[ Autographs ] (JOHN BURGOYNE) (1722 - 1792) British major general and playwright who commanded the British expedition from Canada in 1777 in an attempt to divide the colonies in two. Ultimately he was forced to surrender his army at Saratoga. A contemporary news journal account of Burgoyne's report to Parliament on May 26, 1778 in defense of his conduct during the disastrous Saratoga campaign, as printed in the Gentlemen's Magazine, London, May 1778. In part: "...He [Burgoyne]stood, he said, unconnected and unsupported, neither courting nor fearing party, on the basis of truth and his own honour. He had been censured for carrying out too large a train of artillery, for which there could be no occasion. With that he had no concern, that department being under the immediate direction of Gen. Phillips, an officer whose judgment, he believed, no man would call in question. Hehad likewise been charged with temerity in crossing Hudon's-river, in opposition to the opinion of that gallant officer, Gen. Frazer...And he had been reproached with employing savages...He wished every Minister to put himself for a moment in his situation...The expeditiontowards Albany was not his [idea], tho' the mode of carrying it on wasin a great measure his..." After some time, a quarrel broke out between a minister and Lord George Germaine who challenged the minister to a fight upon which the entire house rose in a frenzy. Light wear at spine, otherwise very good condition.