During this irresolution she was persecuted by numerous anonymous letters, which she continued to treat with derision or contempt. The correspondence between Mrs. Robinson and the prince had hitherto been merely epistolary. This intercourse had lasted several months, Mrs. Robinson not having acquired sufficient courage to venture a personal interview, and bid defiance to the reproaches of the world. At length, after many alternations of feeling, an interview with her royal lover was consented to by Mrs. Robinson, and proposed, by the management of Lord Malden, to take place at his lordship's residence in Dean Street, Mayfair. But the restricted situation of the prince, controlled by a rigid tutor, rendered this project of difficult execution. A visit to Buckingham House was then mentioned; to which Mrs. Robinson positively objected, as a rash attempt, abounding in peril to her august admirer. Lord Maiden being again consulted, it was determined that the prince should meet Mrs. Robinson for a few moments at Kew,[41] on the banks of the Thames, opposite to the old palace, then the summer residence of the elder princes. For an account of this incident, an extract from a letter of Mrs. Robinson, written some years afterward, to a valued and since deceased friend, who during the period of these events resided in America, may not be unacceptable to the reader. The date of this letter is in 1783. [Illustration: The First Meeting of Mrs. Robinson and the Prince of Wales Original etching by Adrien Marcel]