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

Item

Copy of a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, April 1746

Title

Copy of a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, April 1746

Description

By the mid-eighteenth century, the renewal of war against France placed a tremendous strain on Britain's global indigenous alliances. This item refers to the closing battle of a 1745 Scottish Highland rebellion. Cumberland's ruthless defeat of "wild" Highland rebels in the 1745 Battle of Culloden, detailed in this letter, earned him the name "the Butcher" and preempted a brutal attrition campaign by the Earl of Albemarle to starve rebellious Highland clans. This letter embodied a spirit of state-backed violence against indigenous communities who operated against the interests of the Crown. Though alliance with Britain held the potential to benefit indigenous communities, efforts by indigenous peoples to reassert control over those alliances also met, at times, with violent suppression by the British.

Contributor

Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Library

Creator

William Augustus, Prince, Duke of Cumberland, 1721-1765

Relation

Edward Weston Papers (1722-1770)These papers contain confidential, unpublished intelligence about British involvement in European and American affairs during mid-eighteenth century, including the conflicts of the Jacobite Rebellions and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.