Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/82/40

Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton

Diplomatic Text

[1]

40

19th. Septr.- Sunday
1779[2]


My dearest, dearest, dearest Sister, Friend --

      I am exceʃsively happy to
hear, that you are again perfectly well
& that yr. abominable pain in yr. side
has left you, & that you are again in
better spirits. To be sure yr. Letter
last Night, was abomibinably saucy[3]
no body can deny it, I ʃhd.. not have
made excuses for want of time, had I
had it but I have been so exceʃsively
hurried ever since my return from W——
yt.. I have not had a moment I cld.. call
my own, my greatest pleasure is in



writing to you, next to conversing with
you, & that is ye. greatest pleasure,
happineʃs, & delight yt.. I can experience
But I beseech of you yt.. whatever
spirits or chearfulneʃs you may enjoy
Oh never, never, never hurt me as you
really did last Night, by supposing
me capable of discontinuing volun=
=tarily
a friendship which was, is, &
ever shall be my principal object
to cultivate, that is what I call
trifling with my feelings, my
feelings are strong as yrs. I have as
strong affections as you can have,
therefore I beseech once more never



to throw out such doubts again, but believe
me whenat I say --- & tell me that you
do so in yr. next. I have not begun
upon ye remaining part of ye character
I was too uneasy to do it, till I
had wrote this short Note. Adieu
dearest, dearest, dearest Friend & Sister,
& believe me when I say that I
shall unto my last breath be,
      Yr.. sincerely & ever affectionate
      Brother & Friend --
                             Palemon.
toujours de même

P.S.[4]
O how you love to plague me.


[5]

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


Notes


 1. Extracts from this letter appear in Anson & Anson (1925: 84-85).
 2. The year has been retraced in a different handwriting style.
 3. It is hard to read GEO/ADD/3/83/12 of 19 September as saucy in any sense, including ‘in mock dispraise, as an endearing or admiring epithet implying piquancy or sprightliness’ (OED s.v. saucy 2c) as implied by the postscript below. The Prince probably refers to a letter from Hamilton of 18 September which has not survived.
 4. The label P.S. appears to the left of the signature.
 5. The last page is blank.

Normalised Text





My dearest, dearest, dearest Sister, Friend --

      I am excessively happy to
hear, that you are again perfectly well
& that your abominable pain in your side
has left you, & that you are again in
better spirits. To be sure your Letter
last Night, was abominably saucy
no body can deny it, I should not have
made excuses for want of time, had I
had it but I have been so excessively
hurried ever since my return from Windsor
that I have not had a moment I could call
my own, my greatest pleasure is in



writing to you, next to conversing with
you, & that is the greatest pleasure,
happiness, & delight that I can experience
But I beseech of you that whatever
spirits or cheerfulness you may enjoy
Oh never, never, never hurt me as you
really did last Night, by supposing
me capable of discontinuing voluntarily
a friendship which was, is, &
ever shall be my principal object
to cultivate, that is what I call
trifling with my feelings, my
feelings are strong as yours. I have as
strong affections as you can have,
therefore I beseech once more never



to throw out such doubts again, but believe
what I say & tell me that you
do so in your next. I have not begun
upon the remaining part of the character
I was too uneasy to do it, till I
had written this short Note. Adieu
dearest, dearest, dearest Friend & Sister,
& believe me when I say that I
shall unto my last breath be,
      Your sincerely & ever affectionate
      Brother & Friend --
                             Palemon.
toujours de même

P.S.
O how you love to plague me.


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



 1. Extracts from this letter appear in Anson & Anson (1925: 84-85).
 2. The year has been retraced in a different handwriting style.
 3. It is hard to read GEO/ADD/3/83/12 of 19 September as saucy in any sense, including ‘in mock dispraise, as an endearing or admiring epithet implying piquancy or sprightliness’ (OED s.v. saucy 2c) as implied by the postscript below. The Prince probably refers to a letter from Hamilton of 18 September which has not survived.
 4. The label P.S. appears to the left of the signature.
 5. The last page is blank.

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 George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton

Shelfmark: GEO/ADD/3/82/40

Correspondence Details

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

Place sent: unknown

Addressee: Mary Hamilton

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 19 September 1779
when 19 September 1779 (precision: high)

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from George, Prince of Wales, to Mary Hamilton on her restored health; and her comments the previous evening regarding their friendship.
    Signed 'Palemon'.
   

Length: 1 sheet, 280 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 June 2019)

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

Revision date: 2 November 2021

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