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109 PITT, William, the Younger. Autograph letter signed (“W Pitt”) to William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland. Downing Street: 2 November, 1787 pitt attempts a joint anglo-french abolition of the slave trade Autograph letter signed by Pitt the Younger as prime minister to his close advisor William Eden, at the height of Eden’s influence as envoy to France, in which Pitt attempts to gauge potential French support for the early Abolitionist movement spearheaded by his friend and political ally William Wilberforce, and the prospect of a joint Anglo-French abolition of the trade. 1787 saw the foundation of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and was also the year in which Wilberforce took political leadership of the Abolition movement. Pitt writes “you have had a letter from my friend Wilberforce, on a scheme which may appear to some people chimerical but which I really believe may with proper management be made practicable. If it can, I am sure it is an object well worth attending to and perhaps you may be able to learn the private sentiments of the French Government upon it . . . to Judge whether it can be carried further. I mean the idea of the two nations agreeing to discontinue the villainous traffic now carried on in Africa”. In December 1785 the penal reformer and diplomatist William Eden, 1st Baron Auckland (1744–1814) was sent by Pitt the Younger to serve “as an envoy to negotiate a commercial treaty with France, a task which particularly suited Eden’s expertise in matters of finance and commerce. This step inaugurated the most important and successful phase of Eden’s career” ( ODNB ). There is no evidence however that any overtures Eden made to France for a joint anti-slave trade approach made any impression – had this letter achieved its aim, the history of transantlantic slavery would have been vastly different. Although Pitt’s support for the movement to abolish slavery was unflagging throughout his tenure as Prime Minister, the eventual abolition of the trade would not occur until a year after his death, in 1807.
Single sheet, quarto (239 × 196 mm), handwritten in ink across two pages. Remains of guard on verso where once laid down overwritten in another hand, annotated at foot of second page in a later hand “(To Lord Auckland.)”. Browned with a few areas of discolouration or marks, tiny wear and puncture to left edge not obscuring text, else in very good condition. £8,500 [122705] 110 REAGAN, Ronald. Autograph letter signed, to his long-time friend, the actress Jane Bryan Dart. [“Sunday”, c.1971] a friendly letter to his former co-star Reagan writes in a light-hearted letter to his friend and former co- star Jane Bryan Dart, thanking her for the “beautiful flowers” she and her husband sent, jokes that she may want them back once she begins work with the commission he appointed her to, and promises “not to tell you about my operation”. Jane Bryan (1918–2009) starred with Reagan in three films: Girls on Probation (1938), Brother Rat (1938), and Brother Rat and a Baby (1940). In 1939 she married the businessman Justin Dart (1907–1984). The couple met regularly with Reagan and his first wife, Jane Wyman, whom he had met on the Brother Rat films, and afterwards with Reagan’s second wife Nancy. Their friendship lasted decades, and was significant – the Darts were partly responsible, with other Southern California businesspeople, for persuading and aiding Reagan to run for governor of California in 1966, and encouraged him to run for vice president in 1976, and for president in 1980. In Reagan’s autobiography, he recalls it was Justin who, on a trip to England, first introduced him to Margaret Thatcher ( American Life , p. 204). Justin continued to advise Reagan into his presidency, “the bluntest and most outspoken member of the ‘kitchen cabinet’ of old friends who have been longtime advisers to President Reagan” ( New York Times obituary). Reagan posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1987.
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