Mr. De Lolme’s Constitution of England. By a Farmer of New-Jersey.
New-York: printed by
W. Ross,
m.dcc.lxxxvii
. [1787.]--
Examen du gouvernement d’Angleterre, comparé aux constitutions des États-Unis . . . Par un Cultivateur de New-Jersey. Ouvrage
traduit de l’
Anglois, & accompagné de notes.
A
Londres: et se trouve à
Paris, chez
Froullé,
1789.
JK291 .S75
First Edition. The original text and the
French translation bound together in 1 vol. 8vo. 28 leaves in fours, 144 leaves (only) in eights; the second part should have 150 leaves, lacks the first six leaves of sig. N (pp. 193-204).
Halkett and Laing IV, 216. [By William Livingston.]
Sabin 41645, 6.
Evans 20465 [both under Livingston].
Barbier II, 356 [de Robert A. Livingston. par M. Fabre].
Faÿ, page 25.
Calf, pale blue endpapers, label on the back lettered
Livingst /
against /
De Lolme /
and Ada / first title backed. Not initialled by Jefferson. With the Library of Congress 1815 bookplate.
On the title-page of the English text Jefferson has written in ink the chapter number
24, and, underneath the words
By a Farmer of New-Jersey, the name of the author,
John Stevens of N. Jersey. Many corrections of the text in ink.
In the French translation, on page (v) in the Avertissement des Éditeurs, occurs the passage:
Un Cultivateur de New-Jersey, que l’on croit être M. Livingston . . . below which Jefferson has written in ink:
but in truth it was m(
~
r)
John Stevens.
For the works in question of Adams and de Lolme, see no. 3004 below, and 2719. This work has always been attributed to William Livingston, but Jefferson very clearly states that it was by John Stevens.
The translation into French was by Fabre and the notes by Dupont de Nemours, Condorcet and J. Antoine Gauvain Gallois.
William Livingston, 1723-1790, was the first Governor of the State of New Jersey.
[3003]
J. 278
Adams’s Defence of the American constitutions.
3. v.
8
vo.
1815 Catalogue, page 93. no. 247, as above,
2 v.
ADAMS,
John.
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America. By John Adams, LL.D. and a Member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Boston . . . [-Vol. II.]
London: printed for
C. Dilly,
m.dcc.lxxxvii
. [1787.]
JK171 .A2 1787
First Edition. 2 vol. 8vo. Vol. I, 202 leaves, lacks one leaf, B
1, which may have been a blank, no half-title; vol. II, 288 leaves, including the half-title. Vol. I is not so indicated in
the title; the quotations on the title-page are different in the two volumes.
Stockdale’s name is included in the imprint of Vol. II.
Sabin 233, 234 (vol. II dated
m.dcc.lxxxviii).
Cronin and Wise, no. 23.
Calf. Initialled by Jefferson at sig. I and T in each volume. On the title-page of the first volume Adams has written in ink:
Vol. I.
These volumes, which were published separately, were each sent by John Adams, at that time Ambassador in London, to Jefferson,
the Minister Plenipotentiary in Paris.
On February 6, 1787, Jefferson wrote to Adams from Paris: “
. . . I thank you much for the valuable present of your book. the subject of it is interesting & I am sure it is well treated.
I shall take it on my journey that I may have time to study it. you told me once you had had thoughts of writing on the subject
of hereditary aristocracy. I wish you would carry it into execution. it would make a proper sequel to the present work . .
.
”
On the 23rd of the same month, in a letter to Adams concerned at first with French affairs, Jefferson wrote: “
. . . I have read your book with infinite satisfaction & improvement. it will do great good in America. it’s learning & it’s
good sense will I hope make it an institute for our politicians, old as well as young. there is one opinion in it however,
which I will ask you to reconsider, because it appears to me not entirely accurate, & not likely to do good. pa. 362. ‘Congress
is not a legislative, but a diplomatic assembly.’ separating into parts the whole sovereignty of our states, some of these
parts are yeilded to Congress. upon these I should think them both legislative & executive; & that they would have
”
