Beschreibung:

GREAT BRITAIN -- PARLIAMENT, HOUSE OF COMMONS]. A complete and accurate account of the very important debate in the House of Commons, on Tuesday, July 9, 1782, in which the cause of Mr. Fox's resignation, and the great question of American Independence came under consideration... London: Stockdale, 1782.
GREAT BRITAIN -- PARLIAMENT, HOUSE OF COMMONS]. A complete and accurate account of the very important debate in the House of Commons, on Tuesday, July 9, 1782, in which the cause of Mr. Fox's resignation, and the great question of American Independence came under consideration... London: Stockdale, 1782. 8 o (200 x 120mm). 57pp. Early engraved portrait of Charles James Fox inserted as frontispiece. (Scattered foxing to early leaves). Finely bound in late eighteenth-century dark red English morocco, covers with wide gilt borders. Corners with a small bird tool, spine gilt in six compartments, all edges gilt. (Very minor rubbing). Provenance : Joseph Y. Jeanes of Philadelphia (book-label). FIRST EDITION. The dedication, to Charles James Fox, contends that "the following debate is universally allowed to be the most important one that ever happened in the House of Commons." One of the most radical members of the House of Commons, a vocal opponent of King Georg III and an outspoken supporter of American independence, Fox reportedly dressed in the Continental Army's colors. Briefly he served as Britain's first Foreign Secretary in the ministry of the Marquess of Rockingham in 1782, and pressed for unconditional recognition of American independence; when he was denied authority to oversee the peace negotiations underway in Paris, Fox resigned in protest. This tract, clearly assembled by a Fox supporter, contains transcriptions of key addresses by William Pitt the Younger, Edmund Burke Grenville and others, debating the momentous question of independence for the 13 former colonies. Adams, American Controversy 82-45a; JCB III, 2758; Sabin 15053