Diplomatic Text
My Dearest Hammy
I return you ten thousand
thanks for your Letter, which is filled with the most
undeniable tharuths. I have not now much time &
therefore must deffer from the Present to give you
an ingenuous account of myself, which I am afraid
will not be very pleasant, but I hope with the next
Post to send you one which will please you better &
give me more satisfaction.
We have been at Windsor, Miʃs Planta & Mr de Guif
fardiere accompany us there. I have one hour every
Morning with the Latter. Mama has wore the trimming
you saw me work her last Summer. She has ordered
me for the Present to put by my Westcoat not
because it was too great a peice of Work for me but
because she was afraid as I have not much time
to work, it would dirty. I have bought myself
a little Spa Toilet[1] for 2£2,, 2s2 which contains every
thing that can poʃsibly be wanted. Pray give my
Love to all those it is due.
July 13th 1780. Pʃs. R.
We see a great deal of Lady Courtown, who I think
improvses upon one I wish you was acquainted
with her I am sure you would Like her.
Pray tell Elizabeth that next Week I shall
write to Her. My Dear Hammy
For Ever yours
CharlotteM.
July 13, 1780. Kewhouse.
Miʃs Hamilton
EastBourn
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Normalised Text
My Dearest Hammy
I return you ten thousand
thanks for your Letter, which is filled with the most
undeniable truths. I have not now much time &
therefore must defer from the Present to give you
an ingenuous account of myself, which I am afraid
will not be very pleasant, but I hope with the next
Post to send you one which will please you better &
give me more satisfaction.
We have been at Windsor, Miss Planta & Mr de Guiffardiere
accompany us there. I have one hour every
Morning with the Latter. Mama has worn the trimming
you saw me work her last Summer. She has ordered
me for the Present to put by my Waistcoat not
because it was too great a piece of Work for me but
because she was afraid as I have not much time
to work, it would dirty. I have bought myself
a little Spa Toilet for 2£2,, 2s2 which contains every
thing that can possibly be wanted. Pray give my
Love to all those it is due.
We see a great deal of Lady Courtown, who I think
improves upon one I wish you was acquainted
with her I am sure you would Like her.
Pray tell Elizabeth that next Week I shall
write to Her. My Dear Hammy
For Ever yours
CharlotteMatilda
July 13, 1780. Kewhouse.
Miss Hamilton
EastBourn
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from Charlotte, Princess Royal, to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/1/5/17
Correspondence Details
Sender: Charlotte Augusta Matilda, Princess Royal
Place sent: Kew
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Eastbourne
Date sent: 13 July 1780
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Charlotte, Princess Royal, to Mary Hamilton. She writes to Hamilton from Kew, having been to Windsor. She notes that the Queen has worn the trimmings that Hamilton saw Charlotte work on the past summer and has ordered Charlotte to stop working on her 'Westcoat' [waistcoat] at present 'not because it was too great a peice of Work for me but because she was afraid as I have not much time to work, it would dirty'. She continues that she has bought herself 'a little Spa Toilet for £2 2s which contains everything that can possibly be wanted', and that she has seen a great deal of Lady Courtown [Mary Stopford née Powys (d. 1810), wife of James Stopford, 2nd Earl of Courtown], who improves upon acquaintance, and she is sure that Hamilton would like her.
Length: 1 sheet, 229 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: XML version first created without transcription as part of project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers', funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under grant AH/S007121/1. Transcription added after the funded period under the supervision of David Denison and Nuria Yáñez-Bouza.
Transliterator: Mercedes Bermúdez-Santiago, undergraduate student, University of Vigo (submitted 20 February 2025)
Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library
Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 29 September 2026
