A North American Tour Journal 1824–1825: The Making of a Prime Minister Hardcover – June 30, 2025

Follows Edward Stanley’s 1824–25 journey through North America, a formative tour that profoundly shaped his political ideals.In July 1824, Edward Geoffrey Smith Stanley arrived in New York City at the end of a month-long voyage from Liverpool. The young MP and future 14th earl of Derby had left England under a cloud. His political career was off to a rough start, and he was in love with a woman he was forbidden to marry. The lengthy tour of America that he was about to embark on—a ‘banishment’ as he called it—had been imposed upon him.From July 1824 into March 1825, Stanley travelled extensively throughout the eastern half of North America. He crossed mountains and lakes, journeyed up and down rivers, and trekked through pine barrens, swamps, and marshes. He travelled by stagecoach, steamboat, canoe, horseback, and sometimes on foot, studying every aspect of the towns and countryside he passed through. He was sometimes surprised, and sometimes shocked, by what he saw: the complex interactions between the Catholic French and their Protestant British neighbours in Canada; the horrifying lives of black slaves in the Southern states; the poverty of Irish immigrants in the North; the degradation of Native Americans everywhere. It left a deep impression on Stanley, shaping his future career as a political reformer and distinguished statesman.Table of ContentsPreface by Caroline Derby; Acknowledgements; List of Illustrations; Editorial Statement by Lisa A. Francavilla; Maps and Chronology; Introduction by Andrew O’Shaughnessy and Jeanie Grant Moore; Stanley’s Opening Remarks and Arrival at New York 21 July to 26 August 1824; New York to Canada 26 August to 13 September 1824; Montreal & Quebec, with Stanley’s Thoughts on Canada 13 September to 3 October 1824; New England Region and Philadelphia 3 October to 8 November 1824; Travels Westward 8 November to 13 December 1824; By Rivers to New Orleans 13 December 1824 to 3 January 1825; Across the South to Charleston, South Carolina 3 January to 1 February 1825; Northward to Washington, DC, and Environs 1 February to 16 March 1825; Return to England, Impressions & Observations 16 March to 15 April 1825; Appendix; Index. Read more