New-York: Printed by James Rivington, 1774. First edition. 8vo. 29, (1) pp.; lacking ad leaf at rear. 19th-century three-quarter crimson morocco over marbled paper-covered boards, stamped in gilt, remnants of library call number at bottom of spine and front boards, extremities and boards rubbed, spine ends lightly worn; all edges trimmed; abrasion on front paste-down from removed label; foxing to text; wear along center of title-page, presumably from a removed ink stamp. Adams, American Independence 128; Evans 13381; Howes L-398 ("aa"); Sabin 41634; ESTC W21592

Scarce first edition of Philip Livingston's powerful defense of American colonial rights, written in response to Loyalist Thomas Bradbury Chandler's Friendly Address to all Reasonable Americans (1774), which defended Great Britain's Coercive Acts. Livingston's pamphlet "invoked both historical precedent and Lockean political theory to defend colonial opposition to parliamentary taxation" (American National Biography, Vol. 13, p. 772). Livingston goes on to defend the actions of the Boston Tea Party insurgents, and using "ironic ridicule" (Bailyn, Pamphlets of the American Revolution, p. 8), counters Chandler's more conciliatory argument. Livingston ends his treatise with an impassioned plea, "Great are the difficulties we labour under, and many are the obstacles we must surmount. For the road to freedom and virtue, is not strewed with flowers, but sprinkled with thorns. Perhaps our fortitude is not equal to the talk, if so, we deserve the consequences. But remember, that the mother-country must suffer with her colonies: remember, that a Non-Importation has once procured a redress of our grievances. Remember that Concord is the parent of success. Remember, that the worst which can possibly befal (sic) us, even at the last, is that very slavery which we must now resist or submit to..."

Born into one of New York's leading families, Philip Livingston (1716-78) was educated at Yale, and made his fortune in trade and land speculation. He became a leading conservative patriot in New York during the imperial crisis with Great Britain, served as a representative in the Stamp Act Congress, in both the first and second Continental Congresses, and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. "An exemplar of conservative patriotism in Revolutionary America", he was "a conscientious leader, possessed of an aristocrat's sense of social responsibility, he accepted republicanism without embracing its democratic implications." (ANB, p. 772)

Very scarce. According to RBH, this is only the fourth copy to come to auction since 1991.