The Political Register and Impartial Review of New Books for MDCCLXIX (1769) Volume 4 (January to June, whole number 22 to 27)
London: Printed for Henry Beevor in Little Britain, 1769. Leather bound. 3/4 Leather with marbled boards and marbled page edges and endpapers. No title-page, pp. 1-392 (Index pp. 380 - 392. With 5 engravings (5.5" x 8.4"). 3/4 leather with marbled boards and bookplate of R.T.H. & H.E. Halsey iside front cover, internally VG with several ancient ownership stamps of "John H. Lick, Fredericksburg, Pa" throughout. Item #177896
Includes several noteworthy contributions relative to the American Colonies. Lacks the engraved plate for January, if one was issued that month. Most noteworthy is the essay, reprinted on pages 9-27, by Richard Bland. Bland's essay on the rights of colonists was initially published in Williamsburg in 1766 (he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates), and excerpts were included in the Virginia Gazette of May 30, 1766, but not reprinted elsewhere in the colonies, and not in England until 1769 as a separate pamphlet. The printing of the complete text in The Political Register either preceded the pamphlet or was simultaneous. Bland's essay was one of the first detailed and lengthy considerations of the dubious right and legality of new British taxes on the colonists, and was remarkable for including the author's name on the 1766 original edition (which did put Bland into serious trouble with the Virginia governor). Immediately following Bland's essay is the text of October, 1768, correspondence to and from General Gage and members of the Massachusetts-Bay council regarding the need for the recent arrival and posting of British troops in Boston.
Price: $750.00