“HIGHLY EXPEDIANT THAT THE INTERCOURSE BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY OPENED”

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (PARLIAMENT). (Repeal of Prohibitory Act and Boston Port Act). An Act to repeal so much of Two Acts… as prohibits Trade and Intercourse with the United States of America. London: Charles Eyre and William Strahan, 1783. Folio, disbound; pp. (2), 471-72. $2200.

First printing of the 1783 parliamentary act repealing the Boston Port Act of 1774 that closed Boston Harbor after the Boston Tea Party and the Prohibitory Act of 1775 that ignited open Revolution by declaring American trading vessels “the ships and effects of open enemies.” This diplomatic signal of peace cites and affirms George III’s Proclamation Declaring a Cessation of Hostilities between Britain and the United States, issued February 14, 1783. One of 1100 copies.

When Britain responded to the Boston Tea Party with the punitive Boston Port Act of 1774 and further declared all American trading vessels "the ships and effects of open enemies" in the 1775 Prohibitory Act, the Continental Congress commissioned privateers to seize British ships. If the Boston Port Act inflamed Americans, it was the Prohibitory Act, also issued before the outbreak of war—but especially targeting all American ships as "open enemies"—that provoked, in the words of John Adams, "the complete dismemberment of the British Empire. It throws 13 colonies out of the royal protections, levels all distinctions and makes us independent" (Douglas IX:864). This 1783 repeal of those two crucial acts marks a colonial victory over provocations and other trade restrictions so intensely felt that they were cited in the Declaration of Independence as having "plundered our seas… cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world." Issued after the signing of the Preliminary Articles of Peace in November 1782 and the "Declarations for Suspension of Arms and Cessation of Hostilities" in January, this 1783 act cites George III's "Cessation of Hostilities between Great Britain and the United States of America" of February 14, 1783. First edition, first printing, in gothic type, from the Sessional Volumes of Parliament. Such acts printed prior to 1796 are extremely scarce, since the maximum number printed "only slightly exceeded 1100 copies" (Report of the Committee for the Promulgation of the Statutes, 1796).

Text fresh, tiny margin pinholes only. A fine copy.