BANCROFT, GEORGE American historian. Six autograph letters signed as U.S. Minister to Great Britain, to Secretary of the Navy John Young Mason, London, 3 February 1847 - 29 December 1848, together 18 pages, 8vo-4to, rodent damage along center fold of one letter (13 September 1848), some wear along folds ; Document signed, Washington, 18 September 1846, one page, 4to , a receipt for payment for various goods (wine, oil, silk damask curtains) purchased by Mason; Three bills of sale for household goods and wine, to Bancroft or to Mrs. Bancroft, 19 September (2) and 18 October 1845, 3 quarter-pages . Bancroft was Minister to Britain from 1846 to 1849, a post that afforded him valuable opportunities to research his great History of the United States . In these lively letters to his friend Mason, who succeeeded him as Secretary of the Navy in the Polk administration, Bancroft requests a midshipman's appointment for his nephew Andrew McFarlane Davis, recommends a Roman astronomer "who seeks a more quiet home in our country" (2 June 1848), sends news from Europe, satirically enumerates the pleasures of political office, and comments on the Mexican War and political developments in Europe and America. 3 February 1847: "...How I envy you the comfort of working from morning till midnight on dull affairs of routine: the debating of new inventions with men who already imagine their elbows deep into Uncle Sam's Treasury; the happiness of encountering the unappeasable discontent of rival officers; the delight of entrusting work to agents, who have no notion of troubling themselves by extraordinary exertions...As to the [war], the best success would be a speedy & adequate peace. Here, the power of England is paralyzed by Ireland.... The social evils in the English system have reached their climax in Ireland, where the distress is beyond all past parallel...". 19 April: "...The friends of free institutions in Europe ardently desire the termination of the war with Mexico, & their enemies are busy in propagating falsehoods of all kinds about the causes of the hostilities. But the advance which America is working in the respect & esteem of Europe, is surprising...". (10)
BANCROFT, GEORGE American historian. Six autograph letters signed as U.S. Minister to Great Britain, to Secretary of the Navy John Young Mason, London, 3 February 1847 - 29 December 1848, together 18 pages, 8vo-4to, rodent damage along center fold of one letter (13 September 1848), some wear along folds ; Document signed, Washington, 18 September 1846, one page, 4to , a receipt for payment for various goods (wine, oil, silk damask curtains) purchased by Mason; Three bills of sale for household goods and wine, to Bancroft or to Mrs. Bancroft, 19 September (2) and 18 October 1845, 3 quarter-pages . Bancroft was Minister to Britain from 1846 to 1849, a post that afforded him valuable opportunities to research his great History of the United States . In these lively letters to his friend Mason, who succeeeded him as Secretary of the Navy in the Polk administration, Bancroft requests a midshipman's appointment for his nephew Andrew McFarlane Davis, recommends a Roman astronomer "who seeks a more quiet home in our country" (2 June 1848), sends news from Europe, satirically enumerates the pleasures of political office, and comments on the Mexican War and political developments in Europe and America. 3 February 1847: "...How I envy you the comfort of working from morning till midnight on dull affairs of routine: the debating of new inventions with men who already imagine their elbows deep into Uncle Sam's Treasury; the happiness of encountering the unappeasable discontent of rival officers; the delight of entrusting work to agents, who have no notion of troubling themselves by extraordinary exertions...As to the [war], the best success would be a speedy & adequate peace. Here, the power of England is paralyzed by Ireland.... The social evils in the English system have reached their climax in Ireland, where the distress is beyond all past parallel...". 19 April: "...The friends of free institutions in Europe ardently desire the termination of the war with Mexico, & their enemies are busy in propagating falsehoods of all kinds about the causes of the hostilities. But the advance which America is working in the respect & esteem of Europe, is surprising...". (10)
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
