"ANTICIPATED ONE OF ADAM SMITH'S SHREWDEST INSIGHTS, THAT REGULATIONS AND RESTRICTIONS IMPEDED COMMERCE RATHER THAN PROTECTING IT… LET THE AMERICANS BE INDEPENDENT": RARE 1775 EDITION OF TUCKER'S HUMBLE ADDRESS, HIS FIERY CHALLENGE TO EDMUND BURKE'S 1775 SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) (BURKE, Edmund) TUCKER, Josiah, D.D. An Humble Address and Earnest Appeal to Those Respectable Personages in Great-Britain and Ireland… Whether a Connection with, or a Separation from the Continental Colonies of America, Be Most for the National Advantage, and the Lasting Benefit of these Kingdoms. Gloucester: R. Raikes… Sold by T. Cadell, 1775. Slim octavo, period-style half brown morocco and marbled boards, raised bands; pp. (1-3), 4-93 (3). $3200.

First corrected edition, second overall, issued within days of the same year's first edition of the "important and influential" British economist's seminal rebuke of Edmund Burke, charging him with a crucial misunderstanding how the political economics of self-interest would best prevent further "Disturbances and Disputes" with America, urging Britain in 1775 to "separate totally from the Colonies… to enter into Alliances of Friendship, and Treaties of Commerce , as with any other sovereign, independent States," handsomely bound.

"A controversial figure during his lifetime," particularly in his views on the economics of Britain's stance toward the American colonies, Tucker was well known to Adam Smith and Founding Fathers Madison and Jefferson, who each owned copies of his writings. "Increasingly recognized as an important and original 18th-century theorist" (ODNB), Tucker was "espousing the cause of American separation as early as 1766, before the Americans themselves had considered this eventuality with any seriousness" To key scholars, "Tucker analyzed the American conflict more accurately than his contemporaries… [yet] so different were his views from all those around him that he has been noted as… a 'visionary' (Trevelyan) or a 'fanatic' (Clark)" (Rashid, "Tucker's Proposal," in Journal of the History of Ideas V43, No.3, 439). His assessment of American independence was not motivated "by any sympathy for the Americans." Instead, "their rapid economic growth and dislike of regulation would, he believed, eventually lead them to separate from Britain through self-interest… [and] the developing American crisis over taxation touched upon all Tucker's major interests: the need to maintain a mutually self-interested and beneficial trade between Britain and her colonies, his dislike of war and mock patriotism, and his distrust of political radicalism" (ODNB). "Central to Tucker's philosophy of economy is the concept of 'self-love,' which… became part of Adam Smith's concept of the 'invisible hand'… Tucker regarded trade as Britain's glory… [and] went so far as to suggest that the colonies should be detached from Britain to allow greater freedom of trade, a view which brought him into conflict with Edmund Burke" (Dictionary of 18th-Century British Philosophers V2:898).

When Burke attacked Tucker in the famed March 22, 1775 Speech on Conciliation with America, Tucker quickly responded with Humble Address. Here he marshals arguments and evidence to counter claims that Britain would lose its profitable commerce if America broke free. Tucker contended the "greater part of the colonial trade was motivated by self-interest and… it was a simple corollary that neither shipping nor navigation could be hurt by the independence of the colonies." To further support his position, he details "customs-house figures from 1765-72 to show that it was not Americans, but Germany and Holland, who purchased more British exports than the Americans" (Rashid, 454). To F.P. Lock, "Tucker anticipated one of Adam Smith's shrewdest insights, that regulations and restrictions impeded commerce rather than protecting it. For Tucker, imperialism was uneconomic… Let the Americans be independent, and they will continue to trade with Britain as long as British goods are competitive, Thus Tucker, like Smith, denied the economic value conventionally attributed to the possession of colonies. Burke disagreed… in the 1770s Burke still held to the mercantilist belief that exclusive or preferential trade with its colonies benefits the home country" (Edmund Burke, I:388). Copies of Tucker's works "including those on the colonies are found to be in Adam Smith's library" (Rashid, 456), and works by Tucker in Jefferson's library included Humble Address, "initialed by Jefferson" (Sowerby 3061). "Second Edition, Corrected" on title page. With folding chart of exports; rear advertisement leaf. Engraved ornamental initials, heading and tailpiece. Preceded by the November 1775 first edition. ESTC T36739. Adams, American Controversy 75-144b. Sabin 97350. Goldsmith's 11300. Kress 7174.

A fine copy.