CHALMERS, George (1742-1825)

Political Annals of the Present United Colonies, from their Settlement to the Peace of 1763, Book I [all published]

London: J. Bowen, 1780. 4to. (11 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches). 695 pp. [all published, covering Virginia, New England, Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine, Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania], first edition, title with contemporary ink signature of J. Shaw Stuart.

Finely bound to style in half calf with marbled paper boards, spine with raised bands forming six compartments, red morocco lettering piece gilt

A substantial Loyalist history of British North America, written during the American Revolution and grounded in colonial records, charters, acts of assembly, and state papers.

Chalmers' Political Annals was intended as a constitutional and administrative history of the British colonies from settlement to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Only Book I was published in 1780, carrying the account from the first English colonial claims and settlements to the Revolution of 1688. The work covers Virginia, New England, Massachusetts, Maryland, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine, Carolina, New York, and Pennsylvania, with close attention to charters, proprietary rights, legislative authority, trade, and the development of colonial government. George Chalmers was a Scottish lawyer who had practised in Baltimore before returning to Britain at the outbreak of the American Revolution, Chalmers wrote from a firmly Loyalist position. His argument is shaped by the constitutional disputes of the 1770s, especially the question of whether colonial liberties arose from inherited English rights, royal charters, provincial practice, or parliamentary authority. The resulting book is both a history of early British America and a wartime intervention in the debate over empire, sovereignty, and colonial resistance. The title's reference to the "Peace of 1763" (Treaty of Paris) reflects Chalmers' original plan for a second book, which he stated was well advanced. That continuation was not printed in separate form during his lifetime; a later version, drawn from manuscript, appeared in the New York Historical Society's 1868 collections. The present title stands as the only contemporary publication of the work, and as one of the more extensive Loyalist archival histories of colonial America produced during the Revolutionary era.

Item #42974

Price: $2,850.00