Private and Confidential: Letters from British Ministers in Washington to the Foreign Secretaries in London, 1844-67

These letters are not the official numbered dispatches that have been readily available to scholars for a number of years. Rather, they are letters that were exchanged on a personal level between British diplomats serving in Washington, D.C., and their foreign secretaries back in London, and that bore the bold marking "Private and Confidential" on the envelopes and on the letters themselves. The majority of them have not been published previously, nor were they filed with the official Foreign Office documents which are available to the public. Instead, they were retained among the private papers of each foreign secretary, and were therefore solely his property and entirely dependent on his heirs for preservation. As a consequence they reside in various collections scattered throughout the British Isles.
The private letters usually dealt with matters of the greatest urgency and diplomatic delicacy and were intended only for the eyes of the recipients, not for subordinates in the Foreign Office. They were sent with special care by diplomatic courier so as not to fall into the hands of the United States Post Office where they might be appropriated by press reporters.
The Barneses have provided each letter with an introduction in order to place it in its contemporary context. Allusions within the letters are clarified by notes. Brief biographical sketches of key individuals are included in an appendix.
Because of the private nature of these letters, they give a fuller and more human dimension to the events they describe. There are remarkable insights concerning American politics and society by foreign diplomats who were not casual travelers but experienced observers trained to note and record their impressions. Since their terms of office ranged up to five or six years, their judgments transcend the superficial. Whatever prejudices they had enlivened their style of writing and add another dimension to the reader's understanding of America and its people. Unlike their continental European counterparts, these ambassadors suffered no language barrier and accommodated themselves more readily to life in the United States. For them, in spite of past differences, a common literature, commerce, and tradition bound the two nations together.
Throughout the period covered by these letters crucial diplomatic issues like the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny. were being discussed. Domestically, slavery and statehood dominated the political scene. Reading these letters recalls those turbulent times and captures them in a new and penetrating way.