BOSWELL (JAMES)

Autograph letter signed ("James Boswell") to Alexander Burnett ("Dear Sir"), British Chargé d'Affaires in Berlin, Leipzig, 14 October 1764

Footnotes

'I WISH THE KING WOULD MAKE ME HIS MINISTER THERE': BOSWELL TAKES IN THE GERMAN COURTS ON HIS GRAND TOUR.

Beginning in April 1763 in the Netherlands, Boswell's continental tour took in Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Corsica, every stage meticulously recorded in his daily journal (see ed. Marlies K. Danziger, James Boswell: The Journal of his German & Swiss Travels, 1764, 2008). He looked upon his continental tour with great satisfaction and, although much of his diary from this period is lost, the portion describing his tour through Germany remains intact and in later years he considered it a suitable candidate for publication – 'I shall perhaps abridge it in a more elegant style' (ed. Geoffrey Scott, Private Papers of James Boswell from Malahide Castle, 1928). However, it may well have been that the huge success of the published Tour of Corsica deterred him from that course, as 'any further publication of his travels must necessarily have the character of an anti-climax' (Scott, p.3).

Our letter, therefore, was written in the midst of an ambitious itinerary which took in a plethora of the lesser German courts. Having just spent four days in Leipzig from 3rd to 7th October and Dresden from the 9th to the 12th Boswell was now back in Leipzig, furious at having to "retourner sur mes pas" after failing to find a seat in the large passenger coach, and thus having to resort to a slower, private coach, a delay he clearly found frustrating and necessitated him giving up a visit to Weimar.

His companion and facilitator in Germany, and the recipient of our letter, was fellow Scot Alexander Burnett (1735-1802) of Kemnay, Aberdeenshire, who had studied at the university of Leiden and came to Berlin as secretary to Sir Andrew Mitchell, his Majesty's Minister to the Court, accompanying him and Frederick II on several fierce campaigns of the Seven Years' War and acting as Chargé d'Affaires from August 1764 to June 1766 whilst Mitchell took a cure for the benefit of his health. Boswell describes Burnett as 'a very good sollid clever young fellow', 'much better than myself' and 'excellent company. His storys flew thick... merry we were...' (Journal, 15 July 1764, 28 August 1764, 6 September 1764). Indeed, some of Burnett's amusing anecdotes were published in Boswelliana and Boswell notes that he 'has found me several words for my Scots Dictionary' (16 September 1764). They clashed only on the issue of the Union - 'After much warm disputation, I said 'Sir, the love of our country is a sentiment. If you have it not, I cannot give it you by reasoning'' (6 September 1764), although they were reconciled over a breakfast of 'Scots oatmeal Pottage and English Porter. This is one of the best methods that can be taken to render the Union truly firm' (17 September 1764).

Copies of Burnett's outgoing correspondence, held in six letter books in the archive at Kemnay, reveal that he had been asked by Boswell's father to urge him to return home at the beginning of his tour, even concocting a plan by which Mitchell would lure him back via Brussels. In one of his daily letters to Andrew Mitchell, Burnett wrote: '...his father had given him leave to make a Jaunt into France... he was uncertain whether he might not go and Pay a Visit to the several small Courts in Germany, then take a Tour through Switzerland, France and so Home: I asked him if his Father did not rather seem desirous of his returning to Scotland as soon as possible – He answered he did above all Things... upon which I said it was my Advice that he ought instantly and cheerfully to comply with His Father's Desire...' (28 August 1764). Needless to say Boswell, taking full advantage of the considerable pleasures available to him, did not take Burnett's advice: '...the continued series of Amusement and Dissipation he enjoyed during the thirteen Days he stayed at Brunswick... has given him such a Taste for travelling and Dissipation that he talks of nothing but of making the Tour of all Europe and then settling to Business... I can easily perceive it will be very difficult to get him to return home unless You was to allure him to come to Spa...and so carry him over to England...'.

According to our letter, Boswell's well-documented admiration of Frederick II 'The Great', of Prussia diminished considerably after witnessing at first hand the ruins of Dresden, the town damaged after Frederick's unsuccessful siege of 1760. Burnett took him to the palace of his former hero at Sans Souci but, despite several requests for an introduction to the King, a meeting was not forthcoming. Burnett's letter book reveals that his reluctance to facilitate such an introduction was due to Boswell's insistence that he should be presented to the King as a Scotsman and not an Englishman: '...I find he makes such absurd Distinctions between Englishmen and Scotchmen... that I am certain something very ridiculous would happen on that Occasion... Ld M. [the Lord Marischal] had said to him that K.P. had a greater Esteem and Value for his countrymen than for the English. You may easily judge after this if it would be prudent to have him presented...' (8 September 1764).

The present letter is published in Susan Burnett, Without Fanfare: The Story of my Family, 1994, p.120, and has been held in the archive at Kemnay House, Aberdeenshire, until now. It is not included in Chauncey Brewster Tinker's Letters of James Boswell, 1924. The original of Alexander Burnett's reply, dated 20 October 1764, is held at Yale (MS. C 704).

Provenance: Alexander Burnett, 4th of Kemnay (1735-1802); and thence by descent.