American Historical Ephemera & Photography Online

8vo (210 x 130 mm). Woodcut device on title-page. (Lacking map of the South Pole.) Disbound (old backstrip present).

An English publisher's veiw of the war in America including a letter of protest and warning to the British Parliament from the American Continental Congress, issued in response to King George's Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition: " Philadelphia, December 6, 1775 -- We, the Delegates of the Thirteen United Colonies in North America, have taken into our most serious consideration a Proclamation issued from the Court at St. James's, on the Twenty-third day of August last. ... We are accused of 'forgetting the allegiance which we owe to the power that has protected and sustained us.'... What allegiance is it that we forget? Allegiance to Parliament? We never owed--never owned it. Allegiance to our King; Our words have ever avowed it--our conduct has ever been consistent with it.... We, therefore, in the name of the people of the United Colonies, ...declare, that whatever punishment shall be inflicted upon any persons the power of our enemies for favouring, aiding or abetting the cause of American liberty shall be retaliated in the same kind and the same degree upon those, in our power, who have favoured, aided or abetted, of shall favour, aid or abet the system of ministerial oppression." Also includes an Act for Prohibiting Trade with America (p.14), and an Act of Massachusetts-Bay for fitting out armed vessels (p.12).