1 reel. Four volumes of manuscripts focusing on the 1745 British and Provincial expedition against the French fortress of Louisbourg in Cape Breton, Canada. Includes Correspondence of William Shirley, William Pitt, the Massachusetts government, and the expedition's commander, William Pepperrell. Originals are in the Massachusetts Historical Society.

This collection includes letters to and from Americans (including South America and the West Indies) and letters about America selected from the Society's manuscripts (Classified Papers, Letter Books, Letters and Papers, Royal Society Letters, Miscellaneous Correspondence, and other official groups) and from collections of private papers (Sir Charles Blagden, William Buckland, John Canton, Sir John F. W. Herschel, Sir Edward Sabine, and others). The documents range in time and character from John Winthrop, Jr., "A Description of the Artifice & Making of Tarr & Pitch in New England" (1662), to letters from Sir Thomas Edward Thorne to his wife describing the American West, where he was on a surveying party in the 1880s.