Papers, 1806 April 24-1807 Aug. 7

Résumé du livre

Collection consists of travel documents and letters received, which detail a trip to England, Scotland and France undertaken by Buckminster, accompanied by fellow Unitarian minister Samuel Cooper Thacher. On the trip, Buckminster met scholars, writers, politicians, and other Unitarian ministers (many of the letters are dinner invitations) and gathered a large collection of books that would form the core of the library of the Boston Athenaeum. Travel documents include (in folder 1): Passport for Buckminster requesting British naval commanders and privateers not to interfere with his passage to Liverpool aboard the U.S. frigate John Adams, signed by Andrew Allen, Jr., British consul for New England, 1806 May 7; passport for Buckminster signed and sealed by Massachusetts governor Caleb Strong and John Avery and endorsed by Marc-Antoine Giraud, French commissaire for New England, 1806 May 9; passport (with an elaborate engraved heading) for Buckminster signed by Don Juan Stoughton, Spanish consul for New England, 1806 May 9; passport signed and sealed by Sylvanus Bourne, U.S. consul at Amsterdam, for passage to France, 1807 Aug. 8. Letters received (in folder 2) include those from Samuel Palmer, William Smith, John Hurford Stone, Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford (1806 Nov. 21, inviting Buckminster to dinner and describing the controversy at the French Academy over the reception for Cardinal Maury), William Wilberforce, and Helen Maria Williams. Letters received (in folder 3) include those from David Dickson, Thomas Brown, Dugald Stewart (partial letter), Robert Anderson (2 letters), Thomas Belsham, James Ingram (1807 July 7, thanking Buckminster for a copy of "Mr. [Noah?] Webster's work," making a lengthy and positive appraisal of it), J.B. Elwyn for "Mr. Pinney" (1807 July 11, permission has been obtained to visit Lord Spencer's library), Thomas Jervis (1807 July 18, about obtaining books and pamphlets for each other), and Thomas Rees. Miscellaneous material (folder 4) includes lecture tickets for the Athénée de Paris and the Athénée des Etrangeres and a summons for Buckminster to appear as witness at the Cour de Justice Criminelle, Paris, 1807 Jan. 21.