Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/83/39

Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales

Diplomatic Text

[1]
      Suffice it for me to tell you my friend, that I have
given up my most favorite scheme -- I continue
in a situation for wch. I have neither inclination,
strength of constitution, ornor a sufficient stock of
spirits to support -- I give up the society of people
who are dear to me -- who are partial to me, who
would treat me with the utmost tenderneʃs &
attention, & who were ready to receive me with
affectionate hearts & open arms -- I love independ
ence & Liberty -- I have no taste for the mere
parade of life -- in short, I have already in one
instance proved I was sincere in saying I
                                                         would


act up to the sacred[2] character I had aʃsumed --
                             I know yu. will not betray
      my confidence

      Probably end of July or early in August 1779

typed[3]

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


Notes


 1. Most of this letter appears in Anson & Anson (1925: 77). The text begins mid-paragraph; the preceding part has been cut away, apparently leaving a dashed underline. As they observe in the manuscript annotation at the foot of this letter, its precise date is uncertain. What is clear is that it cannot immediately precede GEO/ADD/3/82/21, as it would be astonishing for the Prince to make no mention of Hamilton renouncing her plans to leave royal employ.
 2. There is a dashed line under the first five or six words on this line.
 3. This word is written vertically at the bottom left of p.2.

Normalised Text


      Suffice it for me to tell you my friend, that I have
given up my most favourite scheme -- I continue
in a situation for which I have neither inclination,
strength of constitution, nor a sufficient stock of
spirits to support -- I give up the society of people
who are dear to me -- who are partial to me, who
would treat me with the utmost tenderness &
attention, & who were ready to receive me with
affectionate hearts & open arms -- I love independence
 & Liberty -- I have no taste for the mere
parade of life -- in short, I have already in one
instance proved I was sincere in saying I
                                                         would


act up to the sacred character I had assumed --
                             I know you will not betray
      my confidence

     

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



 1. Most of this letter appears in Anson & Anson (1925: 77). The text begins mid-paragraph; the preceding part has been cut away, apparently leaving a dashed underline. As they observe in the manuscript annotation at the foot of this letter, its precise date is uncertain. What is clear is that it cannot immediately precede GEO/ADD/3/82/21, as it would be astonishing for the Prince to make no mention of Hamilton renouncing her plans to leave royal employ.
 2. There is a dashed line under the first five or six words on this line.
 3. This word is written vertically at the bottom left of p.2.

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/3/83/39

Correspondence Details

Sender: Mary Hamilton

Place sent: unknown

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

Place received: unknown

Date sent: c.2 August 1779
notBefore 2 August 1779 (precision: medium)
notAfter 5 August 1779 (precision: medium)

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales, on giving up the society of people dear to her; and on her love of independence and liberty.
    [This letter likely refers to the Prince's wish for Hamilton not to quit the Royal Family.]
    [Copy.]
   

Length: 1 sheet, 128 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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