Pennsylvania Chronicle and Universal Advertiser. From Monday, July 25 to Monday, August, 1 1768
Issue covers pre American Revolution politics; Farmers Letters, etc. Philadelphia: Printed by William Goddard, 1768.
Newspaper. Newspaper. Disbound single issue. Approx. 11.5" X 9.25". Pages 209-216. Stitching removed. Pages are all detached with edge tears and chips on the left edge. Paper is lightly toned. A couple of small worm holes on the left margins. Fair or better condition.
Front page article contains a reactionary response to the publication of the Farmer's Letter's in William Goddard's newspaper. The writer, "A Barbadian", requests "without further preface...to publish after the manner of the Farmer, the following extracts from the answers to his address." On page 212 is a letter signed by a "Son of Liberty" who writes "How happy are you, Sir, and how much to be envied, to be thus by nature, as well as the influences of freedom, armed and supported? - For this, surely, "is the Crisis The Very Crises," when your animating soul is called forth to action, not merely to display the wordy weapons of war, but to grid your armour, and lead on thousands and tens of thousands, to defend their invaluable rights and privileges." Page 214 is an address to the Pennsylvania State-House regarding restrictive British policy regarding trade and taxes. Advertisements for land, job advertisements, Irish linens and more located in back. Fair condition. Good. Item #35235
From History dot Delaware dot Gov:
Dickinson’s most famous contribution as the “Penman” and for the colonial cause was the publication of a series of letters signed “A FARMER.” The letters were published over a period of ten weeks in late 1767 and early 1768 with the first letter appearing in the Pennsylvania Chronicle on December 2, 1767. In the letters, Dickinson argued, amongst other things, that the Townshend Acts were illegal because they were intended to raise revenue, a power held only by the colonial assemblies. His arguments were a collection of ideas that were written in a clear and concise manner which the general population could understand. Collectively, the letters were called “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies.” The letters were shortly thereafter published in pamphlet form and reprinted in almost all of the colonial newspapers. They were read widely across the colonies and in Britain and France. This quickly made John Dickinson famous. After reading the “Letters”, Voltaire, the French philosopher, compared Dickinson to Cicero, an honored Roman statesman, orator, and philosopher. At the Boston town meeting in March of 1768 Samuel Adams and others spoke of the author by saying “that the thanks of the town be given to the ingenious author of a course of letters… signed ‘A FARMER,’ wherein the rights of the American subjects are clearly stated and fully vindicated: …members of a committee [are] to prepare and publish a letter of thanks.” As a direct result of the popularity of Dickinson’s letters, there were calls and petitions for the boycotting of imported goods throughout the colonies. The eventual result of the unity amongst the colonies against a common enemy was the First Continental Congress. When the Congress was called, however, Dickinson quickly realized that much progress needed to be made towards the solutions that he wrote about in his letters.
From History dot com:
The Sons of Liberty were a grassroots group of instigators and provocateurs in colonial America who used an extreme form of civil disobedience—threats, and in some cases actual violence—to intimidate loyalists and outrage the British government. The goal of the radicals was to push moderate colonial leaders into a confrontation with the British Crown. The Sons marked one of their early victories in December 1765. The Stamp Act—the first tax imposed directly on American colonists by the British government—had only been in effect for a month, when a group of Boston merchants and craftsmen sent a letter to Andrew Oliver, the newly-appointed official collector of stamps. The group informed Oliver that he was to show up the next day at noon at the Liberty Tree in the city’s South End to publicly resign.
Price: $600.00