Beschreibung:

AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED (“HENRY M. STANLEY”) TO HIS SOLICITOR GEORGE LEWIS 9pp., 8vo, Union Square, New York, 13th November 1890, presenting the “whole case” of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition with regards to the conduct of the members of the Rear Column, in particular Edmund Musgrave Barttelot and James Sligo Jameson, blaming the men for “murder and ferocity […] malignity and cruelty most appalling” and expressing his inability to “exonerate any one of the five from blame”. He addresses the reports written by the officers and the “libellous statements” contained in the diaries of Barttelot, which were published posthumously by his brother, explaining that there are “numbers of hideous things which will come to light” that he “wished to suppress […] because their principal authors are dead” . He also addresses his own report on the events, published in The Times five days before this letter was written, and the objection he faces from the surviving members of the Rear Column and families of the deceased, writing: “By this I offend the Barttelot family, John Rose Troup, Herbert Ward the Jamesons, and Mr. Bonny. Nobody is satisfied”. ------ The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition has become the most infamous voyage undertaken by Henry Morton Stanley, attracting a huge amount of commentary and criticism by contemporaries and historians alike. Critics of Stanley accused him of ‘shoddy commercialism with little more in mind than making the largest profits possible’ (Imperial Footprints: Henry Morton Stanley’s African Journeys, James L. Newman, Washington, 2006, p. xvii), and the scandal that followed his return to home soil threatened to tarnish Stanley’s reputation permanently. It became the last expedition of its kind. Future expeditions were commissioned by the government purely for military, political or scientific benefit. Two of the men in Stanley’s party, Barttelot and Jameson, died during the expedition and were later accused of various atrocities inflicted upon members of the native population. It is recorded that Barttelot ‘regarded Africans with contempt and maintained discipline by flogging and execution’ (Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H.C.G Matthew and Brian Harrison, Oxford University Press, 2004, vol. 4, p.219). Stanley accused Jameson of misconduct relating to a 10 year-old girl who was murdered and dismembered by cannibals in Jameson’s presence. In his report of 8th November 1890, Stanley ‘represented that Jameson almost directly invited the girl’s murder and made sketches on the spot’ (ibid, vol. 29, pp.754-5). In this letter Stanley writes to his solicitor, reminding him of a promise made to assist the explorer should he require legal aid, explaining that he ‘had no idea that it would be possible that I could be drawn to litigation’. Stanley goes on to explain, in great detail, the accusations of misconduct brought against Barttelot and Jameson and, simultaneously, distances himself from blame. Stanley concludes the letter by declaring: “my conscience acquits me”.