Diplomatic Text
My Dear Miʃs Hamilton
I beg you will deliver the enclosed to my dear
Princeʃses, & write me a few Lines to say how the King & Queen &
all the Family are after the Distreʃsing Scene[1] they have gone thrō
with so much Suffering & Resignation, that my heart really bleeds
when I think upon it. I cannot describe to you the Blank I
felt yesterday Morning, at my first Waking, to find All gone, &
nothing around me but Silence & Melancholly. I hope the Change
of Scene has been some Relief to All; the Reflexion on the
Happineʃs of the dear little Object of this sorrow, must be our
great Consolation.
I have now a little difficulty of my own to mention, that
I beg you will show to the Queen, & ask her Majestys Permiʃsion
to lay it before the King. The Case is this. As his Majesty was
so good as to say I might have my family here as soon as I could,
now my Houʃe was ready to receive them, I settled with Harriet
that they should all come down on Friday, & write to Mr Secker
to inform him of it, & to desire he would give the neceʃsary Orders
concerning my Table, which I understood, his Majesty was pleas'd
to grant me just in the same manner I used to have it from the
Princes Kitchen at Kew. he sends me in answer that the Diet
shall be order'd accordingly, but that the Dishes & Plates &c: be-
-longing to my Table not being yet sent down, he cannot send
them till he has an order from his Majesty himself. I
wish'd to have waited till his Majestys return before I troubled
him about such a Subject, but I am so totally unprovided
with any thing of the Sort, that I find myself under the neceʃsity
of presuming to trouble his Majesty to signify his Pleasure abt.
it, & have sent this by my own Servant, that he may proceed
immediately to London to Mr Secker, if his Majesty will be graci-
-ously pleas'd to give the neceʃsary Order. I feel quite distrest
at my own Presumption (especially at this Time) but hope from
the King & Queen's Goodneʃs, the neceʃsity of it will plead my
Excuse. I shall certainly not Sleep out of this Houʃe, till
the dear little Child's remains are removed, but in the Course of
the day it would be a Consolation & Satisfaction to have my family
to go to, & also very convenient for seeing every thing settled against
I go into it. My Servant will wait to receive the Orders
you will convey to him, & I remain my Dear Miʃs Hamilton
Most faithfully & Affly. Yrs.
CFinch
Lower Lodge. August 22d. 1782.
Miʃs Hamilton
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. The death of Prince Alfred two days earlier, on 20 August 1782, a month before his second birthday.
Normalised Text
My Dear Miss Hamilton
I beg you will deliver the enclosed to my dear
Princesses, & write me a few Lines to say how the King & Queen &
all the Family are after the Distressing Scene they have gone through
with so much Suffering & Resignation, that my heart really bleeds
when I think upon it. I cannot describe to you the Blank I
felt yesterday Morning, at my first Waking, to find All gone, &
nothing around me but Silence & Melancholy. I hope the Change
of Scene has been some Relief to All; the Reflection on the
Happiness of the dear little Object of this sorrow, must be our
great Consolation.
I have now a little difficulty of my own to mention, that
I beg you will show to the Queen, & ask her Majestys Permission
to lay it before the King. The Case is this. As his Majesty was
so good as to say I might have my family here as soon as I could,
now my House was ready to receive them, I settled with Harriet
that they should all come down on Friday, & write to Mr Secker
to inform him of it, & to desire he would give the necessary Orders
concerning my Table, which I understood, his Majesty was pleased
to grant me just in the same manner I used to have it from the
Princes Kitchen at Kew. he sends me in answer that the Diet
shall be ordered accordingly, but that the Dishes & Plates &c: belonging
to my Table not being yet sent down, he cannot send
them till he has an order from his Majesty himself. I
wished to have waited till his Majestys return before I troubled
him about such a Subject, but I am so totally unprovided
with any thing of the Sort, that I find myself under the necessity
of presuming to trouble his Majesty to signify his Pleasure about
it, & have sent this by my own Servant, that he may proceed
immediately to London to Mr Secker, if his Majesty will be graciously
pleased to give the necessary Order. I feel quite distressed
at my own Presumption (especially at this Time) but hope from
the King & Queen's Goodness, the necessity of it will plead my
Excuse. I shall certainly not Sleep out of this House, till
the dear little Child's remains are removed, but in the Course of
the day it would be a Consolation & Satisfaction to have my family
to go to, & also very convenient for seeing every thing settled against
I go into it. My Servant will wait to receive the Orders
you will convey to him, & I remain my Dear Miss Hamilton
Most faithfully & Affectionately Yours
Charlotte Finch
Lower Lodge. August 22d. 1782.
Miss Hamilton
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 Finch to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/12/46
Correspondence Details
Sender: Lady Charlotte Finch (née Fermor)
Place sent: Windsor
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: unknown
Date sent: 22 August 1782
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from Charlotte Finch to Mary Hamilton relating to the death of Prince Alfred. Finch asks Hamilton to write to her to let her know how the King and Queen do after the ‘distressing scene they have gone thro[ugh] with so much suffering & Resignation’. She cannot describe how sad she felt yesterday waking up with everybody silent and sad. The reflection ‘on the Happiness of the dear little object of this sorrow, must be our great consolation’.
Finch notes that she has some difficulty of her own that she begs that Hamilton will show the Queen and ask her permission to take it to the King. The case is that the King had said that Finch could have her family with her as soon as she wished and she is ready to receive them and has written to Mr Secker for him to organise the necessary orders as to the Table which the King had granted ‘in the same manner I used to have it from the Princes Kitchen at Kew’. He has replied that the diet shall be ordered but that the dishes and plates has not been sent down and cannot do so until he received the order from the King. She does not wish to bring such a subject to the King’s attention at such a time but is under the necessity to do so. Finch writes that she will not sleep away from the house until the child’s remains have been removed but it will be consolation to have her family to go to.
Dated at Lower Lodge [Windsor].
Length: 1 sheet, 471 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 14 May 2020)
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: 2 November 2021