Add MS 48981-48982

; Vol. I, 1716- May 1727; Vol. II, June 1727-1730, n.d.; followed (ff. 248-278b) by other miscellaneous material, 1710-bef. 1741. Partly French. Previous series of Townshend Papers are in Add. MSS. 37634-37638, 38492-38508, 41139- 41152, 41305-41308, 41654-41656, 45902, 46856, and a further series is in 50006-50012. See also Egerton MSS. 892-894, 3124. Lord Townshend was Secretary of State for the Northern Department, 28 Sept. 1714-22 Dec. 1716, and again, 21 Feb. 1721-26 May 1730. At the beginning (Vol. I, ff. 1- 6) are three letters from Charles Whitworth, Baron Whitworth, Envoy and later Minister at Berlin, to Lord Townshend, 24, 31 Oct., 14 Nov. 1716, and one to George Tilson, Under-Secretary of State, 8 July 1721, copies and an extract from which are in the Whitworth Papers, Add. MSS. 37363, ff. 134, 145, 172, and 37385, f. 350. The greater portion of the papers, however (Vol. I, ff. 15-236b, Vol. II, ff. 1-247b), comprises original letters, mostly from Horatio Walpole (1st Baron Walpole of Wolterton 1756), Envoy and later Ambassador at Paris, but also from his Secretary of Embassy, Thomas Robinson (1st Baron Grantham 1761), and from his colleague at the Congress of Soissons, Stephen Poyntz, and a few others, addressed to Townshend and his Under-Secretaries, principally Tilson, together with drafts or copies not only of Lord Townshend's replies but also of a number of his letters to others (the whole supplementing Add. MSS. 37634, 38502- 38504, 46856), 1723-1730, n.d. See also Add. MSS. 32725-32767 in the Newcastle Papers, especially Add. MSS. 32747, 32750-32752, which contain duplicates of much of this material. Some of the present papers are calendared in Hist. MSS. Comm., 1lth Report, App. iv, 1887, pp. 109-114, 120, 121, 345-348; six letters (Vol. I, f. 9; Vol. II, ff. 147, 158, 238, 240, 242) are printed by W. Coxe, Memoirs of the Life and Administration of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford, ii, 1798, pp. 267, 638, 645, 698, 699, the last four from the present papers. Other miscellaneous items placed at the end of Vol. II include correspondence and papers of Spencer Compton, Baron (1727) and Earl (1730) of Wilmington, 1722-1729 (ff. 249-255b, 263-271). The last item (f. 278) is a letter from Nicolas Thompson to Elizabeth, wife of James Compton, 5th Earl of Northampton (sole heir of his uncle the Earl of Wilmington), [ 1734-bef. 1741 ]. Their surviving daughter, Charlotte, married George Townshend, 4th Viscount (1764) and 1st Marquess (1787) Townshend, in 1751. All these dates are given in New Style. Two volumes. Paper; ff. 250, 278. Folio. 1710-1741.