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

Map of Havana, 1762

In 1762 the British briefly captured Havana from the Spanish, who had occupied Cuba since Columbus invaded the island in 1492. The anonymous author of this manuscript describes the British battle for Havana and produces a detailed map. However, he omits mention of the enslaved and free black people, "hired" and purchased from other British colonies in the West Indies, who assisted the British soldiers by hauling materials, building structures, and engaging in reconnaissance missions and guerilla-style attacks. Catalog Record

Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Library

Pamphlet Collection (1640-1760)Horace Walpole collected hundreds of pamphlets on historical and political debates during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These cover an impressively wide variety of topics and contain several rare tracts.Extent: 120 volumesSummary: This is an indispensable collection for any scholar interested in the political culture of England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries or curious about the collection of Walpole himself. Over the course of his life, Horace Walpole collected a broad range of printed pamphlets that form an extensive collection of 120 volumes now at the Lewis Walpole Library today. Robert Nugent's Considerations upon the Reduction of the Land-Tax, Robert, Lord Clive's speech to Parliament and the anonymous pamphlet, A Short View of the Dispute between the Merchants of London, Bristol, and Liverpool, and the Advocates of a New Joint-Stock Company: Concerning the Regulation of African Trade are three items highlighted in this exhibit, but they— and the volumes in which each is bound— form only a small sample of the tracts and pamphlets available for consultation. This collection includes political and historical tracts in prose and verse dating from 1640 to 1760, many of which are rare and annotated.