細節
[REVOLUTIONARY WAR]. BARRINGTON, William Wildman (1717-1793) to Samuel Mather (1706-1785), London, Cavendish Square, 12 February 1784. 4 pages, bifolium, closed tears at creases (clean tear across center crease signature page).
"THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE WAS THAT ON WHICH...PEACE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA WAS RESTORED"
A fascinating political letter between a leading British Parliamentarian and the son of Cotton Mather. Barrington--Secretary for War in the first three years of the Revolutionary conflict--corresponded with Mather before the war. But their friendship was a casualty of the conflict. "I rejoice that it is renewed," Barrington writes. Barrington quit Parliament and the ministry in 1778, in part over differences with the Prime Minister over how to put down the American rebellion. "This step I have never repented," he tells Mather, "and I should have enjoyed all possible comfort since my retreat if peace between England and America had never been interrupted. The happiest day of my life was that on which it was restored. I wish every kind of prosperity to the United States tho separated from the parent country; and that friendship between them may be fully restored and perpetuated. But this I think can never be, until the States have fulfilled the Treaty they made with Great Britain; and particularly those articles which relate to the loyalists..." Mather's letter evidently included an extremely negative survey of the state of Britain and invited Barrington to "transfer my property and myself to America." But Barrington's regard for America does not reach that far. "All that I have read and seen makes me averse to become the subject of a Republick." This letter calls to mind Jefferson's famous peroration in his draft of the Declaration--addressed to "these unfeeling brethren" in Great Britain: "we might have been a free & a great people together..." Barrington's letter shows how eagerly men on both sides of the Atlantic sought to revive the fraternity once the war was over.
"THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE WAS THAT ON WHICH...PEACE BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA WAS RESTORED"
A fascinating political letter between a leading British Parliamentarian and the son of Cotton Mather. Barrington--Secretary for War in the first three years of the Revolutionary conflict--corresponded with Mather before the war. But their friendship was a casualty of the conflict. "I rejoice that it is renewed," Barrington writes. Barrington quit Parliament and the ministry in 1778, in part over differences with the Prime Minister over how to put down the American rebellion. "This step I have never repented," he tells Mather, "and I should have enjoyed all possible comfort since my retreat if peace between England and America had never been interrupted. The happiest day of my life was that on which it was restored. I wish every kind of prosperity to the United States tho separated from the parent country; and that friendship between them may be fully restored and perpetuated. But this I think can never be, until the States have fulfilled the Treaty they made with Great Britain; and particularly those articles which relate to the loyalists..." Mather's letter evidently included an extremely negative survey of the state of Britain and invited Barrington to "transfer my property and myself to America." But Barrington's regard for America does not reach that far. "All that I have read and seen makes me averse to become the subject of a Republick." This letter calls to mind Jefferson's famous peroration in his draft of the Declaration--addressed to "these unfeeling brethren" in Great Britain: "we might have been a free & a great people together..." Barrington's letter shows how eagerly men on both sides of the Atlantic sought to revive the fraternity once the war was over.
注意事項
This lot is offered without reserve.