Sowerby Catalogue Volume III : page 248

8vo. 5 numbers in one volume, 162 leaves, continuous signatures and pagination, no half-title to Number I, no separate title to Number IV, separate titles and half-titles to the other numbers.

Sabin 1088.

Contemporary calf. Initialled by Jefferson at sig. I and T. With the Library of Congress 1815 bookplate.

Jefferson’s manuscript and the early Library of Congress catalogues call for the first number only. The five numbers in one volume were sold to Congress in 1815. Signature T, signed by Jefferson, occurs in the third number.

[3071]

J. 311

Reflections moral & political on Gr. Br. & her colonies. 8 ^vo. 1770. MS. notes by D ^r. Franklin.

1815 Catalogue, page 104. no. 239, Reflections moral and political on Great Britain and her Colonies, with MS. notes, by Dr. Franklin, 1770, 8vo.

[WHEELOCK, Matthew.]

Reflections moral and political on Great Britain and her colonies. London: printed for T. Becket and Co. in the Strand, m.dcc.lxx . [Price one shilling.] [1770.]

E187 .C72 vol. 26

First Edition. 8vo. 36 leaves in fours [part of the upper blank margin of the title cut away].

Halkett and Laing V, 43.

Sabin 103221.

[3072]

With this is bound:

[RAMSAY, Allen.]

Thoughts on the origin and nature of government. Occasioned by the late disputes between Great Britain and her American Colonies: written in the year 1766 . . . London: printed for T. Becket and P. A. de Hondt, mdcclxix . [1769.]

First Edition. 32 leaves in eights. [The lower margin of A ₃, with signature and catchword, cut away.]

Halkett and Laing V, 40.

Sabin 67679.

The two pamphlets bound together in one volume. English red straight grain morocco, gilt, uncut; the fly-leaves are watermarked Edmonds & Pine, 1800; the two tracts were originally numbered 5 and 6 in ink on the two titles (now partially erased); it is to be assumed therefore that they were removed from a larger volume of tracts, and especially bound. The labels on the back are now lettered Colonial / Pamphlets. / Vol. 26. / With the Library of Congress 1815 bookplate.

From the library of Benjamin Franklin, and with a running commentary by him in the form of marginal notes in his autograph. Franklin’s last note reads: This Writer is concise, lively, & elegant in his Language, but his Reasonings are too refin’d and Paradoxical to make Impression on the Understanding or convince the Minds of his Readers. And his main Fact on which they are founded is a Mistake.

This volume was sent to Jefferson by N. G. Dufief, from Philadelphia, on January 31, 1803, originally as a loan. Dufief wrote: “Je vous envoie le catalogue des livres qui me restent de la Bibliothèque du D ^r. Franklin . . .

"J’ai cru vous faire plaisir & vous donner une preuve non équivoque de ma profonde estime en joignant au Catalogue deux petits ouvrages sur la Revolution américaine, rendus inestimables par les notes posthumes de votre illustre coopérateur dans le grand & glorieux œuvre de l’indépendance. Lisez-les, communiquez-les, si vous le desirez, à vos amis, & ensuite renvoyez-moi le volume qui les contient, par le m( ^~e)me [ sic -- Ed. ] voie dont je me sers pour vous le faire parvenir . . .”

Jefferson replied on February 4, from Washington, and asked Dufief to send certain books from Franklin’s library (see no. 42 and 1336). He added: “ . . . to this I should certainly add the volume inclosed in your letter, containing two small pamphlets with copious marginal notes by D ^r. F., but that from the binding, and the desire expressed to have it returned, I conclude you wish to preserve it for yourself as a relict of a saint . . . ”