Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/83/42

Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales

Diplomatic Text

[1]
of one thing you may be aʃsured I always act &
speak with undeviating sincerity --
had you even resembled that young Lady in any one article
we never, never should have been friends -- her Character
I dislike, did I want bread I would not be so servile
as to belong to her -- this is strong, pardon me but I
must think aloud to you adieu my friend




1

      I am incapable of mean reserve -- when I give
my friendship I give my confidence -- (if it only respects
myself) -- I agree with Young -- That --
Reserve wounds & distrust destroys the sacred tie[2]

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


Notes


 1. On sequence and date, see GEO/ADD/3/83/40 p.1 n.1.
 2. Edward Young (c.1683-1765), Night the Second, 1742 [1868], ll.558-561, ‘What if (since daring on so nice a theme) | I show thee friendship delicate, as dear, | Of tender violations apt to die? | Reserve will wound it; and distrust, destroy.’

Normalised Text


of one thing you may be assured I always act &
speak with undeviating sincerity --
had you even resembled that young Lady in any one article
we never, never should have been friends -- her Character
I dislike, did I want bread I would not be so servile
as to belong to her -- this is strong, pardon me but I
must think aloud to you adieu my friend





      I am incapable of mean reserve -- when I give
my friendship I give my confidence -- (if it only respects
myself) -- I agree with Young -- That --
Reserve wounds & distrust destroys the sacred tie

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



 1. On sequence and date, see GEO/ADD/3/83/40 p.1 n.1.
 2. Edward Young (c.1683-1765), Night the Second, 1742 [1868], ll.558-561, ‘What if (since daring on so nice a theme) | I show thee friendship delicate, as dear, | Of tender violations apt to die? | Reserve will wound it; and distrust, destroy.’

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/3/83/42

Correspondence Details

Sender: Mary Hamilton

Place sent: unknown

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

Place received: unknown

Date sent: ?October 1779
when October 1779 (precision: low)

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales, on her sincerity, and her strong dislike of a lady's character.
    [Copy.]
   

Length: 1 sheet, 100 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: Christine Wallis, editorial team (completed January 2020)

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

Revision date: 10 December 2021

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