London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1775. Second edition. 8vo. (iv), 91 pp., with half-title. Three-quarter brown calf over marbled paper-covered boards, red morocco spine label, stamped in gilt; all edges trimmed. ESTC T141339; Sabin 36303; Adams, American Controversy 75-69b; Courtney & Smith, p.125; Reese, The Revolutionary Hundred 26

Second edition (published the same year as the first) of Samuel Johnson's response to the American Congress, one of the most famous pamphlets of the American Revolution.

This edition includes a number of textual changes from the first, and is also easily distinguished from the first by differing press marks. Written in response to the opening rumblings of the American Revolution, Johnson writes, "That it is their duty to pay the cost of their own safety they seem to admit; nor do they refuse their contribution to the exigencies, whatever they may be, of the British empire; but they make this participation of the public burden a duty of very uncertain extent, and imperfect obligation, a duty temporary, occasional and elective, of which they reserve to themselves the right of settling the degree, the time, and the duration, of judging when it may be required, and when it has been performed."