John Dickinson | Benjamin Franklin's copy

John Dickinson

Lettres d'un fermier de Pensylvanie, aux habitans de l'Amérique Septentrionale. Traduites de 'l Anglois [by Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg]. Amsterdam [but Paris], Aux Dépens de la Compagnie, 1769

8vo (166 x 103 mm). Woodcut headpiece, numerous woodcut tailpieces, with terminal blank R2; occasional very light browning. Contemporary French mottled calf, smooth spine gilt in compartments with green morocco title label, endpapers and edges marbled en suite; extremities a bit worn. Half red morocco slipcase, chemise.

First edition in French of John Dickinson’s seminal work, with distinguished provenance. Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies was the first serious study of the legal rights of the British colonists in America. Dickinson’s letters first appeared in twelve success issues of William Goddard’s Pennsylvania Chronicle, and Universal Advertiser, Nos. 46–57, 2 December 1767–15 February 1768. Goddard evidently recognized the immediate significance of Dickinson's letter-essays: eight of the dozen letters are printed on front pages.

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania were collected and reprinted as a pamphlet by Hall and Sellers in Philadelphia in 1768, and by the next year, at least eight editions—including the present—had been issued in the colonies and abroad. Dickinson was one of the leading colonial statesmen to advocate a peaceful reconciliation with—or separation from—Great Britain, but in this series of essays he first admitted that force of arms in the quest for liberty might be both necessary and justified. His evolving position on the relationship between the mother country and her North American colonies closely paralleled Benjamin Franklin’s own considerations on the matter, although Franklin became a much more radical voice

Benjamin Franklin was instrumental in having Dickinson’s work published in London and, in French translation, in Paris. He wrote the preface to Almon’s London edition, which is translated in the present: “When I consider our Fellow Subjects in America as rational Creatures, I cannot but wonder that during the present wide Difference of Sentiments in the two Countries concerning the Power of Parliament in laying Taxes and Duties on America, no Application has been made to their Understandings, no able learned Pen among us has been employed in convincing them that they are in the wrong, proving clearly that by the establish’d Law of Nations, or by the Terms of their original Constitution, they are taxable by our Parliament tho’ they have no Representative in it. … It is to that End I have handed the following Letters (lately published in America) to the Press here. They were occasioned by the act made (since the repeal of the Stamp-act) for raising a revenue in America by duties on glass, paper, &c. The Author is a Gentleman of Repute in that Country for his Knowledge of its Affairs, and it is said speaks the general Sentiments of the Inhabitants. How far these Sentiments are right or wrong I do not pretend at present to judge. I wish to see first what can be said on the other Side of this Question. I hope this Publication will produce a full Answer if we can make one. If it does, this Publication will have had its Use. No Offence to Government is intended by it, and it is hoped none will be taken” (Papers, ed. Willcox, 15: 110–112).

Franklin had a copy of the English edition sent to his friend Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg, who had often translated Franklin’s own writings into French. Barbeu-Dubourg made the present translation and had it printed with a false Amsterdam imprint. The Snider copy belonged to Franklin—almost certainly the gift of the translator and perhaps specially bound by him—and his shelfmark (C69 N23) appears on the front free endpaper, probably added by his grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache. Edwin Wolf 2d and Kevin J. Hayes include Lettres d'un fermier de Pensylvanie in their catalogue, The Library of Benjamin Franklin (no. 860), noting that this copy was “acquired by William Reese for his private collection, 2001.”

After Franklin’s death in 1790, most of his books were sold to Nicholas Dufief, a Philadelphia bookseller. In about 1802, Dufief, perhaps unable to sell a French-language work in Philadelphia, gave the book to John Dickinson, acknowledging his authorship in an inscription on a front blank leaf, “This French translation of an original work of General Dickinson is respectfully presented to him by his most abdt. sevt. N. G. Dufief.”

This volume links two of the most crucial Founders and demonstrates their mutual respect despite frequent disagreements on the best methods of reconciling the colonist’s grievances with Great Britain. Indeed, Frankin arranged for Dickinson’s Letters to be reprinted even though he did not fully agree with their position. At the time, as noted by William Willcox in the Papers of Benjamin Frnaklin, “Dickinson accepted Parliament’s power to regulate commerce by duties; he distinguished it from the power to raise imperial revenue, which he denied that Parliament had. [Franklin] was moving hesitantly toward a realization that these two aspects of power were inseparable, and hence toward a denial of parliamentary jurisdiction in toto.”

PROVENANCE

Benjamin Franklin (shelfmark C69 N23 on front free endpaper; likely the gift of the translator); sold by his estate to — Nicholas G. Dufief, Philadelphia bookseller, who gave the volume to — John Dickinson (shelfmark J Q A L on front free endpaper) — William S. Reese (booklabel; Christie’s New York, 25 May 2022, lot 42)