Autographed Letter Signed Thomas Hamilton

1831. No Binding. Fine/No Jacket. Autograph letter signed, 3pp, 4to, place illegible, 23 July 1831. Thomas Hamilton to Philip Hone, thanking him for "the kindness I have uniformly experienced from you during my stay at New York" and also in Canada: "I set off by the packet tomorrow, circumstances having occurred which make me anxious to reach Engd. as soon as possible. From your friends Colonel Cockburn at Quebec & Mr. Gates at Montreal I recd. every attention. . . . the former Ld. Aylmer was likewise good enough to give me a letter, but from what Colonel Cockburn said I feel assured that yours alone wd. have been quite sufficient to ensure me every kindness. Indeed I found few of the officers in Canada to whom your name & your hospitality were not familiar." Torn at wax seal (with loss of a few words of text); a little soiled along the folds, else good. Historical Context: Thomas Hamilton (1789-1842); Scottish novelist, memoirist, military historian, and political/cultural analyst. He was a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, from which experience emerged his book Annals of the Peninsular Campaign (1829). He was a member of the "Blackwood" writers (published by William Blackwood) in Edinburgh in the 1820s, publishing a semi-autobiographical novel in 1827 titled Cyril Thornton. He was a neighbor and friend of Sir Walter Scott and an intimate and frequent associate of William Wordsworth. Hamilton was the first well-known Scottish author to champion Wordsworth's poetry publicly in Scotland. The letter at hand relates to Hamilton's research trip to America in 1830-31, which overlapped chronologically with Alexis de Tocqueville's journey in 1831-34. Hamilton's 2 volume book, Men and Manners in America, published in 1833, beat Tocqueville's Democracy in America to the press by 2 years and was, for a generation, the more famous work. A first edition of Hamilton's Men and Manners in America currently ranges from between $275 to $1,125 on .