Digital History>VirtualExhibits>Dear Madam>Letter 7


Letters Between Catharine Macaulay and Mercy Warren

Writing History

GLC 1800.05B. The Gilder Lehrman Collection.

CATHARINE MACAULAY (1731-1791). Autograph draft signed, dated Binfield [Berkshire], March 1791, to Mercy Warren.

Macaulay and Warren often sent their publications to each other as gifts. With the letter shown here, Macaulay sent Warren a copy of her Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke on the Revolution in France. In that pamphlet, she praised the French for taking action to create a better society and system of government. Macaulay did not believe, as Burke believed, that the revolution would degenerate into chaos and tyranny.

Observations was to be her final work. Macaulay died three months after this letter to Warren was written. In it, she continued to encourage Warren's study of history.

Warren did not publish her History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution until 1805. But she did arrange for an American edition of Macaulay's Observations to be published in 1791, complete with her own introduction to her friend's work.
   
  Larger image of page 1
Larger image of page 2
Larger image of page 3
Larger image of page 4  

Letter 1 | Letter 2 | Letter 3 | Letter 4 | Letter 5 | Letter 6 | Letter 7

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright Digital History 2021