Brief guide to manuscripts collections| William L. Clements Library The University of Michigan Henry Strachey Papers |
Sir Henry Strachey, son of an impoverished Somerset County family, began his public career as a clerk in the War Office in 1764. The same year he became secretary to Clive and spent the next decade in India. During this time, Strachey developed a close personal relationship to the Governor, and assumed a large share of the administrative duties when Clive's health began to fail. He returned to England in 1768 with sufficient funds to redeem the mortgages on his family's estates and to stand for the House of Commons, remaining a member until 1807. His ability as a 'man of business' made him the logical choice as secretary to Lord Howe, head of the commission sent to negotiate peace with the American colonies in 1776, and after the failure of that mission, he returned to London to take a position with the Ordnance Office. Although Strachey had consistently supported the North ministry, he was given the important post of joint secretary to the Treasury in the second Rockingham ministry. He continued in a key position in the brief Shelburne administration as undersecretary of the Home Department, and in this office, was one of the negotiators of the peace treaty ending the American Revolutionary War.
On July 5, 1773, the earl of Dartmouth, then colonial secretary, sent out a circular letter with 22 questions to the governors of British colonies in North America. This collection of two volumes contains the replies and accompanying records from the governors and other colonial officials. The first volume has the circular letter and replies from the mainland colonies and the Island of St. John; the second volume, replies from the colonies in the West Indies. Strachey, who had been Clive's secretary in India and was a member of Parliament, had this set of copies made for himself when he was appointed secretary to the Howe peace commission. He went to America in the summer of 1776 and stayed until the fall of 1777. Strachey was in undersecretary of state in the Shelburne ministry in 1782.
Letters, reports, and accounts from the papers of Sir Henry Strachey, 1st baronet, British statesman.
The collection contains two bound vellum volumes of replies and reports from the governors of British colonies in North America in answer to the circular of the earl of Dartmouth, July 5, 1773; 52 letters from Strachey, mainly addressed to his wife, 1776-1778; about 10 letters from London to various correspondents in America regarding his estates in Florida and South Carolina, 1770-1802; a letterbook containing 30 letters, chiefly to Patrick Tonyn, Governor of East Florida, regarding Strachey's estate at Beauclerk Bluff' and 30 letters from various correspondents in America largely relating to Strachey's business affairs in America, 1777-1802. The two bound volumes came from Sutton Court, Somersetshire, and include four separate letters from Strachey to his wife Jane Latham Strachey, 1777, relating to family matters.
Purchased, 1924
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