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201

Winston Churchill

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:4,000.00 - 5,000.00 USD
Winston Churchill

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Auction Date:2012 Apr 18 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:5 Rt 101A Suite 5, Amherst, New Hampshire, 03031, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
ALS signed “Winston S. Churchill,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 5 x 8, embossed South Africa letterhead, April 13, 1900. Letter to Mr. [Ramsay] Collins, marked at the top, “Private.” In full: “Thank you for your letter and for its frankness which is refreshing. Perhaps I was scarcely diplomatic in my advocacy. Perhaps this is not the time to write of mercy and forgiveness. But you know perfectly well the spirit that I protested against. It disgusts me. Looking on South African matters with an eye which if it be not trained by long experience is nevertheless undimmed by prejudice, I find much to admire in the Dutch. I regard them as an essential to the development and prosperity of South Africa: and I do not want to associate myself with any—natural if you like—ebullition of racial animosity on the part of their British fellow colonists.

After all I am for fines and disfranchisement, and who in his senses is for more? Why this should seem an odious conclusion simply because it is premised by an appeal for a merciful and tolerant mood, I cannot tell. I am sorry if I have hurt the feelings of people who do not agree with the vindictive views I condemn. Surely they are unreasonable. I am not angry when I hear the crime of theft denounced, but I can quite understand their being annoyed. I have read your letter twice very carefully and will think over what you say. I honour and admire Natal and the Natalians, but I could scarcely expect them to return these feelings if I were only to try to pander to the popular desire. It is moreover my instinct to wish to swim up stream.” In very good condition, with top left corner of first page professionally replaced, central horizontal and vertical fold, one through a single letter of signature, mild toning, and light show-through from writing on opposing sides.

In this 1900 letter to the editor of the daily Durban, South Africa, newspaper The Natal Mercury, Churchill thanks Collins for a critique of his advocacy of a policy of clemency towards the Boers, the descendants of Dutch settlers in southern Africa. After the first Boer War (1880-1881), British Prime Minister Gladstone granted the Boers self-government in the Transvaal, but after the second Boer War (1899-1902) in which the British defeated them, the Transvaal became part of the British Empire and, in 1910, became a province of the newly created Union of South Africa, a British dominion.

The 24-year-old Churchill had been assigned to cover the war in 1899 for the London Morning Post when on November 15, just a month after hostilities began, he was seized with other British passengers when the Boers attacked their train. Brought to a prisoner of war camp, he resourcefully escaped in December. His adventures, which he described in his dispatches to the Morning Post, made Churchill a hero on his return to England in 1900 and, at the age of 25, he was elected to Parliament, beginning his illustrious political career.
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