History Today

Lord Shelburne and North America

It fell to Shelburne in his public offices to wrestle with the problems of the American colonies. During his Prime Ministership in 1782-83, writes W.O. Simpson, Shelburne concluded the treaty of peace that recognized their independence.

The XYZ Affair

Twenty years after the Declaration of Independence, writes Louis C. Kleber, the Americans, now at peace with Britain, were involved in tortuous negotiations with the Directory of the French Republic.

Washington’s French Volunteers

Besides La Fayette, writes Arnold Whitridge, many French volunteers joined the American forces to fight for a freedom they had not yet won in France.

The Atlantic Cable

The transatlantic connection was ‘an additional bond of union’, in the words of Queen Victoria to President Andrew Johnson, which strengthened the link between Britain and the United States.

Brady of Broadway

Thomas J. Brady offers a study of a fashionable photographer who became the great visual recorder of the American Civil War.

Beaumarchais and the American Revolution

Arnold Whitridge introduces a musician, a financier, and a playwright who was also a secret agent; Beaumarchais believed in the success of American arms, and organized a flow of supplies and munitions from France to the hard-pressed colonists.