"THESE ANTIPATRIOTIC PREJUDICES ARE THE ABORTIONS OF FOLLY IMPREGNATED BY FACTION"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (JOHNSON, Samuel). Taxation No Tyranny. London, 1775.

First edition, exceedingly rare first issue, of Johnson's controversial if colorful attack on the revolutionary stirrings in Americans—who were once described by him as "a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging"—an incendiary work, published shortly before the Battles of Lexington and Concord, that led a Member of Parliament to call for Boston to be "destroyed like Carthage" and doubtless spurred the cause of the Revolution. Handsomely bound by Charles J. Sawyer. $16,500.

“THIS FAMOUS ACT IS FULL OF THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES…THE MERE READING OF THE… ARTICLES OF WAR… WAS INCENTIVE ENOUGH TO MAKE EVERY PATRIOT A SOLDIER”

AMERICAN REVOLUTION. Militia Act. Boston, 1776. First edition of the 1776 Massachusetts Militia Act and Articles of War, “ordered to be printed April 23, 1776, in an edition of one thousand copies. This famous Act is full of the spirit of the times. It is said that the mere reading of the… articles of war appended was incentive enough to make every patriot a soldier” (Evans 14878). $15,000.

FIRST EDITION OF THIS SCARCE PLATEBOOK CONTAINING 16 RICH COPPER-ENGRAVINGS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION— THE FIRST FRENCH IMPRINT TO NAME THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PONCE, Nicolas and GODEFROY, François. Recueil d’estampes representant les differents evenemens de la guerre. Paris, 1784. First edition of the first French book to name the United States on its title page, with 16 full-page copper engravings of momentous Revolutionary battles, including the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga and of Cornwallis at York, and commemorating the signing of the Treaty at Versailles in 1783, complete with two plates of maps. $8200.

"THAT THESE AMERICAN STATES MAY NEVER CEASE TO BE FREE"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) ADAMS, Samuel. Oration delivered at the State-House. Philadelphia Printed; London, Re-printed for, 1776.

First edition of a fascinating Revolutionary work of deliberate political misdirection, misattributed to Samuel Adams, firebrand of the Boston Tea Party, published in the wake of the Declaration "to show that the colonies were bent on independence," issued in London despite the imprint of a fictional Philadelphia printing. $6750.

AMERICANS, "TO COMPLETE OUR POLITICAL HAPPINESS… SHOULD VOLUNTARILY RISE UP"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) SHUTE, Daniel, A.M. Sermon Preached before His Excellency Francis Bernard…. May 25th, 1758. Boston: New-England, 1768.

First edition of Shute's provocative Sermon delivered in the aftermath of the Stamp Act and other punitive British legislation, asserting the basis for "political resistance" against violation of Americans' "natural and civil rights," affirming historians' view of colonial rebellion as fueled by clergy such as Reverend Shute, demonstrating "religion was a fundamental cause of the American Revolution, very rare uncut in original wrappers. $5500.

FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST FRENCH BOOK TO NAME THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WITH 16 COPPER-ENGRAVED PLATES, COMPLETE WITH MAPS

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PONCE, Nicholas and GODEFROY, Francois. Recueil d'estampes representant les differents evenemens de la guerre. Paris, [circa 1784].

First edition of the first French book to name the United States on its title page, with 16 full-page copper engravings of momentous Revolutionary battles, including the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga and of Cornwallis as York, and commemorating the signing of the Treaty at Versailles in 1783, complete with two plates of maps. $5000.

"THE BUSINESS OF ALL POWER IS TO DEFEND THE LIVES, LIBERTIES AND PROPERTY OF THE PEOPLE"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) WEBSTER, Samuel, A.M. Sermon Preached Before… House of Representatives of the State of the Massachusetts-Bay… May 28, 1777. Boston, 1777.

First edition of Webster's electrifying 1777 Sermon delivered barely ten months after America's Declaration of Independence, invoking God's wrath to put the British "to flight speedily… make them quake with fear… and so return to their own lands… let them have neither credit nor courage, to come out any more against us." $4800.

"THE BUSINESS OF ALL POWER IS TO DEFEND THE LIVES, LIBERTIES AND PROPERTY OF THE PEOPLE"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) WEBSTER, Samuel, A.M. Sermon Preached Before… House of Representatives of the State of the Massachusetts-Bay… May 28, 1777. Boston, 1777.

First edition of Webster's electrifying 1777 Sermon delivered barely ten months after America's Declaration of Independence, invoking God's wrath to put the British "to flight speedily… make them quake with fear… and so return to their own lands… let them have neither credit nor courage, to come out any more against us." $4800.

FOUNDING FATHER JOHN DICKINSON'S POWERFUL 1765 ATTACK ON THE STAMP ACT

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (DICKINSON, John). Late Regulations. Philadelphia printed, London Re-printed, 1765.

First English edition of the seminal Revolutionary work by Dickinson—"one of the leaders of the opposition to the Stamp Act"—a rare copy of his influential attack on the 1765 Stamp Act, printed in London immediately after the Philadelphia first edition "on the order of Benjamin Franklin," who was then in London. $4500.

"THE MOST LEARNED STATEMENT OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL GROUNDS FOR COLONIAL RESISTANCE": FIRST EDITION OF JOHN ADAMS’ NOVANGLUS LETTERS

((AMERICAN REVOLUTION) ADAMS, John (and LEONARD, Daniel). Novanglus, and Massachusettensis; or Political Essays. Boston, 1819.

First edition of John Adams' Novanglus letters, a series of essays that appeared under his pseudonym in a Boston newspaper just prior to Lexington and Concord, together complete in book form for the first time—"Adams' expansive defense of the colonies' autonomy would play an important role in America's intellectual justification for declaring independence from Great Britain," very rare uncut in original boards. $4200.

“BE ENCOURAGED, ALL YE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM… TREMBLE ALL YE OPPRESSORS OF THE WORLD!”

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PRICE, Richard. Discourse on the Love of Our Country. London, 1789.

First edition of Price's controversial and incendiary work on the revolutionary progress of human rights from England's 1688 Glorious Revolution to the American and French Revolutions, sparking Edmund Burke's strong refutation of Price in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and an eloquent endorsement from Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). $4000.

"AMERICANS! THIS DAY RECOGNIZES YOUR EMANCIPATION… THE BIRTH-DAY OF YOUR INDEPENDENCE… A COMPLETE POLITICAL REVOLUTION"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) HITCHCOCK, Enos, D. D. Oration, in Commemoration of the Independence. Providence, 1793.

First edition of a seminal work by the influential Revolutionary-era chaplain who served with the Third Massachusetts Continental at Ticonderoga and Saratoga, as well as Valley Forge, and later in Philadelphia at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, an eloquent voice for America's cause, referencing Montesquieu in praising America's Constitution for its "three powers… most perfectly combined," especially scarce with a contemporary New England provenance. $3800.

"ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD"

PRICE, Richard. Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution. London, 1785.

First revised and expanded edition, published only one year after the first, of Price's Observations, the preferred edition with nearly 50 additional pages. $3200.

“IF YOU ARE MEN, BEHAVE LIKE MEN. LET US TAKE UP ARMS IMMEDIATELY”

(CUSTOMS COMMISSIONERS ACT). Customs Commissioners Act. London, 1767.

Rare first printing of the 1767 Customs Commissioners Act, one of the controversial Townshend Acts that united patriot opposition to British rule and provoked the Boston Massacre. $3200.

“NOTHING CAN BE OF SO MUCH CONSEQUENCE TO US AS LIBERTY”

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PRICE, Richard. Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty. London, 1776.

Second edition, issued within days of the first, of Price’s powerfully influential British defense of the American revolution, a work of crucial importance in “determining the Americans to declare their independence” (DNB). $3200.

“BE ENCOURAGED, ALL YE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM… TREMBLE ALL YE

OPPRESSORS OF THE WORLD!”

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PRICE, Richard. Discourse on the Love of Our Country. London, 1789.

Second edition, published shortly after the same year's first edition, of Price's incendiary work on human rights from England's Glorious Revolution to the American and French Revolutions, sparking Burke's fiery refutation of Price in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and an eloquent endorsement from Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). $2500.

“BE ENCOURAGED, ALL YE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM… TREMBLE ALL YE OPPRESSORS OF THE WORLD!”

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) PRICE, Richard. Discourse on the Love of Our Country. London, 1790.

Third edition, the scarce first expanded edition of Price's controversial work, issued only one year after the first edition, documenting progress in human rights from England's Glorious Revolution to the American and French Revolutions, sparking Burke's refutation in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and Wollstonecraft's endorsement in Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). $1800.

"THEY ARE NOW MR. LOCKE'S DISCIPLES"

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (BURKE, Edmund) TUCKER, Josiah. A Letter to Edmund Burke… in Answer to His Printed Speech. Gloucester, 1775.

Second edition, issued the same year as the first, of Josiah Tucker's impassioned and insightful response to Edmund Burke's famous speech of March 22, 1775, in which Burke urged reconciliation with the colonies—a course the prescient economist Tucker believed both foolish and fruitless, as he foresaw that the Americans' "rapid economic growth and dislike of regulation would… eventually lead them to separate from Britain through self-interest." $1600.

“TO MAINTAIN, BY FIRE AND SWORD, DOMINION… CONTRADICTS EVERY PRINCIPLE OF LIBERTY AND HUMANITY”

PRICE, Richard. Additional Observations. London, 1777.

Second edition, issued within weeks of the first edition and preceding the first American edition, published in answer to a storm of “virulent invectives” against Price for his support of American independence in Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty (1776), handsomely bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe. $1400.

"THE STRESS OF THE AMERICAN WARS": RARE FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING OF THE 1765 PARLIAMENTARY ACT IMPOSING "DUTIES … UPON MALT, MUM, CYDER, AND PERRY," PASSED ONLY MONTHS BEFORE THE SAME YEAR'S STAMP ACT THAT SPARKED REVOLUTION

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (PARLIAMENT) GEORGE III. Act for … Duties upon Malt, Mum, Cyder, and Perry. London, 1765.

First printing of the 1765 parliamentary act imposing duties on “Malt, Mum, Cyder, and Perry,” passed only months before the same year’s Stamp Act that sparked the Boston Tea Party and the Revolution, this act targeting Scotland with duties on malt and other goods, taxation key to fueling Britain’s finances “in the stress of the American wars,” one of only 1100 copies. $1250.