Add MS 39855

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES in the hand (cf. Add. MSS. 5726 c., f. 161 ; 32714, f. 107) of "Sir Alexander Cuming, of Culter, [2nd] Baronet, who in the year 1730 brought over to England seven chiefs of the Cherokee Indians to pay their homage to His Britannick Majesty George the second," with copies of his memoirs to George II and Queen Caroline and of his correspondence with [William Stanhope, Baron, afterw. Earl of] Harrington, Secretary of State, relating to an alleged promise by the King, then Prince Electoral of Hanover, to Cuming's father in 1708. Written in August 1764, except ff. 1-3,which are insertions (dated 28 Dec. 1767, at the Charterhouse, to which Cuming had been admitted as a pensioner on 3 Jan. 1766). The MS. does not seem to be identical with the " journal," owned in 1796 by Isaac Reed, which was used by D. Lysons for his biographical notice of Cuming in Environs of London, iv, pp. 20-22. In any case it is evident that Cuming was the author of several such compositions, for the extracts quoted in The Scottish Journal of Topography, etc., ii (1848), pp. 254, 255, and Notes and Queries, 1st Ser., v (1852), pp. 278, 279, are not to be found in the

present MS., and the two note-books mentioned in Notes and, Queries, llth Ser., x, p. 328 are obviously different. Paper; ff. i + 42. Small octavo. A.D. 1764, 1767. Belonged to William Upcott (sale-cat., 22 June 1846, lot 41), and Sir Thomas Phillipps (MS. 12103, sale-cat., 24 June 1919, lot 143).