Collections : [Yale University -Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library]

Volume 1 contains 166 letters from George Leveson-Gower, the second Earl Granville, Edmund Hammond, and others to Thornton in Washington dated July 1870 to December 1872. The overriding issue of this period was the continuing dispute over the Alabama Claims and the signing of the Treaty of Washington (May 1871), which created a tribunal to consider the claims, as well as an arbitration framework to address the question of the boundary in the straits of San Juan de Fuca. The second volume holds 156 letters, dated January 1873 through December 1875, which are mostly from the under-secretaries Hammond and Abbott, or from foreign secretaries Lord Granville and Lord Edward Henry Stanley. A wide variety of topics are covered, including all aspects of Anglo-American relations, but also British and American politics, as well as affairs in the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia.

The series consists of two volumes holding copies of Thornton's official correspondence to the British Foreign Office and the foreign secretaries. The first volume contains more than 800 individual communications, and the second contains nearly 1,300; both volumes have manuscript indexes in front. The main recipients of the letters copied into the first volume are the two foreign secretaries of the period 1868-1870, Lord Edward Henry Stanley and George William Frederick Villiers, Earl of Clarendon. Thornton's dispatches contain a wealth of information on American politics and policy of the era, giving his reports on his interactions with members of the State Department, the executive and legislative branches, his observations of foreign policy issues in the media, and more. The second volume covers the period April 1872 through December 1874. The first part of this volume contains much on the ongoing arbitration over the Alabama Claims, but as in the preceding volume a huge variety of topics are discussed, touching on all aspects of Anglo-American relations, as well as American politics and public opinion. For example, the ongoing fisheries dispute with the United States is the subject of several communications, and the Cuban insurrection remained a contentious issue in this period, with many of Thornton's dispatches related to American policy on the matter.

The series contains two volumes holding manuscript copies of Thornton's private outgoing correspondence to the British foreign secretaries. The first volume covers the years 1868 and 1869, with 100 letters to Lord Edward Henry Stanley and George William Frederick Villiers, Earl of Clarendon. The letters in this and the following volume are of a different tone than those in Thornton's official correspondence. They deal much more with Thornton's private conversations with William Seward, Hamilton Fish, and other American officials, and offer Thornton's own thoughts and advice on the British positions, negotiations, and strategy. The tone is much more candid, and the letters are very revealing of Thornton's own thoughts, and his assessments of American policy and policy makers. The earliest letters are indicative of the poor state of affairs between the two nations, while those in the second volume show the views of a man who has been in his post for several years, and who has developed a rapport with Hamilton Fish and other American officials.