¹ Ambassadors were exchanged with leading European powers in 1893, an event itself symbolic of the new role which the United States was coming to play in world affairs, see Plesur, M. S., America's outward thrust (Westport, Conn., 1971), pp. 35–50Google Scholar.

² Porter, B., ‘British foreign policy in the nineteenth century’, Historical Journal, XXIII, 1 (1980), 193–202, quotation p. 194CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³ Gaddis, J. L., ‘The emerging post-revisionist synthesis on the origins of the cold war’, Diplomatic History, VII, 3 (1983), 171–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Kennedy, P. M., The rise and fall of the great powers. Economic change and military conflict 1500–2000 (London, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁵ Geertz, C., ‘Thick descrption: Toward an interpretive theory of culture’ and ‘Deep play: notes on the Balinese cockfight’, in his The interpretation of cultures (London, 1975), pp. 3–30, 412–53Google Scholar.

⁶ Lukes, S., ‘Political ritual and social integration’, in his Essays in social theory (London, 1977), pp. 53–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ For example, Cannadine, D. N., ‘The context, performance and meaning of ritual: The British monarchy and the “invention of tradition”, c. 1820–1977’, in Hobsbawm, E. and Ranger, T. (eds.), The invention of tradition (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 101–64Google Scholar; Cannadine, D. N., ‘The transformation of civic ritual in modern Britain: The Colchester Oyster Feast’, Past and Present, No. 94 (1982), 107–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cannadine, D. N. and Hammerton, E., ‘Conflict and consensus on a ceremonial occasion: The Diamond Jubilee in Cambridge in 1897’, Historical Journal, XXIV, I (1981), 111—46Google Scholar; Hobsbawm, E., ‘Mass producing traditions: Europe, 1870–1914’, in Hobsbawm, and Ranger, , Invention of tradition, pp. 263–308Google Scholar; Hobsbawm, E., Age of empire (London, 1987), ch. VIGoogle Scholar. A similar point is made in Gellner, E., Nations and nationalism (Oxford, 1983)Google Scholar.

⁸ A notable exception is the work of Akire Iriye on Japanese-American relations.

⁹ Gaddis, J. L., ‘Legacies: Russian–American relations before the cold war’, in his The long peace. Inquiries into the history of the cold war (New York and Oxford, 1987), pp. 3–20 and especially pp. 7–10Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Higgs, R., Crisis and Leviathan. Critical episodes in the growth of American government (New York, 1987), pp. 47–56, quotation p. 55Google Scholar..

¹¹ Hunt, M. H., Ideology and U.S. foreign policy (New Haven, 1987), pp. 15–16Google Scholar.

¹² Tulis, J., The rhetorical presidency (Princeton, 1987), pp. 13, 67–87Google Scholar. The latter section shows the shortcomings of Tulis's analysis when he dismisses the rhetoric of the Yorktown centennial as ‘brief greetings with no policy content’.

¹³ Rosenberg, C. E., The trial of the assassin Guiteau, psychiatry and law in the gilded age (Chicago, 1968), pp. ix–xii, 1–2Google Scholar.

¹⁴ The best source of biographical data is Peskin, A., Garfield (Kent State, Ohio, 1978), quotation p. 363Google Scholar; there is a brief account in the Dictionary, of American Biography, VIII, 145–50.

¹⁵ Argyll to Lowell, 16 July 1881 and Gladstone to Lowell, 6 Dec. 1881, Harvard University, Houghton Library, Lowell papers, bMS Am 1483 and bMS Am 765; Bennett, D. M., A truth-seeker around the world (4 vols., New York, n.d.), II, 333–4Google Scholar; Smalley, G. W., ‘President Garfield in England’, in his London letters, and some others (2 vols., London, 1890), II, 346Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Smalley, , ‘Garfield in England’, pp. 339–41, 346–7Google Scholar; The Times, 26 and 27 Sept. 1881 gave details of British events designed to coincide with the funeral.

¹⁷ The Times, 4 July, 21 and 22 Sept. 1881; also Commercial and Financial Chronicle (New York), 24 09 1881, p. 316Google Scholar for similar points and discussion of Garfield's suffering as an event of global significance.

¹⁸ The Times, 22 Sept. 1881.

¹⁹ Ibid.Smalley, , ‘Garfield in England’, pp. 339–47Google Scholar; Whitby (Yorkshire) Gazette, 1 Oct. 1881.

²⁰ See reports to the state department from consulates in Britain, especially Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, London, Manchester and Newcastle, Record Group 59 (RG59), National Archives (N.A.), Washington D.C.

²¹ Smalley, , ‘Garfield in England’, pp. 339–47Google Scholar.

²² Consul Jones, Newcastle to Mr Hitt, 20 Sept. 1881, RG59, N.A.

²³ I have mainly relied on The Times, 27 Apr. to 8 May 1865, 4 July to 1 Oct. 1881, and 7 Sept. to 20 Sept. 1901 for details of British responses to the deaths of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. It carried extensive notices in the editions of 22, 23, 24, 26 and 27 Sept. 1881 of British activities.

²⁴ Adams, C. F. jr., ‘A national change of heart’, in his Lee at Appomattox and other papers (Boston, 1902), pp. 261–3Google Scholar.

²⁵ The Times, 21 Sept. 1881, also 22 Sept.

²⁶ Consul Farrell, to Mr Hitt, 27 Sept. 1881, RG59, N.A.

²⁷ Lowell, J. R., ‘Garfield’, in his Democracy and other addresses (London, 1887 edn), pp. 45–7Google Scholar, this was his speech at Exeter Hall.

²⁸ Lowell, J. R., ‘On a certain condescension in foreigners’, Atlantic Monthly, XXIII, 1 (1869), 82–94, especially p. 94Google Scholar; compare this with his ‘Garfield’ and the introduction to it, from which the allusions are taken.

²⁹ Drummond to Granville, 20 Sept. 1881, no. 275, London, Public Record Office (P.R.O.), Foreign Office (F.O.) files FO5/1756.

³⁰ Hale to Lowell, 25 Sept. 1881, Lowell papers, bMS Am 1659, Harvard; James Bryce wrote to Gladstone that the Garfield mourning had completed a shift in American opinion begun with the Alabama claims settlement, letter of 31 Oct. 1881 sent from Los Angeles, Bryce papers, MS Bryce, vol. II, Bodleian Library, Oxford.

³¹ Lowell to Forster, 21 Sept. 1881, Lowell papers, bMS Am 765, Harvard.

³² Drummond to Granville, 24 Oct. 1881, no. 311, P.R.O. FO5/1756 and his correspondence with Blaine, in Knaplund, P. M. and Clewes, C. M. (eds), ‘Private letters from the British Embassy [sic/ in Washington to Lord Granville, 1880–1885’, Proceedings of the American Historical Association (Washington, D.C., 1941), pp. 149–52Google Scholar; The Times, 2 Nov. 1881; see also Naw York Herald, 30 Sept. 1881.

³³ Hoppin, to Blaine, , 12 11 1881, no. 336, Papers relating to the foreign relations of the United States, 1881 (FRUS 1881) pp. 550–2Google Scholar; Merritt (London Consulate General) to State Dept., 10 Nov. 1881, RG59, N.A.; also cartoon, ‘Will wonders never cease?’, Harper's Weekly, 26 Nov. 1881.

³⁴ President Arthur, First annual message, 6 Dec. 1881 in Richardson, J. D. (ed.), A compilation of the messages and papers of the presidents, 1789–1897, (53rd Congress, 2nd Session, House Doc 210), VIII, 37–8Google Scholar.

³⁵ Adams, , Lee at Appomattox, pp. 261–4Google Scholar.

³⁶ Reports in The Times, 26 and 27 Sept. 1881.

³⁷ Smalley, , London letters, II, 341Google Scholar; Whitby Gazette 24 Sept. and 1 Oct. 1881.

³⁸ Comments to this effect were made at the time, The Times, 27 Sept. 1881, Whitby Gazette, 1 Oct. and 8 Oct. 1881 quoting the Chicago Tribune.

³⁹ The Times, 4, 5, July, 21 and 22 Sept. 1881 shows the speed with which detailed accounts were disseminated.

⁴⁰ For examples of such discussion, Consul King (Birmingham) to State Dept., 27 Feb. 1880, no. 20, RG59, N.A.; ‘Imports of wheat and flour into Britain’, American Miller, IX (1881), 7, 279Google Scholar; Waring, G., Some things in America (London, 1880), pp. 1–3, 72–8Google Scholar.

⁴¹ On this point, historically considered, Kennedy, , Rise and fall, pp. 224–32 and 242–9Google Scholar; Porter, A. N., ‘Lord Salisbury, foreign policy, and domestic finance, 1860–1900’ in Blake, R. and Cecil, H. (eds.), Salisbury. The man and his policies (London 1987), pp. 148–77, especially pp. 153, 171CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also material cited in notes 44 to 47 below.

⁴² Lady Gwendolen Cecil makes the point that Salisbury's activities were influenced by the depression, ‘Lord Salisbury in private life’, in Blake, and Cecil, , Salisbury, p. 38Google Scholar. Although economic historians have cast doubt on the severity and breadth of depression in British agriculture in this period, the concern at the time was genuine, especially around 1880.

⁴³ Report of the royal commission on the depression in agriculture (Parl. Papers, 1880, XV), QQ. 758–73, 810–25, (P.P. 1881, XVIII), passim, (P.P. 1882, XIV), 12–18, 278–95; Bonamy Price, a member of the Commission, wrote to Lowell on 11 June 1880: ‘nothing looms so large before us as your country.’ Lowell papers, bMS Am 1659 Harvard; compare Potter, T. Bayley to Evarts, William M., 07 1879, ‘You hold the key of the position. Europe must have your food’Google Scholar. Evarts papers, container 23, Library of Congress (L.C.), Washington, D.C.

⁴⁴ The Times, 3 June and 8 Dec. 1880; reports from 1879 and 1880 by Finlay Dun were reprinted as American farming and food (London, 1881); see also Harold, J., Farming and railroad interests in America (London, [1880])Google Scholar, reprinted from Railway News; Hatton, J. ‘England's commercial decline’, Tinsley's Magazine, XXIV, 3 (1879), 256–65Google Scholar; W. C. Miller, ‘Our commercial relations with the United States’, ibid. XXVI, 2 (1880), 116–24; Hatton, commented on the ubiquity of references to America in British political discourse, Today in America (2 vols. London, 1881), 1, ix–xvGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ Ramm, A. (ed.), The Gladslone–Granville political correspondence (2 vols., Oxford, 1962), II, nos. 129 and 130, pp. 84–5Google Scholar; see also Charles, , Russell, Lord of Killowen, , Diary of a visit to the United States in the year 1883 (New York, 1910), pp. 208–9Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ T. G. Bowles to Ward, 3 March 1879, Sam Ward papers, New York Public Library (N.Y.P.L.) box no. 1.

⁴⁷ Forney, J. J., A centennial commissioner in Europe (Philadelphia, 1876)Google Scholar; The Times, 28 Aug. 1876; ‘The American centennial’, British Quarterly Review, LXIV, (1876), 356–79Google Scholar; Philadelphia exhibition, reports of commissioners (P.P. 1877, XXXIV), especially those of Sir I. Lowthian Bell and Mr I. Watts.

⁴⁸ Yarnall, C., Forty years of friendship. As recorded in the correspondence of John Duke, Lord Coleridge and Ellis Yarnall (London, 1911), p. 203Google Scholar; also Coleridge to Lowell, 15 Nov. 1883, bMS Am 1659, no. 48, Lowell papers, Harvard.

⁴⁹ Reports of consuls in Newcastle, 18 June and 25 Sept. 1877 and Sheffield, 2 Oct. 1877 to State Dept., RG 59, N.A.; Packard, J. F., Grant's tour around the world (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1880), 1, 73–7, 91–5Google Scholar; Young, J. R., ‘Around the world with President Grant’, Quarterly Review, 150, (1880), 205–42, especially 223–4Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Packard, , Grant's tour, pp. 71–3Google Scholar; clippings from Washington National Republican quoting the Syracuse Journal, and other newspapers enclosed with Thornton to Derby, no. 172, 5 June 1877, P.R.O. FO5/1577, whether the phrase ‘more perfect’ was a conscious or unconscious allusion to the Constitution, it is nonetheless a significant one; Grant wrote to former secretary of state, Hamilton Fish, of his ‘remarkable reception…very much as it was in the United Sates in '65…indicative of a present very good feeling toward the U.S.’, quoted in Nevins, A., Hamilton Fish. The inner history of the Grant administration (New York, 1937), pp. 893–4Google Scholar.

⁵¹ On the tourist industry see Dulles, F. R., The American tourist (New York, 1956)Google Scholar; Perkins, E. J., ‘Tourists and bankers. Travelers' credits and the rise of American tourism’, Business and Economic History, 8, (1979), 16–28Google Scholar; on specific contacts see, for example, the huge American correspondence of James Bryce, Bodleian Library; the list of English guests to the opening of the Northern Pacific, Evarts papers, box no. 60, L.C. includes an earl, two judges, two privy councillors and eleven M.P.s as well as Bryce and others; British familiarity with the United States by 1880 was in marked contrast to the strangeness reported in accounts of the prince of Wales' 1860 visit.

⁵² The Daily Telegraph, 25 Aug. 1881 claimed that without American food Britain would face famine.

⁵³ The Times, 21 Sept. 1881.

⁵⁴ The visit can be followed through the extensive reports in The Times 9 Oct. to 31 Oct. 1860 and New York Times, 1 July to 22 Oct. 1860.

⁵⁵ American case (P.P. 1872, LXIX), Q. 9.

⁵⁶ Thornton to Clarendon, no. 55, 12 Feb. 1870, P.R.O. FO5/1191; Thornton to Granville, no. 160, 11 Mar. 1872, P.R.O. FO5/1362.

⁵⁷ Thornton to Tenterden, 1 June 1875, P.R.O. FO363/4, Tenterden papers.

⁵⁸ Thornton to Derby, no. 194, 10 July 1877, P.R.O. FO5/1539.

⁵⁹ Thornton to Granville, private, 4 May 1880, P.R.O. FO933/108, Thornton papers; Lord Dufferin to Sir Alexander Mackenzie, 23 Jan. 1878, Mackenzie papers, Public Archives of Canada (P.A.C.), Ottawa, fos. 1840–1, and his successor's remarks about how militia visits reflected improved feelings, Marquis, of Lorne, , Memories of Canada and Scotland (London, 1884), pp. 209–12Google Scholar; Evarts, remarks at the battle of Bennington centennial, clipping with C. K. Williams to Evarts, 16 Feb. 1878, Evarts papers, vol. 12, L.C.

⁶⁰ Thornton memorandum 26 Apr. 1880, P.R.O. FO5/1721; Thornton to Granville, 8 June 1880, Knaplund, and Clewes, , ‘Private letters’ p. 102Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Report of Welsh's, arrival, The Times, 12 12 1877Google Scholar; on events connected with the arrival of Lionel Sackville West in the United States (1881) and Edward J. Phelps in Britain (1885), Morton papers, scrapbook 4B p. 5, N.Y.P.L.; West to Granville, 8 Nov. 1881, no. 331, P.R.O. FO5/1756; Phelps to Bayard, 5 June 1885, Thomas Francis Bayard papers, L.C. vol. 76 and the reply of 27 June, letterbooks vol. I, Ibid.; Smalley, , London letters, pp. 264–7Google Scholar.

⁶² Admiralty to Foreign Office reporting Capt. Commerell's remarks, 1 March 1870, P.R.O. FO5/1207; see also Adm. to F.O., 8 Feb. 1870, Ibid., Thornton to Clarendon, no. 55, 12 Feb. and no. 86, 28 Feb. 1870, P.R.O. FO5/1191, and Consul Murray (Portland) to Clarendon, 29 Jan. and 14 Feb. 1870, P.R.O. FO5/1200.

⁶³ Salisbury to Chamberlain, 4 March 1899, Chamberlain Papers, Birmingham University Library, JC5/67 no. 110.

⁶⁴ The Prince of Wales, Lord Rosebery, Chamberlain, Churchill, Bryce, Northcote, Harcourt, and Curzon head the list of Britons who either paid extended visits or married Americans and who held high government office. Such contacts amongst the ruling class were unprecedented; on the belief in their impact, Russell, of Killowen, , Diary, introduction, pp. 6–8Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Correspondence in P.R.O. FO5/1643, ‘America, centennial exhibition’ especially Northcote to Tenterden, private, 15 Aug. 1874, and Owen to Richmond, 6 Jul. 1875; for evidence of American appreciation of the efforts, Richmond to Derby, 17 March 1876 and Sandford report of same date; also The Times, 2 Nov. 1881.

⁶⁶ Thornton to Clarendon, 12 Feb. 1870, no. 55, P.R.O. FO5/1191; Thornton to Granville, 4 May, 10 May, 18 May 1880, Granville to Thornton, 22 May 1880, Knaplund, and Clewes, , ‘Private letters’, pp. 93–8Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ Drummond to Granville, 1 Nov. 1881, Ibid. p. 151; also West to Granville, 22 Nov. 1881, no. 338, P.R.O. FO5/1756.

⁶⁸ See Lowell, to Frelinghuysen, , and enclosures, 2 02 1884, no. 139, FRUS 1884, p. 215, and reply, 21 Feb. p. 216Google Scholar; The Queen to the president, telegram, 21 July 1884 no. 176. Ibid. p. 253; Frelinghuysen, to Lowell, , 3 03 1885, no. 316, FRUS 1885, p. 446Google Scholar and Lowell to Bayard enclosing correspondence with Granville, 4 Apr. 1885, no. 317, pp. 447–8, Ibid.; for public comment see the protectionist Iron Age, 28 Feb. 1885.

⁶⁹ Bennington Address, Evarts papers, container no. 16, L.C.; see also Lorne's, address to a Canadian review which included a troop of New York militia, 24 05 1879, Memories, pp. 209–12Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ The Times 1 Oct. 1881; the passage was reprinted in the Whitby Gazette, 8 Oct. 1881; in The Times 21 Sept. references to the English-speaking race were augmented by allusions to Anglo-Saxon kinship, community, brotherhood, and the inseparable unity of the two nations which belonged to one race. In addition, there were references to close commercial contacts, and to Garfield's puritan antecedents, his biblical studies, his interest in English etymology, membership of the Cobden Club, and his ‘great “pluck”’. References to hands grasped in friendship across the sea, even over the grave, abounded at this time.

⁷¹ Two good examples from diplomatic documents are Plunkett to Derby, no. 165, 5 June 1877, P.R.O. FO5/1577 discussing Russian annoyance at the cordiality of ‘the two great Anglo-Saxon communities’ during Grant's British tour; and West to Granville, no. 338, 22 Nov. 1881, P.R.O. FO5/1756, conveying Blaine's remarks about Yorktown.

⁷² Lorne, , Memories, pp. 279–80Google Scholar; speech by Dufferin in clipping, Morton papers, scrapbook no. 2, pp. 7–8, N.Y.P.L.; account of the welcome to Sackville West by President Arthur, ibid, scrapbook no. 4B, p. 5; Packard, , Grant's tour, pp. 73, 95, 117Google Scholar.

⁷³ The Times, 1 Oct. and 21 Oct. 1881; Drummond, to Granville, , no. 289, 3 10 1881, with enclosure from New York Herald, 30 Sept. P.R.O. FO5/1756Google Scholar; see also comments in ‘The American centennial’ and the essay on the historiography of loyalism in Bailyn's, BernardThe ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (Cambridge, Mass., 1975)Google Scholar.

⁷⁴ Consul Farrell (Bristol) to Hitt, no. 29, 27 Sept. 1881 and enclosed clipping, RG59 N.A.; The Times, 26 and 29 Sept. 1881; Blaine, to Lowell, , 14 11 1881, reported in The Times 29 Dec. 1881 used such expressions as ‘the tie of common blood’ in responding to British sympathyGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁵ A letter to The Times, 24 10 1881 quoted Weed's, Thurlow allusion in the New York Evening Post to ‘the Queen of our hearts’Google Scholar; welcoming Sackville West, Blaine gave the toast to the queen and spoke of a hundred million English-speakers united in loyalty to Queen Victoria, , ‘the first ruler of England that has been popular and beloved throughout the whole realm of the Anglo-Saxon people’, reported in The Times, 7 11 1881Google Scholar; also West to Granville, no. 331, 8 Nov. 1881, P.R.O. FO5/1756.

⁷⁶ Richardson, , Messages and papers, VIII, 37Google Scholar; also despatches from Drummond and West, P.R.O. FO5/1756.

⁷⁷ For example, Thornton reported favourable comment about Disraeli's Suez policy to Tenterden, 28 Dec. 1875, P.R.O. FO363/4, Tenterden papers; see also Commercial and Financial Chronicle, 29 Dec. 1881, p. 628 and Iron Age 9 Apr. 1885, p. 16, on Egypt. Such remarks were part of a wider tendency towards interpreting British imperialism as a force for civilization.

⁷⁸ Solomon, B., Ancestors and immigrants (Cambridge, Mass., 1956), pp. 6–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Higham, J., Strangers in the land. Patterns of American nativism (New Brunswick, 1955), pp. 132–49Google Scholar.

⁷⁹ Lodge is quoted in Faithfull, E., Three visits to America (Edinburgh, 1884), pp. 346–7Google Scholar; Godkin, E. L., ‘Living in Europe and going to it’, in his Reflections and comments (New York, 1895), pp. 274–86Google Scholar; also ‘Editor's easy chair’, Harper's Monthly Magazine, (American edn) 79, 9 (1889), 633–4Google Scholar; see material in box 21, Cyrus W. Field papers, N.Y.P.L. on the André monument, ‘a token of those better feelings which have since united two nations, one in race, one in language, and one in religion’ and describing an Irish nationalist attack on it.

⁸⁰ Flick, A. C., Samuel Tilden (New York, 1939), pp. 419–21Google Scholar; vol. 8 of the Morton papers, N.Y.P.L. traces his family to Norman times, giving biographical and heraldic details; W. J. Menzies to Blaine, 11 Sept. 1890, James G. Blaine papers, container no. 19, L.C. On the ‘ancestor cult’ generally see comments in ‘The American Centennial’ and Vivian, H. H., Notes of a tour in America (London, 1878), p. 208Google Scholar.

⁸¹ T. Rowley Hill (M.P. for Worcester) to Lowell, 3 March 1881, Lowell papers, bMS Am 1484 nos. 99 and 144, Harvard.

⁸² Resolution, Ibid. no. 99.

⁸³ Morton papers, box no. 15, ‘Constellation Relief Fund’ (of which Morton was a Trustee), N.Y.P.L. includes numerous transcripts from the New York Herald; also New York Times, 5 Feb. 1880.

⁸⁴ Marble to William Martin Conway, 5 Oct. 1890, Conway family papers, Cambridge University Library, Add MSS 7676, Box G, no. 41.

⁸⁵ Archibald speech, W. M. Archibald papers box no. 1, p. 13, P.A.C.

⁸⁶ Lowell, , ‘Garfield’, p. 46Google Scholar.

⁸⁷ Russell, of Killowen, , Diary, pp. 113–14, 144–5 on American dislikeGoogle Scholar; SirGriffin, L., The great republic (London, 1884)Google ScholarPubMed for old-fashioned condescension and effortless abuse of American democracy.

⁸⁸ It should be noted that this was not the case when comparisons were being made between either ‘sister country’ and other nations. In those instances similarities tended to spring easily to mind, see Mulvey, C., Anglo-American landscapes (Oxford, 1983), chs. II, VIII and XIVGoogle Scholar.