Beschreibung:

GRENVILLE, Sir George (1712-1770), British politician. A portion of the Grenville Papers relating to British policy towards the American colonies, the Stamp Act and its repeal, and colonial agitation, 1760-1768, many in the hand of Grenville and bearing his notes and additions. Comprising 42 documents (letters, documents, memoranda), together approximately 150 pages, 4to and folio, housed in separate folders in a red morocco folding case. Note: A detailed inventory is available by fax or by e-mail (address requests to CFrazier@christies.com). GRENVILLE AND THE FAILURE OF BRITISH POLICY TOWARD THE AMERICAN COLONIES, 1760-1768 "There were many causes for the growing irritation in the American colonies, but the measure that turned discontent into incipient revolutiuon was the Stamp Act of 1765" (D. Cook, The Long Fuse: How England Lost the American Colonies 1760-1785, p.51). Grenville, a brilliant financier, was largely the author of that and similar acts. He served in Parliament from 1741 until his death in 1770, and held at various times the posts of Treasurer of the Navy, First Lord of the Admiralty and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Succeeding Lord Bute as Prime Minister from 1763-1765, he initiated the prosecution of John Wilkes for criticism of the King and, as a means of recovering the huge cost of the recent war with France, tightened customs and excise enforcement and formulated a group of revenue acts including a Sugar Act and the Stamp Act, both enacted in 1765. Although repealed the next year, the latter played a critical role in alienating the American colonists from the Crown and inspired James Otis' brilliant characterization of that policy as "taxation without representation." Included here are personal letters to Grenville--from colonial Governors including Thomas Pownall (two letters on growing American disaffection), and Cadwallader Colden (five long letters of vigorous complaint, 1768), merchants and commercial agents, from fellow parliamentarians including Sir George Savile (berating an American), the Marquis of Rockingham (Grenville's successor as Prime Minister) and H.S. Conway, Secretary of State for the Colonies. In a copy of one letter of Conway to Virginia's Governor Fauquier (No.23), Conway considers the recent "precipitate resolutions" in the Virginia Assembly (the Virginia Resolves, introduced by Patrick Henry), which asserted that taxation without representation was illegal. In addition, the archive features Grenville's own copies of such documents as the famous Masschusetts Circular Letter of 11 February 1767 drafted by Sam Adams and James Otis (No.32), a circular letter from four New York Sons of Liberty (no.26) who include John Lamb (1735-1800) a notorious agitator; resolutions from colonial legislatures, including Massachusetts (No.29), Rhode Island (No.30), Charleston, S.C. (no.31); copies of letters to various colonial governors regarding problems in enforcing the Stamp Act; numerous drafts of legislation or resolutions, notes on Bacon's Rebellion as a precedent, protests against the repeal of the Stamp Act, and memoranda recording deliberations within parliamentary commitees debating these acts and attendant problems in the American colonies. For a complete inventory, with details, please request a list. Provenance: George Grenville (d.1770) -- George Grenville, First Marquis of Buckingham, whose extensive family papers, known as the Stowe Manuscripts and housed at Stowe, were later acquired by the Huntington Library -- Anonymous owner (sale, Sotheby Parke-Bernet, 17 November 1964, lot 118, comprising 72 items) -- The present owners, by descent.