Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/83/1

Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales

Diplomatic Text

[1]
1
                                                         1
                             May 30



      I accept your friendship & hope I never shall
forfeit your esteem -- in return, I offer you

------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------

------[2] I can without injuring my honor accept Your
friendship -- to listen to more I should justly forfeit the
[e]steem you say yo. have for me -- you never shall
[re]pent the confidences you have placed in me -- & it will be
[you]r fault if our friendship is not permanent as our lives



-- for that I offer you is pure sacred & totally disinterested
-- such a one that time, separation, or difference of situation
never canwill not alter -- I shall believe me, be always
interested in your welfare -- one thing more & I
have done, do not offend my delicacy any moreagain by send-
ing
me presents -- I acknowledge I have a little pride
of heart therefore lay me under no further obligations
of that kind -- the one you gave me some time ago was
a pleasing mark of friendship therefore I scrupled not
to accept it -- the rest were superfluous ------------------------& I shall return them
------------ no more Adieu you will ever have my
warmest wishes my Prayers for your happineʃs
If you chance to forget me in Bustle of the world,
I shall regret we ever form'd a friendship -- but
I will not complain -- I tremble for you -- You will
be surrounded by servileservile flatterers -- You will have
a thousand attachments -- no oneseldom will tell you hear the
truth -- & remember one thing & friends are
not to be bought -- may your fate be happier
than the generallity of peoplepersons in your exalted situation
-- Your heart I believe is excellent -- follow
its dictates & you will be leʃs liable to err than
if you suffer yourself t[3] led away by a thousandnumber of interested wretche[s]



that will surround you -- Adieu -- You see I take the
liberty of a friend -- I drop your titles &c &c --

Sunday Morng. 30th. May 1779





Typed

[4]

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


Notes


 1. This letter appears in Anson & Anson (1925: 73-74).
 2. Three quarters of the lines on this page have been scribbled through and are mostly illegible.
 3. The t is in a different ink to the rest of the insertion, as if the writer had started to insert to be.
 4. A large part of p.2 is visible in this image below the annotation.

Normalised Text



                                                        
                            
     

I can without injuring my honour accept Your
friendship -- to listen to more I should justly forfeit the
esteem you say you have for me -- you never shall
repent the confidences you have placed in me -- & it will be
your fault if our friendship is not permanent as our lives



-- for that I offer you is pure sacred & totally disinterested
-- such a one that time, separation, or difference of situation
will not alter -- I shall believe me, be always
interested in your welfare --
do not offend my delicacy again by sending
me presents -- I acknowledge I have a little pride
of heart therefore lay me under no further obligations
of that kind -- the one you gave me some time ago was
a pleasing mark of friendship therefore I scrupled not
to accept it -- the rest were superfluous & I shall return them
Adieu you will ever have my
warmest wishes my Prayers for your happiness
If you chance to forget me in Bustle of the world,
I shall regret we ever formed a friendship -- but
I will not complain -- I tremble for you -- You will
be surrounded by servile flatterers -- You will have
a thousand attachments -- seldom will you hear the
truth -- & friends are
not to be bought -- may your fate be happier
than the generality of persons in your exalted situation
-- Your heart I believe is excellent -- follow
its dictates & you will be less liable to err than
if you suffer yourself t led away by a number of interested wretches



that will surround you -- Adieu -- You see I take the
liberty of a friend -- I drop your titles &c &c --

Sunday Morning 30th. May 1779






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



 1. This letter appears in Anson & Anson (1925: 73-74).
 2. Three quarters of the lines on this page have been scribbled through and are mostly illegible.
 3. The t is in a different ink to the rest of the insertion, as if the writer had started to insert to be.
 4. A large part of p.2 is visible in this image below the annotation.

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/3/83/1

Correspondence Details

Sender: Mary Hamilton

Place sent: unknown

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

Place received: unknown

Date sent: 30 May 1779

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales, on their friendship; and on requesting that he does not send her presents.
    Hamilton warns the Prince that 'I tremble for you – you will be surrounded by servile flatterers – you will have a thousand attachments seldom will you hear the truth ... friends are not to be bought ...'. She writes that 'if you chance to forget me in Bustle of the world, I shall regret we ever formed a friendship'.
    [A large section has been crossed out, and there are frequent annotations.]
    Written Sunday morning.
    [Draft.]
   

Length: 1 sheet, 281 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: David Denison, editorial team (completed October 2019)

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

Revision date: 10 December 2021

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