weak man, & by having connected himself with a
sensible daring set is led by them -- I say no more,
but I trust you will ever be upon your guard & not
associate with such a Crew.
I do not much admire Miss Sidney Biddulph -- I think it is only
in the common style of novels & I should throw it aside
if you had not lent it to me --
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
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/3/83/27
Correspondence Details
Sender: Mary Hamilton
Place sent: London (certainty: medium)
Addressee: George, Prince of Wales (later George IV)
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 27 November 1779
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales, advising him to be on his guard around the Duke of Cumberland and 'such a crew'; and her opinion on ['The Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulph'].
Hamilton refers to a conversation of Miss Luttrell, the Duchess of Cumberland's sister, which was 'little short of Treason'. She writes that 'politics are ever an improper topic for a woman', and describes the Duke as 'a very weak man'.
[Draft.]
Length: 1 sheet, 123 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited 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: Transcription and XML version created as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1.
Transliterator: Tino Oudesluijs, editorial team (completed January 2020)
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 10 December 2021