London: Printed for J. Walter, 1768. Fourth edition. 8vo. (iii)-xxxi, (i), 318, 73 pp.; lacking A1 (blank). Full contemporary brown calf, stamped in gilt, front and rear boards detached but holding, rubbing and wear along extremities and to boards, headcap and spine label perished; speckled red edges; armorial book-plate of Culling Eardley Smith on front paste-down, same book-plate covering another of same; remnants of removed label on front paste-down; scattered spotting to text. Adams, The American Controversy 64-16d, and American Independence 5d; Reese, Revolutionary Hundred 3 (first edition); Sabin 64817; Guttridge, Thomas Pownall's The Administration of the Colonies: the Six Editions, pp. 39-44

Revised and expanded fourth edition in contemporary boards of Thomas Pownall's highly popular pre-Revolutionary treatise on the constitutional and economic relationship between Great Britain and its American colonies. Pownall served as governor of Massachusetts from 1757-60, and upon his return to England anonymously published the first edition of this treatise in 1764. Running to six editions by 1777, it amounts "to a running commentary on the imperial problem from the Stamp Act to the Revolution" (Guttridge, p. 31).

A moderate who sympathized with American colonial grievances, Pownall's fourth edition appeared immediately following the repeal of the Stamp Act, and at moment when the colonies were organizing in protest to the passage of the Townshend Acts. This important edition "dealt with the
American claim that the colonies, although subject to the Crown, were
outside and separate from the realm. Pownall previously hoped for
compromise and conciliation, but that prospect had receded and the
controversial elements had to be dealt with openly. The new edition
was thus more explicit about what the author regarded as the true
constitutional relationship between Great Britain and the colonies, as
well as his program of reconciliation" (Guttridge, p. 39).