"A LAWLESS ARMY LET LOOSE UPON THEM": FIRST EDITION OF ALMON'S COLLECTION OF INTERESTING, AUTHENTIC PAPERS… FROM 1764-1775, DOCUMENTING AMERICA'S TURN TOWARD REVOLUTION

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (ALMON, John, editor). A Collection of Interesting, Authentic Papers, Relative to the Dispute Between Great Britain and America: Shewing the Causes and Progress of that Misunderstanding, from 1764-1775. London: Printed for J. Almon, 1777. Octavo, period style full red morocco gilt, black morocco spine label.

First edition of this important Revolutionary collection, with compelling reports on British and American responses to the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act and the punitive Townshend Acts, with further accounts by Benjamin Franklin, fiery parliamentary speeches and other materials "covering the resolutions of 1764 (which gave rise to the Stamp Act) up to the battle of Lexington in 1775."

In resistance to the Sugar Act of 1764 and the 1765 Stamp Act, America moved closer to rebellion, forcing the British into open dispute over governance of the colonies. Thus "in the winter of 1765-6, debates of immense significance, attempting to grapple with the relationship between Britain and America, took place in parliament for the first time." This exceptional 1777 Collection of documents dating from 1764-75 records the heated terms of that conflict, such as one historic moment when "raising on his gout-crippled legs, William Pitt then made the speech of his life" (Schama II:458-60). During a parliamentary debate on the Stamp Act, one that included a lengthy questioning of Benjamin Franklin, Pitt spoke out against those who accused America of obstinacy and rebellion. "I rejoice that America has resisted," said Pitt. "Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest. I come not here armed at all points… to defend the cause of liberty… But, for the defense of liberty upon a general principle, upon a constitutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm" (62).

This volume, edited by London printer John Almon and often called Prior Documents (as titled in its running headlines), contains numerous such accounts—key source materials including reports and correspondences involving members of the British government and the American Continental Congress, together with fiery reactions to the Boston Tea Party and frank accounts by Franklin on opposition to the Townshend Acts. The volume concludes with a dramatic description of the state of affairs in Massachusetts: "their port is stopt up, their charter is to be subverted, and a lawless army let loose upon them. They have been tried, condemned and punished, unheard and unapprized of the whole proceeding, they are left to weep over their apprehensions, realized in the utter subversion of their liberties" (280). This first edition of Almon's Collection "was intended to precede the first volume of his Remembrancer, and contains a collection of authentic papers on the various questions in dispute, from the resolutions of 1764, which gave rise to the Stamp Act, to the battle of Lexington, in 1775" (Church 1141). Bound without half title; with Index at rear. Sabin 951. Howes A179. Adams 77-13. ESTC T58130. Small bookseller inkstamp at rear.

Text very fresh, beautifully bound.