The Correspondence of John Campbell MP, with his Family, Henry Fox, Sir Robert Walpole and the Duke of Newcastle 1734 - 1771

John Campbell’s political letters and writings are here published for the first time, delivering rare and significant insights into eighteenth century English politics and providing a substantial new resource for historians.

• A unique resource - John Campbell’s political letters and other writings are published here for the first time
• This body of work is a substantial and important new source of information for historians working in the field of mid-eighteenth century politics
• Provides remarkable insights into the politics of the time, and especially into debates in the Commons at a time when Parliament had placed an embargo on the reporting of political debates
• All letters are fully transcribed and in their original form

Acknowledgments vii

Abbreviations viii

Primary Sources Consulted ix

Introduction. The Welsh Campbell 1

Chapter 1 1734-40 43

Chapter 2 1741-2 63

Chapter 3 1743 121

Chapter 4 1744-51 153

Chapter 5 1755-6 203

Chapter 6 1757-8 227

Chapter 7 1760-4 246

Chapter 8 1765-6 269

Chapter 9 1767-71 306

Appendices: Campbell's Political Essays and Other Political Writings

1 Account of the Pembrokeshire Election (1727) 319

2 Copy of a Letter to a Nonjuring Gentleman in Scotland Writ in the year 1727 321

3 Essay on the Act of Settlement c.1758 330

4 Comments on the Preface to Spelman's Sixth Book of Polybius, and upon P. Francis' Orations of Demosthenes (c.1759) 338

5 The Substance of a Letter, to a Friend in Scotland upon the Militia Scheme, August 1762 349

6 Statement upon the Removal of Army Officers from the House of Commons, 1765 357

7 Observations (c. 1770) 358

8 Some Account of the Great Demagogue, 1765 362

Index 369

“The Campbell of Cawdor archive is an exciting collection and Davies is to be commended for taking the first steps in making these papers better known. Other scholars will, I am sure, as a result of reading this volume, wish to take up the baton and make their own investigations.” (Parliamentary History, 5 October 2015)

John E. Davies is currently county archivist of Carmarthenshire, Wales. He has previously published The Carmarthen book of Ordnances (1996). In 2008 he completed his PhD at Swansea University on The Cawdor Estates in South-West Wales in the Nineteenth Century.

In 1727 John Campbell began a forty-year career as a member of parliament, during which time he adhered to an old corps whig view of the world. His correspondence, containing letters to his son and to his friend and political ally Henry Fox, to Sir Robert Walpole and to the Duke of Newcastle, is here published together as a single collection for the first time. This unique historical source provides remarkable insights into the politics of the day, and especially into debates in the Commons at a time when Parliament placed an embargo on the reporting of political debates.

His letters to his son Pryse, written during the period of the collapse of Sir Robert Walpole’s administration, are the most extensive and extant collection of historical insights written from the point of view of a staunch Walpole supporter. Campbell’s correspondence with Henry Fox, first Lord Holland, dates from 1755, a period of political turmoil, during which time, various whig administrations attempted to stave off the demise of their power at Westminster, whilst dealing with a major war. Letters written towards the very end of their political lives reveals the views of the two men over the crisis of the Stamp Act, the loss of the American colonies and the parliamentarian furore caused by John Wilkes.