English Liberties, Or, The Free-Born Subject's Inheritance..

1774. Providence, 1774. 2d Am. ed. Providence, 1774. 2d Am. ed. A Profound Influence in Pre-Revolutionary America [Care, Henry (1646-1688)]. N[elson], W[illiam] [b.1653], Editor. English Liberties, Or The Free-Born Subject's Inheritance. Containing Magna Charta, Charta de Foresta, The Statute De Tallagio, Non Concedendo, The Habeas Corpus Act, And Several Other Statutes; With Comments on Each of Them. Likewise, Of Ship-Money: Of Tonnage and Poundage. Of Parliaments, and the Qualification and Choice of Members: Of the Three Estates, And of the Settlement of the Crown by Parliament. Together with a Short History of the Succession, Not by Any Hereditary Right: Also a Declaration of the Liberties of the Subject: And of the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy. The Petition of Right; With a Short but Impartial Relation of the Difference Between King Charles I and the Long Parliament, Concerning the Prerogative of the King, The Liberties of the Subject, And the Rise of the Civil Wars. Of Trials by Juries, and of the Qualifications of Jurors; Their Punishment for Misbehaviour, And of Challenges to Them. Lastly, Of Justices of the Peace, And Coroners: With Many Law Cases Throughout the Whole. Corrected and Improved. Providence: Printed and Sold by John Carter, 1774. viii, 350, [6] pp. Includes six-page subscriber list. Octavo (6-3/4" x 4-1/2"). Period-style quarter morocco over marbled boards, gilt fillets to boards at edges of morocco, raised bands, gilt title and gilt fillets to spine. Moderate toning and light foxing to interior, corner folds to final few leaves, light browning to preliminaries, tiny stain to title page at head of gutter, its upper-outside corner lacking with loss of part of "e" and all of "s" of title, short clean tears to upper-outside corners of following two leaves. A handsome copy. $4,000. * Second American edition. Preceded by a 1721 Boston edition, this 1774 Providence edition was published in the same year as the first Continental Congress and the Intolerable Acts (and about a year after the Boston Tea Party). A publisher's note at the end of the table of contents says this edition was "principally designed for America" and contained "extracts from several late celebrated writers on the constitution" (vi). It is almost certain that this publisher was capitalizing on popular resentment toward the king and Parliament. First published in England in 1680 (or 1682.