Single Letter

GEO/ADD/3/83/60

Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales

Diplomatic Text

[1]
[2]

0

      I have not a right to divulge the secrets of others, &
never shall be guilty of so doing, but when my
discretion points out I may do them honor if I
love them, or not injure by communication; -- I
have no scruple of telling you, my friend, that ye. name
is a little scheme of ours, in case of accident,[3] to amuse
& divert her mind from dwelling too much on serious
subjects -- I am now & then to write ye. topics of ye-
day, & as she is acquainted wth. ye. principal actors
of ye Drama she may sometimes be diverted with
ye. motel motley scenes -- I am quite grateful
abt.for your expreʃsions abt. —— indeed she is very
amiable -- I look up to her Lady Dartrey, Mrs. Carter
& a few others as superior beings &c &c


[4]

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


Notes


 1. This undated letter has been provisionally placed after GEO/ADD/3/82/47, where the Prince returns the last of the letters from Hamilton's friends and asks for some names to be clarified.
 2. Underneath the letter draft is a faint pencil drawing of two men facing each other.
 3. Possibly a reference to Charlotte Gunning, prone to depression. Hamilton and Gunning often refer to each other as ‘Miranda’ and ‘Astrea’, respectively.
 4. This page is blank.

Normalised Text




      I have not a right to divulge the secrets of others, &
never shall be guilty of so doing, but when my
discretion points out I may do them honour if I
love them, or not injure by communication; -- I
have no scruple of telling you, my friend, that the name
is a little scheme of ours, in case of accident, to amuse
& divert her mind from dwelling too much on serious
subjects -- I am now & then to write the topics of the
day, & as she is acquainted with the principal actors
of the Drama she may sometimes be diverted with
the motley scenes -- I am quite grateful
for your expressions about —— indeed she is very
amiable -- I look up to her Lady Dartrey, Mrs. Carter
& a few others as superior beings &c &c


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



 1. This undated letter has been provisionally placed after GEO/ADD/3/82/47, where the Prince returns the last of the letters from Hamilton's friends and asks for some names to be clarified.
 2. Underneath the letter draft is a faint pencil drawing of two men facing each other.
 3. Possibly a reference to Charlotte Gunning, prone to depression. Hamilton and Gunning often refer to each other as ‘Miranda’ and ‘Astrea’, respectively.
 4. This 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 Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales

Shelfmark: GEO/ADD/3/83/60

Correspondence Details

Sender: Mary Hamilton

Place sent: unknown

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

Place received: unknown

Date sent: c.10 October 1779
notBefore 7 October 1779 (precision: low)
notAfter 10 October 1779 (precision: low)

Letter Description

Summary: Letter from Mary Hamilton to George, Prince of Wales, on discretion; a scheme to divert the mind of [unknown] from 'dwelling too much on serious subjects'; and her admiration for [unknown], Lady Dartrey and Mrs Carter.
    [Draft.]
   

Length: 1 sheet, 139 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 February 2020)

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

Revision date: 10 December 2021

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