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Britain's triumph over France in the Seven Years' War intensified many of the factors that produced the French Revolution in 1789. This item refers to an event that took place on October 5, 1789, when an angry mob of nearly 7,000 working women –armed with pitchforks, pikes, and muskets –marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles. These women demanded that King Louis XVI distribute the bread that the palace had hoarded, sanction the August Decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and accompany them back to Paris to see for himself the plight of his subjects. Louis and Marie Antoinette became prisoners of the Third Estate the very next day, solidifying women's distinctive contributions to the intensifying French Revolution. The page on view here is an excerpt from the author's recounting of the opinion of the député de la commune, a local government official, who was dubious about the aims and motivations of the revolutionaries. He argued that while the people claimed to be fighting for liberty and against corruption, they, just like the "Machiavélistes at Court," exchanged their honor for power. Driven solely by hate, he claimed, they sought only to defeat their rivals with no regard to moderation, tolerance, or the intricacies of domestic and international politics. This was more or less in line with an imperial, and state-sympathetic, diagnosis of the French Revolution. Catalog Record
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Henry Seymour Conway was Horace Walpole's first cousin. The two maintained a close lifelong friendship and correspondence. Conway's military and political activities put him at the center of Britain's imperial projects: his parliamentary career began in 1741; he was secretary of state under Rockingham and Chatham; and, after a long career in the army he rose to commander-in-chief of forces in 1782 and field marshall in 1793. The portrait on view descended through the sitter's family. It is a copy painted after a lost original that was requested by the people of Boston in 1765 to hang in Faneuil Hall in celebration of his support for repeal of the Stamp Act. Conway sent the portrait in 1767. Conway is depicted wearing a military breast plate and a sword under his red coat. In his left hand he holds an unidentified letter. He rests his right hand on the table where lies a manuscript copy of the Free Port Bill that opened the West Indian trade to Boston merchants and a copy of the bill for the repeal of the Stamp Act. A globe displays the western hemisphere highlighting Conway's imperial interests and activities in North America.Catalog Record
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In his memoirs, John Trusler describes a visit of "three Cherokee Chiefs" and their wives to England twenty-eight years later, in 1762. Presumably, these were the Cherokee who accompanied Lieutenant Henry Timberlake, who had recently negotiated a treaty with inhabitants of the Upper Cherokee towns on the Tellico and Tennessee rivers. According to Trusler, they "were brought over from America in order to give them some idea of the Equity and lenity of the English Government, and if possible to attach them to it, in preference to France and Spain which had made some overtures." The actor Thomas Lowe (1719 –1783) brought them to Marylebone, a London pleasure garden and entertainment venue, where they "were exhibited every evening to a crowded company during the hours of their supper," an "exotic" spectacle for which guests paid Lowe. They also were the satirized subjects of Henry Howard's "A New Humorous Song, or the Cherokee Chiefs. Inscribed to the Ladies of Great Britain," illustrated on a 1762 broadside. Catalog Record
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Alured Clarke was a chaplain-in-ordinary to kings George I and II; in 1731 he became a prebendary of Westminster Cathedral. Charlotte Clayton was a woman of the bedchamber to Caroline, Princess of Wales. In this letter to Charlotte, Clarke describes a 1734 visit by members of the Yamacraw Nation to King George II at Kensington Palace. The Yamacraw were a Creek tribe who lived along the Savannah River in what had become the British colony of Georgia two years earlier. James Oglethorpe, founder of the colony and one of its trustees, orchestrated the visit. Clarke remarks at length on the Yamacraw party's clothes (including their English garments) and body paint. Midway through delivering a speech, the Yamacraw chief Tomochichi presents George II with animal skins and "sticks with Feathers on 'em which are Emblems of Peace and which he laid very submissively upon the Skins, as a Token of his Entering into a firm Alliance with us." It seems possible that these "sticks" were, in fact, feathered peace pipes, such as the one depicted in the print The Dance of the Calumet of the Sun (1809). Catalog Record
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In a letter to her friend Elvira, the Englishwoman Mrs. Percivall describes a masquerade that took place at the Haymarket playhouse in London and evokes the fantasies that a global British Empire spurred in the metropole. "Imagination cannot form any thing more Amazing and diverting than the infinite Number of habits of all nations Sexts [sic] and Religons [sic] which compose a Masquerade," she declares (57); "here Indian Kings make love to Milk Maids" (58) and one might encounter "Sparkling Witt, from a Mulata [sic; a woman of black and white parentage] and all the politeness of a Lady bred at the most refined European Court from the Appearance of a Gypsey [sic]" (59). Conjuring the East, she declares that, "had Mahomet known the charms of a Masquerade he would have promised his followers that kind of paradice" (59). Catalog Record
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This map served as the frontispiece to Charles Hayes's (1678 –1760) pamphlet in support of the Royal African Company (RAC), founded on September 27, 1672, to bring the West African and American colonial trade, including the trade in enslaved persons, more tightly under the Crown's control. Hayes, sub-governor of the RAC, worried over the possibility that the nation's rivals might monopolize this trade, and advocated for financial support of the various forts and other infrastructure upon which the RAC relied. The map marks forts controlled by the British and other European countries, and includes the names of African villages and nations with whom Europeans traded goods for enslaved persons. The map's compass points due north to Cape Coast Castle, Britain's largest slave-trading fort, and the mapmaker notes that it lies along the "Meridian of London" –tying the slave fort to the metropole. Hayes reported that Cape Coast Castle included "Repositories to lodge one thousand Negroes, and Vaults for Rum" –the latter being a product that those enslaved persons would be forced to produce in the British West Indies, if they survived the Atlantic crossing. Catalog Record
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By this deed, a Native Tunxis man by the name of Thomas Curricomp along with "Abigail his wife" sold to "Timothy Root and his Heirs and Assigns forever" the parcel of land on which the Lewis Walpole Library now sits. The land deed arising from this 1785 transaction serves as both a material artifact of contractual Euro-Indigenous relationships in the eighteenth century, and a reminder that the land that this exhibition itself stands on was formerly inhabited by indigenous people.Tunxis Sepos, what is now Farmington, Connecticut, had been inhabited by the indigenous Tunxis groups prior to English settlement. By the mid-17th Century, however, as English settlement encroached upon Native space around the nearby town of Hartford, the Tunxis actively assimilated their displaced Indian neighbors, a strategy that expanded their numbers, strengthened their political influence in Central Connecticut Indian Country, and, most likely, insured their continued presence on the land. Living among English neighbors burdened the Tunxis with continuous anxiety over land loss and violence, but such close proximity also offered tribal members access to English schooling and military training. These encounters, together with exposure to the ideas of George Whitefield during the First Great Awakening, fostered an 18th Century Indian cultural and intellectual renaissance in Southern New England, in which Farmington became one of the more important tribal hubs. While the political organization of the Tunxis may not have survived, descendants of the men and women who once occupied Tunxis Sepos surely have. Please visit the Yale Indian Papers Project for more information about indigenous groups native to Connecticut. Catalog Record
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At the very least, Martial Law in Jamaica, created during the Haitian Revolution's final years and published long after its conclusion, mocks local militias' notorious lack of proper training. However, it also evokes anxieties over black enslaved and free soldiers' loyalty to British colonists –in particular, the possibility that black people in Jamaica (both soldiers and non-soldiers) might revolt like their Haitian counterparts. Catalog Record
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In 1762 the British briefly captured Havana from the Spanish, who had occupied Cuba since Columbus invaded the island in 1492. The naval squadron controlled by George Keppel, Earl of Albemarle and eventual governor of British Havana, appears in the map's upper right. Paired with this document is a letter that Keppel sent to his friend William Adair the following year, explaining his decision to limit the "importation of blacks" into Havana during his governorship. He was concerned that too large an enslaved population would (1) be dangerous, given the weakened, sickly British military presence there; (2) tempt the Spanish to invade the colony (and, potentially, capture enslaved persons for their own plantations); and (3) limit the number of enslaved persons whom planters on other British West Indies islands could purchase.
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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
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This pamphlet cautions against a proposed larger and stronger joint-stock company, which would monopolize the trade in enslaved persons, advocating instead for both the maintenance of the current Royal African Company (RAC) and the ability of independent merchants to carry on trade. In addition to reflecting the far-from-unified British response to the transatlantic slave trade's operations, the document sheds light on the murky laws that govern it. For example, inland African traders often worked with coastal Africans to sell enslaved persons directly to independent merchants, thereby circumventing the RAC. In response, RAC officials sought to confiscate the proceeds from those sales once the vessels returned to shore. If the coastal African could not "make good the damage to the inland trader," the author explains, "he [was] liable to be sold as a slave." Catalog Record
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By the early 1770s, Britain's policies toward South Asian and North American indigenous peoples had changed significantly. Robert Clive's acquisition of diwan from Mughal Emperor Shah Alam had transformed the British Company into territorial sovereigns of Bengal, while the ejection of the French from North America catalyzed an insatiable demand by settlers for expansion into the Ohio Valley. Both South Asian and North American indigenous peoples faced new imperial policies that reduced their status within the empire in entangled ways. Robert Clive, who was synonymous with new forms of governance in India, used his speech to Parliament to frame "inferior" Bengalis as "servile" and "mean" and "superior" Bengalis as "effeminate" and "cruel." Here, Thomas Walpole's agreement also downplays indigenous peoples' status by casting the Six Nations Iroquois not as North American power brokers, but as agents for the transaction of territory to white settlers. Thomas Walpole's papers help to explain this overlap; before leading his group of investors to seek the Iroquois land grant in North America, he had in fact served as an East India Company director and influenced company policy in India.
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By the early 1770s, Britain's policies toward indigenous peoples had changed significantly. Robert Clive's acquisition of diwan from Mughal Emperor Shah Alam had transformed the British Company into territorial sovereigns of Bengal South Asian indigenous peoples faced new imperial policies that reduced their status within the empire in entangled ways. Robert Clive, who was synonymous with new forms of governance in India, used his speech to Parliament to frame "inferior" Bengalis as "servile" and "mean" and "superior" Bengalis as "effeminate" and "cruel." Catalog Record
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When war reached its peak in 1746, the French captured the British East India Company's Fort St. George in Madras, India, with the assistance of a "Black Governor." This governor was indigenous potentate Anwar-ud-din, Nawab of Arcot, who supported the French because they promised him Madras. This intelligence –notably from a secretary of state –showcases the indispensability of French-allied Indians to French ambitions in India and highlights the ways in which French-allied native peoples shaped policy choices available to ministers back in London. It also reflects how indigenous potentates leveraged alliance to achieve indigenous ends: after this victory the French withdrew their promise of Madras, and Anwar-ud-din struck back by forging a new military alliance with the British.
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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 "reduction" of the Cherokee nation in the southern colonies of British North America in the Seven Years' War. The remarks about "reducing" the Cherokee in North America embodied a characteristic 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. Catalog Record
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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.
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Despite his role in repealing the Stamp Act in the Rockingham Ministry, Henry Seymour Conway was dismissed from his ministerial role under the Duke of Grafton's new administration in 1768. Horace Walpole wrote this letter to Conway, his cousin, upon hearing the news. Walpole excoriates the Duke of Grafton for dismissing Conway, writing that Grafton "would be puzzled to give a tolerable reason for" his choice. Also of note is Walpole's global perspective; destabilizing this ministry would prove dangerous with "London and Middlesex distracted, the colonies in rebellion, Ireland ready to be so, and France arrogant and on the point of being hostile."
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The origins of the Stamp Act lay not only in Seven Years' War debt, but above all in the staggering new costs of frontier defense and the devastating impact of Native American warfare on colonial frontier settlements in Pontiac's War (1763 –1764). Despite Prime Minister George Grenville's enthusiastic support, the Stamp Act met with an avalanche of protest from Patriot Whigs in the American colonies and in Britain. This circular, which informed American colonists of the Stamp Act's repeal by Parliament in 1766, shows that Britain's mainland North American colonies were not the only ones expected to finance governance; the Caribbean colonies, too, found themselves facing the Stamp Act, but unlike the reactions in the thirteen colonies further north, these tensions never led them to declare independence from Britain.
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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 letter from Secretary of State Lord Bute to George Grenville on the negotiations for the Treaty of Paris 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 document 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.
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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.
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Spanning the continents of Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa, the Seven Years' War (1756 –1763) was by most accounts the first true world war. Less well known is the significance of this global conflict for the British Empire, which ejected the French from North America and emerged as Europe's principal imperial superpower by war's end. This account offers a history of 1759, when the war turned in Britain's favor. The triumphalist tone in this author's account of Britain's "miraculous year" was soon belied by the problems of governing so expansive an empire. From South Asia to North America, Britain's territorial expansion after 1763 only exacerbated the problems it aimed to resolve; in addition to fomenting powerful indigenous resistance in North America and Bengal, the expense of defending such vast territories inspired Prime Minister Grenville to pass the Stamp Act in 1765. Within ten years, these imperial tensions brought the colonies to the brink of revolution. Catalog Record
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Even in times of peace, the British government was gravely concerned about preventing French universal monarchy by erecting buffers to French influence in Europe. For this reason, Britain's secretary of state, the Duke of Newcastle, proposed paying subsidies to German princes in Europe following the Peace of 1748. Arising at the peak of public concern over the rising national debt, however, these subsidies produced acrimonious debates in Parliament because of their sizeable expense –debates outlined in detail here in this letter to Charles Hanbury Williams. In the wake of the Seven Years' War, these same debates would re-emerge –this time not in relation to German subsidies, but rather over the question whether to end the costly Native American gift-giving protocols that were central to indigenous diplomacy in North America.
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These minutes afford a rare glimpse into the kinds of issues debated in both houses of Parliament. In this particular session, deliberations over such issues as the national debt, the Royal African Company, and the fate of the Scottish Highlands took place concurrently and involved the same members of Parliament (MPs). These minutes prove that disputes over issues concerning slavery, indigenous people, diplomacy, and financial reform were entwined at the highest levels of government, enabling MPs to advance comparable arguments for imperial issues that may otherwise have remained separate.
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After 1748, the staggering expenses of the War of the Austrian Succession brought Britain face to face with the highest national debt it had ever confronted. This, in turn, catalyzed political economic debates at home and across the empire over the best way to raise revenues necessary to reduce that debt and finance imperial stability abroad. This book, a compilation of various proposals for financial reform, demonstrates that these debates over taxation and the national debt were published and disseminated across Britain's robust imperial public sphere. Together these essays reveal a public deeply divided on questions of imperial finance, and also one engaged with questions of taxation and imperial governance long before the Stamp Act crisis of 1765. Catalog Record