Brief guide to manuscripts collections| William L. Clements Library The University of Michigan Duke of Manchester Papers |
Manchester entered Parliament in 1761, returned for Huntingdonshire. The following year he succeeded to the peerage and was a lord of the bedchamber, 1763-1770. Montagu, pro-American in his views, joined the Rockingham Whigs and was an effective speaker for the opposition in the House of Lords. He was lord chamberlain and a privy councillor in the second Rockingham administration. In April, 1783, Manchester was made ambassador to Paris and negotiated the peace treaty ending the American Revolutionary War.
Diplomatic papers of George Montagu, 4th duke of Manchester, British statesman.
This collection contains diplomatic correspondence, memoranda, drafts of treaty clauses, and instructions received by Manchester during the negotiations in Paris. There are 295 separate items and four letterbooks. Two letterbooks from the embassy in Paris contain copies of 179 items from Lord Grantham and Charles James Fox to Alleyne Fitzherbert, 1782-1783; in the two others are 247 items, among them correspondence between Manchester, Fox, and Vergennes. The papers also include intelligence reports from Manchester's secret agent, Captain F. Taylor, 1787-1788.
Purchased, 1970
The Manchester Papers have been listed but not published in the Historical Manuscripts Commission Eighth Report, part II, appendix (London, 1881), pp. 121-139.
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