Halloween 2020
H i s t o r y , P h i l o s o p h y & R e l i g i o n 51 Fine New Acquisitions H alloween 2020 Extremely Rare Printing Of The Restraining Act Of 1767, The First Of The Townshend Acts, One Of A Series Of Inflammatory Measures That Helped Spark The Revolutionary War, The Forbes Copy 49. PARLIAMENT. Anno Regni Georgii III… Septimo [The first Townshend Act, 1767]. London, 1769. Folio, disbound; pp. (i), 891-94; ll. 3, custom clamshell box. $5200. Click for more info Very rare first printing of the Restraining Act of 1767, prohibiting New York from legislative action until it allowed the quartering of British troops, the first of the Townshend Acts, a series of punishing authoritarian measures that set the American colonies on the path to revolution. One of only 1100 copies printed. From the library of Malcolm Forbes, the owner-publisher of Forbes magazine and an accomplished collector. Named for Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Townshend Acts consisted of a series of laws intended to raise revenue from the American colonies, tighten customs enforcement and assert imperial authority in America. The New York Restraining Act suspended the New York Assembly until it complied with the extremely unpopular Quartering Acts of 1765 and 1766, which required colonial assemblies to provide basic necessities (including housing, food and drink) to British soldiers stationed within their borders… [Eventually] Parliament declared all acts of the New York Assembly to be null and void until it fully complied with the Quartering Act” (Morison, 35-36). American reaction was immediate, many legislators considering the Act as “a weapon that might be used to invade other American rights, and enforce other laws that the colonists considered unjust and unconstitutional” (Cochran & Andrews, 952). This first printing , excised from the S essional Volumes of Parliament (pages 891-94), precedes all the American printings. About-fine condition.
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