Add MS 38734-38770

HUSKISSON PAPERS : official and private correspondence and papers of William Huskisson, the statesman (b. 1770, d. 1830). He was Under-Secretary for War 1795-1801, Secretary to the Treasury 1804-1806, First Commissioner of Woods and Forests 1814-1823, President of the Board of Trade and Treasurer of the Navy 1823-1827, and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1827, 1828. He had been living at Paris at the time of the Revolution (see 38764 and his correspondence with William Hayley in 38734), and was appointed in 1793 agent under the Aliens Act for doing business with the Émigrés, with whom he Continued to be in contact as Under-Secretary for War under Windham (38769, ff. 1-468 ; cf. Add. MSS. 7972-8088, 37855-37872). From 1799 to 1803 he was agent for the Cape of Good Hope (38769, ff. 469-507), and from 1811 to 1823 for Ceylon (38765, ff. 234-302). He was M.P. for Morpeth 1796-1802, Liskeard 1804-1807, Harwich 1807-1812, Chichester 1812-1823, and Liverpool 1823-1830. He was closely connected both in public and private life with George Canning, whose letters form an important part of the series. For a collection of letters on Huskisson's death, which was the result of an accident at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, see Add. MS. 37048, where some of the writers are the same as in this collection. Huskisson's speeches were edited (largely from the material in 38767, 38768) by J. Wright and published in 1831, together with a memoir written by E. Leeves, Huskisson's private secretary (38758, ff. 258, 317), who prints many letters of which the originals are here. The present collection is a combination of two series of Huskisson papers, the first of which formet.ly belonged to Cecil Cowper, J.P., editor of the Academy (Sotheby's sale-cat., 28 July, 1913, lot 134). The other series (the papers of which are marked Y) was acquired privately. Thirty-seven volumes. Folio.