Global Encounters and the Archives: Britain’s Empire in the Age of Horace Walpole

Cabinet Minutes, March 29, 1762

The year 1759 may have been Britain's annus mirabilis in the Seven Years' War (1756 –1763), but it was the 1763 Treaty of Paris that cemented Britain's position as a global empire on which the sun never set. This item is a written record of a private meeting between King George II and his ministers toward the close of the war, which affords insights into the delicate nature of treating with France for peace. In addition to contending with the unpredictability of other European courts, Britain's ministers of state relied on their ideas about the political-economic potential of specific colonial holdings when making their concessions to France and Spain. Central to this item was John Stuart, Lord Bute, who received appointments as secretary of state in 1761 and prime minister in 1762. Bute was a close relative of Clan Campbell, the government's primary indigenous Highland ally in the eighteenth century. His central role in the 1763 Treaty of Paris exemplifies the rising influence of Highland clan chieftains and their relatives to the highest levels of state governance in the 1760s –a controversial development that led many to conceive of Bute and others as "Scottish Intruders" in ministerial politics.

Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Library

Edward Weston Papers (1722-1770)These papers contain confidential, unpublished intelligence about British involvement in European and American affairs during mid-eighteenth century, including the conflicts of the Jacobite Rebellions and the Seven Years' War.Extent: 25 volumesSummary: The Edward Weston Papers contain twenty-five volumes of vital and confidential information regarding the Jacobite Rebellions, the Seven Years' War and British affairs in Europe, North America and the West Indies in the mid-eighteenth century. These offer insights into the thoughts of Edward Weston (1702/03-1770) and his contemporaries on key political moments that were not otherwise disclosed and certainly not printed. In addition to these more candid political papers, this collection also contains drafts of formal letters and treatises, personal correspondence and several volumes of Jacobite materials. Larger than the Weston collection at the British Library, this archive sheds new light on the diplomatic history of the reign of George II and the early years of George III.