Serle, Ambrose

'Thoughts of the Fur Trade on the River Mississippi', 10 pages, folio, 1769
'Lusus Politicius or an Essay on the Pretensions of the Colonies', ("...It is a more glorious and more difficult Task wisely to adjust the Principles of domestic Government, than to conquer a Nation or even to subdue the World..."), 29 pages, folio, 1769
'Thoughts upon the Means of Establishing Episcopacy in the Colonies', two copies, one with an introduction signed by the author addressed to Lord Hillsborough, 71 pages, folio, 1771-72
'A Political Essay [on Rhode Island Affairs]', 19 pages, folio, dated August 1772 (this and above are bundled together with a contemporary label)
Untitled tract on American policy ("...The present system of Policy, with regard to America, seems to be founded upon these Principles; our Superiority over the Colonies, or rather their Dependence upon us, and to make that Dependence productive of Advantages to and determining in the Interest of the Mother Country.."), addressed to Lord Hyde, signed and dated, 10 pages, folio, Lambeth, 28 May 1768, rodent damage with some loss at outer margins
Untitled tract on the development of manufacturing in America, addressed to Lord Hyde, signed and dated, 7 pages, folio, Lambeth, 26 July 1768
'An Epitome of some Facts and Thoughts respecting North America', contending that the American colonies had been a drain on Britain's resources, 18 pages, folio, dated January 1780

This is one of 22 lots that have been removed from Holywell House, Hampshire, the home of the Villiers family, Earls of Clarendon. They chiefly relate to the life and careers of two contemporaries: Henry Hyde, Viscount Cornbury (1710-53), and Thomas Villiers (1709-86), created successively Baron Hyde of Hindon (1756) and Earl of Clarendon (1776).

Cornbury was the last heir to the Earldom of Clarendon that had been created for the statesman and historian Edward Hyde (1609-1674). Cornbury had Jacobite sympathies but was MP for the University of Oxford – with which his family had powerful connections – from 1732 until 1751. He became disillusioned with politics in the later 1740s and spent his final years in France. Cornbury counted Pope and Swift amongst his friends, and was himself the author of pamphlets and at least two plays (see lots 6 and 7). He died, unmarried, in Paris in 1753. Most of Cornbury’s property was inherited by his niece, Charlotte (née Capel). Thomas Villiers, second son of the Earl of Jersey, was her husband. Villiers had spent the 1730s and ‘40s as a diplomat mostly in the German-speaking world (none of his diplomatic papers are included in this offering) and, following his retirement from the diplomatic service, he entered government in the 1760s. As Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1771-82 and 1783-86), Clarendon was in Cabinet during the American War of Independence (see lots 14-19).

Ambrose Serle was a colonial official with a long professional interest in North America (see previous lot). In 1772 he was appointed under-secretary to the Earl of Dartmouth, Secretary of State for the Colonies. He went to America in 1774 and remained there until 1780. He spent periods with the British Army and for a time had control of the New York press. He was the author of Americans Against Liberty (1775) and of many devotional works.