Raynors HCA 2017-09
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/7/2017
A rare anti-taxation booklet, entitled: "The HONEST GRIEF OF A TORY, expressed in a genuine letter from a Burgess of ---, in Wiltshire, to the author of the Monitor, Feb. 17, 1759," 39pp. 8vo., printed for J. Angel, London, 1759, that helps sow the seeds of discontent against taxation in both England and the North American colonies. This booklet was produced as an "argument" against the political and social view points of the London newspaper, The Monitor, whose Whig editorials attacked all those who were Tories. Railing against parliament's taxation of English goods and services, the booklet's anonymous author, declared hatred for any new taxation. He feared that it would only be used to send aid to foreign country's such as Germany. For the North American colonists, he touched on the sore point of taxation without representation when he declared, in small part: "…I just now hear that an Excise on Tobacco is to be our Tax this Year. If so, [it is] the worst attempt, of the very worst Minister…to be carried into execution…if this Product of North America must indeed be taxed in this odious manner, merely to save the Produce of the Estates of a few West-India Members, what becomes of your only Plea? What means this bold, pernicious Minister, or His West Indians, but gross and palpable Corruption? Corruption detestable, not as you would have us believe, detested." A rare book that helped give rise to the anti-taxation sentiment which led to the American Revolution. Inscribed, in fountain pen, on the inside cover: "F. W. Putnam, Feb. 21, 1903, Library Congress." Rarely this booklet is encountered in the market place and is a must-have for anyone who has a library of 18th political treatises. The last we can find that came to auction as an individual copy was in 1969. Usual wear and soiling, with chips affecting the covers, others VG
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