C.J. Fox | Series of 47 autograph letters signed, to Thomas Coutts, with related material, 1789-1819

Charles James Fox

Series of 47 autograph letters signed, to Thomas Coutts

discussing European and domestic politics, especially the French Revolution and subsequent wars with France, expressing his continued hopes for peace and loathing of the administration ("...Mr Pitt can not make a Peace, nor am I very clear that any one could make any that would not be disgraceful. And on the other hand without Peace I see no means of avoiding utter ruin. In short my opinion is that Mr Pitt and the Court have done so much mischief that no men or measures can restore the country to its former state..."...", 5 September 1796), the possibility of an invasion of Britain ("...it will be a very calamitous measure to the Invaders...", 10 February 1797), his opinion of Napoleon ("...The Consul's temper is at best, I fear, rather tyrannical...", 13 December 1802), as well as personal and family affairs such as Coutts's concern over his daughter's presence in revolutionary Paris, with frequent references to Francis Burdett, the radical MP who married Coutts's daughter Sophia, and to mutual acquaintances such as the heavily-indebted R.B. Sheridan ("..."Mr Sheridan's modes of proceeding are so wholly different from those of every other Person that I can not help still hoping that he will act so as to make him less blameable than he now appears to be..."), c.90 pages, several address panels and wrappers, chiefly 4to, c.1789-1806 (many undated)

[with:] a list of donations to Fox "Paid Promised & Expected"; printed pamphlet, Substance of the speech of [...] Charles James Fox on moving a new writ for the Borough of Tavistock, March 16 1802. London: 1802, 8vo, inscribed ("Thomas Coutts Esqr from the Author"); E. Armistead, two autograph letters signed, to Thomas Coutts, 4 pages, 4to, 30 December 1798 and 21 August 1800; Elizabeth Fox, 6 autograph letters signed, to Thomas Coutts, 4to and 8vo, 14 pages, 21 August 1800 to 26 October 1819

All bound in a large folio album, crushed brown morocco gilt, with engraved frontispiece portrait

A SUBSTANTIAL SERIES OF LETTERS BY THE LEADING OPPOSITION STATESMAN TO THE "KING'S BANKER". Fox's frustration at the course of the long war with France and longing for peace, which are repeated refrains in these letters, caused him to largely retire from public life at points during the later 1790s. These letters run from the increasingly violent turn of the French revolution, through the eruption of European war, the rise of Napoleon, the Peace of Amiens, and the renewal of war.

Fox's correspondent in these letters is the banker Thomas Coutts (1735-1822), who took over the eponymous bank in 1778 and transformed it into the most prestigious bank in the country. The spendthrift Fox was, naturally, a client, but these letters reveal a personal relationship: Fox often asks after the health of Coutts's wife and daughters, and updates Coutts on the Parliamentary affairs of his son-in-law Francis Burdett, who began his career as a Foxite before moving to increasingly radical opinions. 

PROVENANCE:

Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray (1856-1927), of Paddockhurst, armorial bookplate; Sotheby's, New York, 5 June 1996, lot 230