“THE FIRST AMERICAN ARMY AND AN ARMY OF EVERYONE”

COOPER, John. Revolutionary War Diary. New York, 1776. Rare 1776 Revolutionary War Diary of John Cooper, a 24-year-old enlisted man in New York’s First Regiment, Naval Service, containing over 30 handwritten pages interspersed throughout a first edition of Gaine’s Universal Register (1776), an almanac whose blank leafs were used by Cooper in this remarkable account of the year America declared its independence, with frank details of an enlisted man’s life and vivid accounts of skirmishes with Indians and British troops as Cooper’s regiment fought throughout the spring and summer of 1776 to maintain crucial American command of Lake Champlain and the upper Hudson River Valley. In contemporary calf. $38,000.

"IT WAS NOT EXPECTED… THAT SUCH AN OUTRAGE AND MASSACRE…WOULD HAVE BEEN PERPETRATED: RARE AND IMPORTANT CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT OF THE 1770 BOSTON MASSACRE, THE EARLIEST BOSTON PRINTING TO BE SOLD IN AMERICA

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (BOWDOIN, James). A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston. Boston, Printed, by Order of the Town, by Messirs. Edes and Gill; And Re-printed for W. Bingley… London, 1770. [Actually printed in Boston by Edes and Gill in July, 1770].

Extremely rare and important July 1770 Boston printing of this contemporary and influential account of the Boston Massacre, originally commissioned and ordered to be printed by the Town of Boston. Though the title page bears a London imprint, this edition was actually printed and sold in Boston to circumvent the American distribution ban (put in place so as not to prejudice the jury hearing the trial of the soldiers), and as such was the earliest Boston printing to be sold in America. $35,000.

"IF THE ABUSES OF GOVERNMENT SHOULD, AT ANY TIME, BE GREAT AND MANIFEST… I ASK, WHAT PRINCIPLES ARE THOSE WHICH OUGHT TO RESTRAIN AN INJURED AND INSULTED PEOPLE… FROM ALTERING THE WHOLE FORM OF THEIR GOVERNMENT?"

(CONSTITUTION) PRIESTLEY, Joseph. LL.D.F.R.S. An Essay on the First Principles of Government. London, 1768.

First edition of the profoundly influential work by Priestley, the English scientist and philosopher who defied his countrymen to support the American Revolution, a close friend of Franklin and Jefferson—who owned a copy of Priestley's Essay and considered "this one of the books which furnish the principles of our constitution"—a defining work of the Enlightenment that went beyond Locke in its argument for "political, civil and religious liberty." $12,500.

"GREAT GLORY NECESSARILY PROCEEDED FROM PROJECTS THAT WERE CONCEIVED WITH PROFOUND WISDOM"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) TARLETON, Sir Banastre. History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781. London, 1787.

First edition of Tarleton's significant account of the southern campaigns in the American Revolution, illustrated with five detailed maps (three large folding) with hand-colored outlines of routes and positions, desirable in contemporary tree calf. $12,500.

FIRST EDITION OF THIS SCARCE PLATEBOOK CONTAINING 16 RICH COPPER-ENGRAVINGS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION— THE FIRST FRENCH IMPRINT TO NAME THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PONCE, Nicolas and GODEFROY, François. Recueil d’estampes representant les differents evenemens de la guerre. Paris, 1784. First edition of the first French book to name the United States on its title page, with 16 full-page copper engravings of momentous Revolutionary battles, including the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga and of Cornwallis at York, and commemorating the signing of the Treaty at Versailles in 1783, complete with two plates of maps. $8200.

VERY RARE 1776 OFFICIAL BRITISH CERTIFICATE FOR A DRUMMER BOY, RECRUITING A YOUNG BOY IN THE BRITISH MILITARY ONLY TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, SIGNED—“CHAS. X HIS MARK”

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) ASHBY, Charles. Enlistment document. Charles Town, South Carolina, May 1, 1776.

Rare May 1, 1776 Revolutionary War enlistment certificate, dated only two months before the Declaration of Independence, recruiting a young boy in South Carolina to enlist as a drummer boy in the British Royal Regiment of Artillery, with the boy clearly signing an “X” as “his mark… to serve His Majesty King George the Third,” co-signed by a Justice of the Peace, dated the same month British ships closed in on Charleston in what became a failed attempt to anchor their assault north and gain the “active support by the Loyalists, who… had been counted upon as a primary component in the military suppression of the Rebellion” (Tuchman, First Salute). $6800.

"THAT THESE AMERICAN STATES MAY NEVER CEASE TO BE FREE"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) ADAMS, Samuel. Oration delivered at the State-House. Philadelphia Printed; London, Re-printed for, 1776.

First edition of a fascinating Revolutionary work of deliberate political misdirection, misattributed to Samuel Adams, firebrand of the Boston Tea Party, published in the wake of the Declaration "to show that the colonies were bent on independence," issued in London despite the imprint of a fictional Philadelphia printing. $6750.

"THE BUSINESS OF ALL POWER IS TO DEFEND THE LIVES, LIBERTIES AND PROPERTY OF THE PEOPLE"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) WEBSTER, Samuel, A.M. Sermon Preached Before… House of Representatives of the State of the Massachusetts-Bay… May 28, 1777. Boston, 1777.

First edition of Webster's electrifying 1777 Sermon delivered barely ten months after America's Declaration of Independence, invoking God's wrath to put the British "to flight speedily… make them quake with fear… and so return to their own lands… let them have neither credit nor courage, to come out any more against us." $6500.

FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST FRENCH BOOK TO NAME THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WITH 16 COPPER-ENGRAVED PLATES, COMPLETE WITH MAPS

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PONCE, Nicholas and GODEFROY, Francois. Recueil d'estampes representant les differents evenemens de la guerre. Paris, [circa 1784].

First edition of the first French book to name the United States on its title page, with 16 full-page copper engravings of momentous Revolutionary battles, including the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga and of Cornwallis as York, and commemorating the signing of the Treaty at Versailles in 1783, complete with two plates of maps. $5000.

FOUNDING FATHER JOHN DICKINSON'S POWERFUL 1765 ATTACK ON THE STAMP ACT

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (DICKINSON, John). Late Regulations. Philadelphia printed, London Re-printed, 1765.

First English edition of the seminal Revolutionary work by Dickinson—"one of the leaders of the opposition to the Stamp Act"—a rare copy of his influential attack on the 1765 Stamp Act, printed in London immediately after the Philadelphia first edition "on the order of Benjamin Franklin," who was then in London. $4500.

“BE ENCOURAGED, ALL YE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM… TREMBLE ALL YE OPPRESSORS OF THE WORLD!”

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PRICE, Richard. Discourse on the Love of Our Country. London, 1789.

First edition of Price's controversial and incendiary work on the revolutionary progress of human rights from England's 1688 Glorious Revolution to the American and French Revolutions, sparking Edmund Burke's strong refutation of Price in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and an eloquent endorsement from Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). $4000.

“NOTHING LESS THAN A DELIBERATE ASSAULT LAUNCHED SURREPTITIOUSLY BY PLOTTERS AGAINST LIBERTY”

(CONNECTICUT). Acts and Laws Of His Majesty"s English Colony of Connecticut. New Haven and New London: 1769 [i.e. 1782].

1769 edition of the Connecticut Acts & Laws, with a printing of the 1662 Royal Charter, sessional Acts and Laws from 1752-68, and first edition sessional Acts from 1769-82. With rare early printings of some of the most controversial pre-Revolutionary parliamentary laws, including several quartering acts, a 1757 duty on tea setting the stage for the incendiary 1773 Tea Act, evidence of revolutionary fervor with the striking removal of the words “Our Sovereign Lord George the Third, King of Great-Britain” from all acts printed after 1775 and, following the Continental Congress’s urging that all states sever all ties to Britain, a printing of Connecticut’s own 1776 declaration of independence. $4000.

"ONE OF THE FIRST PIECES OF HISTORICAL WRITING DEVOTED TO THE EXPERIENCES OF AFRICAN AMERICANS"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) NELL, William C. Services of Colored Americans. Boston, 1851.

First edition of Nell's groundbreaking history of African American service and sacrifice in the Revolution, issued in fury over the Fugitive Slave Act and defying America's persistent "selective inattention" to Black accomplishments—one of the "most useful and important histories of African Americans written in the Civil War era"—forcing "history to do right by Revolutionary War Blacks." $3800.

"AMERICANS! THIS DAY RECOGNIZES YOUR EMANCIPATION… THE BIRTH-DAY OF YOUR INDEPENDENCE… A COMPLETE POLITICAL REVOLUTION"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) HITCHCOCK, Enos, D. D. Oration, in Commemoration of the Independence. Providence, 1793.

First edition of a seminal work by the influential Revolutionary-era chaplain who served with the Third Massachusetts Continental at Ticonderoga and Saratoga, as well as Valley Forge, and later in Philadelphia at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, an eloquent voice for America's cause, referencing Montesquieu in praising America's Constitution for its "three powers… most perfectly combined," especially scarce with a contemporary New England provenance. $3800.

"LIFE IS A BURDEN IN ANY OTHER STATE THAN THAT OF FREEDOM": RARE 1775 REVOLUTIONARY-ERA ISSUE OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHRONICLE, PRINTING AN INSTALLMENT OF THE PRO-AMERICAN ESSAY SERIES "THE CRISIS"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION). "The Crisis." IN: The New-England Chronicle: or, Essex Gazette [Newspaper printing]. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Vol. VIII. Numb. 375. Sept. 28-Oct. 5, 1775.

A 1775 rarity, originally printed the same day as the Battle of Bunker Hill: an American printing of the 12th installment of "The Crisis": part of a series of political essays published in London defending American liberty and criticizing royal authority. $3750.

“THE INTELLECTUAL MASTER OF POLITICAL ARITHMETIC AND THE ÉMINENCE GRISE OF INSURANCE”: SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF MORGAN’S APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN, 1797

MORGAN, William. Appeal to the People of Great Britain… Public Finances. London, 1797.

First edition of William Morgan’s fearless attack on the political and economic cost of British policies in “that detestable war” against America, a major work by the first modern actuary, one of “the pioneers of scientific life assurance in England" (ODNB) and nephew of British radical Richard Price, “the most influential advocate of American independence” (Howes). Jefferson, who became Vice President the year this work was published, had a first edition in his library. $3200.

“NOTHING CAN BE OF SO MUCH CONSEQUENCE TO US AS LIBERTY”

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PRICE, Richard. Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty. London, 1776.

Second edition, issued within days of the first, of Price’s powerfully influential British defense of the American revolution, a work of crucial importance in “determining the Americans to declare their independence” (DNB). $3200.

“IF YOU ARE MEN, BEHAVE LIKE MEN. LET US TAKE UP ARMS IMMEDIATELY”

(CUSTOMS COMMISSIONERS ACT). Customs Commissioners Act. London, 1767.

Rare first printing of the 1767 Customs Commissioners Act, one of the controversial Townshend Acts that united patriot opposition to British rule and provoked the Boston Massacre. $3200.

“BE ENCOURAGED, ALL YE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM… TREMBLE ALL YE

OPPRESSORS OF THE WORLD!”

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PRICE, Richard. Discourse on the Love of Our Country. London, 1789.

Second edition, published shortly after the same year's first edition, of Price's incendiary work on human rights from England's Glorious Revolution to the American and French Revolutions, sparking Burke's fiery refutation of Price in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and an eloquent endorsement from Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). $2500.

“BE ENCOURAGED, ALL YE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM… TREMBLE ALL YE OPPRESSORS OF THE WORLD!”

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PRICE, Richard. Discourse on the Love of Our Country. London, 1790.

Third edition, the scarce first expanded edition of Price's controversial work, issued only one year after the first edition, documenting progress in human rights from England's Glorious Revolution to the American and French Revolutions, sparking Burke's refutation in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and Wollstonecraft's endorsement in Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). $1800.

“TO MAINTAIN, BY FIRE AND SWORD, DOMINION… CONTRADICTS EVERY PRINCIPLE OF LIBERTY AND HUMANITY”

PRICE, Richard. Additional Observations. London, 1777.

Second edition, issued within weeks of the first edition and preceding the first American edition, published in answer to a storm of “virulent invectives” against Price for his support of American independence in Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty (1776), handsomely bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. $1400.

"THE STRESS OF THE AMERICAN WARS": RARE FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING OF THE 1765 PARLIAMENTARY ACT IMPOSING "DUTIES … UPON MALT, MUM, CYDER, AND PERRY," PASSED ONLY MONTHS BEFORE THE SAME YEAR'S STAMP ACT THAT SPARKED REVOLUTION

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (PARLIAMENT) GEORGE III. Act for … Duties upon Malt, Mum, Cyder, and Perry. London, 1765.

First printing of the 1765 parliamentary act imposing duties on “Malt, Mum, Cyder, and Perry,” passed only months before the same year’s Stamp Act that sparked the Boston Tea Party and the Revolution, this act targeting Scotland with duties on malt and other goods, taxation key to fueling Britain’s finances “in the stress of the American wars,” one of only 1100 copies. $1250.

“ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD”

PRICE, Richard. Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution. Dublin, 1785.

First Dublin edition, preferred revised and expanded edition, published only one year after the first, of Price’s Observations, an exceptional copy, bound in full morocco gilt by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. $1200.