Unlocking the Mary Hamilton papers

Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/83/37

Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales

Diplomatic Text


 - 1

Tuesday,[1] Lmy Cousin Ly Stormont & her little Boy & our Uncle
Frederick to Breakfast with me -- My Uncle Miʃs Tryon & myself
went to Lever's Museum[2] I am a Subscriber -- spent an hour &
½ much to my satisfaction for I have a paʃsion for
Natural History -- I again played at Cards yesterday at
ye Queen House -- their Majesties very gracious the King
told me he had seen my Uncle Frederick at ye. Levée
&c Wedy
Saw ye. King & Queen in ye. white Closet both very kind ye-
Queen gave me something to take for my Hoarseneʃs & lent me a
Box of her own to keep it in &c &c



      Went to Mrs. Jacksons to dinner[3] -- she is Sister to Miʃs A——
M: Clarke -- I know but little of him -- she is very pleasing
in her person & has great right to be admired for beauty, her
character is ye. counterpart of her Sisters, but she more
generally pleases because she is more animated &
lively -- I lay under equal if not greater obligations to
her -- & am certain I poʃseʃs her affection in ye. highest
degree --

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red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)


Notes


 1. The first side at least is in effect a fragment of diary, perhaps literally so and copied out for the Prince in order to demonstrate the strength of one of Hamilton's friendships.
 2. The Leverian Museum, with its natural history collections, was at Leicester House, Leicester Square, from 1775 until 1786.
 3. An incomplete letter (HAM/1/10/1/2) from Caterina Jackson (née Clarke) to Hamilton is dated 11 November 1779, which was a Thursday. Its content makes it unlikely that the dinner referred to here took place before that date. In turn, this implies that the Tuesday and Wednesday diary entries overleaf refer at the latest to 9-10 November.

Normalised Text



Tuesday, my Cousin Lady Stormont & her little Boy & our Uncle
Frederick to Breakfast with me -- My Uncle Miss Tryon & myself
went to Lever's Museum I am a Subscriber -- spent an hour &
½ much to my satisfaction for I have a passion for
Natural History -- I again played at Cards yesterday at
the Queen House -- their Majesties very gracious the King
told me he had seen my Uncle Frederick at the Levée
&c Wednesday
Saw the King & Queen in the white Closet both very kind the
Queen gave me something to take for my Hoarseness & lent me a
Box of her own to keep it in &c &c




      Went to Mrs. Jacksons to dinner -- she is Sister to Miss Anna
Maria Clarke -- I know but little of him -- she is very pleasing
in her person & has great right to be admired for beauty, her
character is the counterpart of her Sisters, but she more
generally pleases because she is more animated &
lively -- I lay under equal if not greater obligations to
her -- & am certain I possess her affection in the highest
degree --

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quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)



 1. The first side at least is in effect a fragment of diary, perhaps literally so and copied out for the Prince in order to demonstrate the strength of one of Hamilton's friendships.
 2. The Leverian Museum, with its natural history collections, was at Leicester House, Leicester Square, from 1775 until 1786.
 3. An incomplete letter (HAM/1/10/1/2) from Caterina Jackson (née Clarke) to Hamilton is dated 11 November 1779, which was a Thursday. Its content makes it unlikely that the dinner referred to here took place before that date. In turn, this implies that the Tuesday and Wednesday diary entries overleaf refer at the latest to 9-10 November.

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/3/83/37

Correspondence Details

Sender: Mary Hamilton

Place sent: unknown

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

Place received: unknown

Date sent: c.14 November 1779
notBefore 11 November 1779 (precision: medium)
notAfter 15 November 1779 (precision: high)

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales, with an account of her activities.
    Hamilton describes breakfast with her cousin Lady Stormont, and Uncle Frederick, and their visit to [Sir Ashton] Lever's museum. She describes playing cards at Queen House, and the King and Queen's kind behaviour towards her; and dinner at Mrs Jackson's, with reference to her personality.
    [Copy.]
   

Length: 1 sheet, 190 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 August 2019)

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

Revision date: 10 December 2021

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