Seth Kaller, Inc.

This very rare second issue includes the “Petition to the King’s most excellent majesty” calling for the repeal of the Intolerable Acts.

“To a sovereign, who ‘glories in the name of Briton,’ the bare recital of these acts must, we presume, justify the loyal subjects who fly to the foot of his throne and implore his clemency for protection against them.”

Very rare first edition, second issue, of the Journals of the Proceedings of Congress held in 1774. The title page bears the famous seal of the Congress, showing hands representing the twelve participating colonies (Georgia did not send delegates) supporting a column topped with a Liberty Cap resting on the Magna Carta, framed by the Latin motto “Hanc Tuemur Hac Nitimur” (“This we defend; this we lean upon”).

The first issue had been published in November, without the very important Petition to the King’s most excellent majesty. Calling for the king’s intercession to repeal the Intolerable Acts, it promises loyalty if the status quo of 1764 were restored. Passed on October 25, 1774, it remained secret until Congress was certain it has been delivered. This second issue adds Thomas Gage’s October 20 response to Peyton Randolph’s appeal of September 10 (pp.133-134), followed by the petition (pp 135-144). This second issue was likely published in January 1775.

[CHARLES THOMSON; FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS]. Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress, held at Philadelphia, September 5, 1774, 1st ed., 2nd issue. Philadelphia: Printed by William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, at the London Coffee House, 1774 [1775?]. 144 pp., 5 x 7¾ in.

Inventory #27201.99       Price: $85,000

Historical Background
The First Continental Congress met in September 1774 in the wake of the Royal Navy’s blockade of Boston Harbor as punishment for the Boston Tea Party. For the first inter-colonial meeting since the Stamp Act Congress in New York in 1765, representatives of twelve colonies met at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia to discuss how best to respond to the threats to English liberty in the actions of British governors, military officers, and ministers. Prominent delegates included John Adams, Samuel Adams, Roger Sherman, John Jay, Joseph Galloway, John Dickinson, George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, and Henry Middleton. Georgia, Quebec, Nova Scotia, St. John’s Island, East Florida, and West Florida were also invited but these colonies did not send representatives. Of those, only Georgia would send delegates the following year to the Second Continental Congress.

On October 1, the Congress resolved unanimously to prepare a “loyal address” to King George III, “dutifully requesting the royal attention to the grievances that alarm and distress his Majesty’s faithful subjects in North-America, and entreating his Majesty’s gracious interposition for the removal of such grievances” (p47).

On October 11, 1774, the Congress resolved unanimously that “a memorial be prepared to the people of British America, stating to them the necessity of a firm, united, and invariable observation of the measures recommended by the Congress, as they tender the invaluable rights and liberties derived to them from the laws and constitution of their country” (p57). They also decided to prepare an address to the people of Great Britain and to send letters to the people of Quebec, St. John’s, Nova Scotia, Georgia, and East and West Florida, “who have not Deputies to represent them in this Congress” (p113)

This volume includes these important early resolutions, memorials, and letters:

·      Resolution Not to Import from Great Britain or Ireland, September 27 (p46)

·      Resolution Not to Export to Great Britain, Ireland, or the West Indies, September 30 (p46)

·      Letter from Congress to General Gage, October 10 (p54-56)

·      Declarations and Resolves, October 14 (p58-65)

·      The Plan of Association, October 20 (p68-75)

·      Address to the People of Great Britain, October 21 (p78-92)

·      Address to the Inhabitants of These Colonies, October 21 (p93-113)

·      Letter to the Colonies of St. John’s, Nova Scotia, Georgia, and East and West Florida, October 22 (p114-115)

·      Letter to the Inhabitants of the Province of Quebec, October 26 (p118-131)

·      Petition to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, Oct. 25 (p135-144)

Before adjourning on October 26, the First Continental Congress agreed on October 22 to reassemble on May 10, 1775, for the Second Continental Congress that ultimately broke with England.

Charles Thomson (1729-1824) was one of only two men to sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776; he as Secretary of Congress, and John Hancock as President of Congress, both attesting that it had passed. (For the engrossed Declaration, prepared for posterity the next month, the delegates affixed their signatures, and Thomson was not asked to sign. But when the first official copy went out naming the signers—the 1777 Goddard broadside—Hancock and Thomson were again the only two signers).

Thomson served as secretary to the Continental Congress for its entire fifteen years of existence, from its inception in 1774, through the ratification of the Articles of Association in 1781 (when it became the Confederation Congress), until the ratification of the Constitution and beginning of the federal government in 1789. His role was substantially more than clerical, especially between sessions of Congress, and he took a direct role in the conduct of foreign affairs. Some considered him as essentially the “Prime Minister of the United States,” and Thomson decided what to include in the official journals of the Continental and Confederation Congresses.

Thomson was born in Ireland to Scots-Irish parents. After his mother’s death, his father took his sons to the British colonies. Tragically, his father died at sea, and Thomson and his brothers were separated in America. A blacksmith in Delaware cared for him, and he received an education in New London, Pennsylvania. In 1750, he became a Latin tutor in Philadelphia and later a leader in the Sons of Liberty.

In 1782, Thomson took the work of three previous committees to create a final design for the Great Seal of the United States. In 1787, Thomson sent the proposed United States Constitution to the states for ratification. In April 1789, Thomson notified George Washington of his election as the first president of the United States. Under the new federal government, the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives assumed many of Thomson’s old functions, including as the keeper of the Seal.

Thomson resigned as secretary of Congress in July 1789, and political disagreements kept him from a position in the new federal government. He spent the next two decades preparing the first English translation from the Greek Septuagint of the Old Testament and the first American translation of the New Testament, published in 1808.

William Bradford (1719-1791) and his son Thomas Bradford (1745-1838) were printers and published The Pennsylvania Journal, or, Weekly Advertiser in Philadelphia under slightly varying titles from 1742 to 1801. In 1754, Bradford opened the London Coffee House in Philadelphia. He frequently attacked the policies of the British government and was a vocal critic of the Stamp Act. On October 31, 1765, William Bradford published a skull and crossbones on the masthead to announce that he would stop publication rather than submit to the Stamp Act, which required newspapers to be printed on stamped and taxed paper. Like many other colonial newspapers, Bradford continued weekly publication in defiance of the Stamp Act. From mid-1774 to late 1775, each issue of the newspaper included a snake chopped into segments with the motto “Unite or Die” on the masthead. When the Revolutionary War began, William Bradford joined the Pennsylvania militia, rising to the rank of colonel. Thomas Bradford continued to publish the newspaper alone until a wound William Bradford received at the Battle of Princeton in 1777 forced him to resign from the militia and return to Philadelphia to continue publishing The Pennsylvania Journal in partnership with his son. Thomas Bradford continued the journal after his father’s death, eventually changing its name to the True American in 1801.

Condition: Without half-title (light scattered foxing, repairs at foot of title page just touching seal and to rear free endpaper where library stamps have been excised, labels removed from front pastedown and front cover); contemporary calf (rubbed, rebacked, and recornered).

Evans 13737; Ford 39 (lists the second issue, noting “some copies were issued before pp. 133-144 were printed.”); Howes J-263 (“b”); Revolutionary Hundred 20 (including 1775 volume); Sabin 15542 (cites only this edition).

Provenance
W. L. Williams (ownership inscription on front free endpaper and title)

Anderson Galleries, February 28, 1922, lot 193.
Christie’s, May 24, 2022, lot 47.