#MB86
1904
Small Octavo (ca. 18x11,5 cm). 3 pp.Brown ink on watermarked paper with blind stamped “Colonial Office” letterhead; marked “Confidential” in ink in the upper left corner. Mild fold marks, otherwise a very good letter.
A confidential private letter by Alfred Lyttleton, British Colonial Secretary in 1903-05, regarding the communications with Canadian officials about the Alaska Boundary Dispute. The letter was most likely addressed to Richard Everard Webster, first Viscount Alverstone (1842-1915), Chief Justice of Great Britain, one of three commissioners on the Alaska boundary dispute – as president of the commission he voted against the Canadian claim.
“I shd be very glad to see your reply to Sir W. Laurier. It is interesting to find that in a memo of [Joseph Hodges] Choate in 1902 Laurier is described as in a most timorous and conciliatory attitude <…> They did not report me at the Canada [?] in full, but I cd not refrain from saying something about you, & the Canadians received it very well, though it was not violently abusive of you.”
