Beschreibung:

REVOLUTIONARY WAR]. The Crisis. Number 1[-87]. To be continued Weekly. [London:] Printed and Published for the Authors by T.W. Shaw, in Fleet Street, opposite Anderton's Coffee House, where Letters to the Publisher will be thankfully received, 21 January 1775 - 14 September 1776. AN EXCEEDINGLY RARE PRO-AMERICAN WEEKLY PUBLISHED IN LONDON, WITH AN EARLY ENGLISH PRINTING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 2 o. A near-complete run, containing 85 weekly issues (of 91, without a broadside of the Declaration of Independence called for (perhaps erroneously?) by Sabin); the run includes THE FULL TEXT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE in issue 85 for 24 August 1776. Bound here are numbers 1-78, 80-85, 87 plus a special un-numbered issue dated 9 August 1775. Each with mast-head in large types, woodcut initial capitals. Most issues containing 6 pages, a few 8, one 12 pages. Cloth-backed paper boards, UNCUT. (Some fore-margins with minor dust-soiling, a few pages spotted, but generally in excellent condition.) A pro-American weekly notable for its strident, incendiary tone; vigorously condemning the King, Parliament and the Ministry for its policies towards the rebellious American colonies. (Note that this serial is unrelated to Thomas Paine's series of letters under the same title.) One issue is boldly headed "A Bloody Court, A Bloody Ministry, and a Bloody Parliament" (28 January 1775), another asserts "Resistance to Tyrants and the Instruments of Tyranny is justifiable, and Warranted, by all the Laws of GOD and Man" (21 February 1775). In the issue of 11 February 1775 is a striking letter addressed "To the Officers, Soldiers, and Seamen, Who may be employed to Butcher their Relations, Friends and fellow Subjects in America." Strongly worded open letters are frequently featured, addressed to the King, and to Lords North, Sandwich, Radnor, Suffolk, Bute and Apsley. The 22 April 1775 issue reacts to news of the Lexington and Concord alarms, under the heading "BLOOD calls for BLOOD." Serialized over the course of a number of issues is "Casca's Epistle to Lord North," in verse. Number 35 contains an impassioned defence of the freedom of the press, in which Shaw affirms that he will publish all essays "in defence of the CHARTERED RIGHTS, and CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTIES of the Brave Americans"; Number 85 features "the Declaration of Independence of the Brave, Free and Virtuous Americans against the most dastardly, slavish and vicious Tyrant that ever disgraced a Nation..." Sabin 17516 ("The work, which is of great rarity, contains a remarkable collection of papers attacking the ministry and the British government in terms of the greatest severity"). [With:] The American Gazette. By Several Gentlemen from America. Number 1 [-5]. London: Printed and Published for the authors by T. Shaw, 13 February 1776 - 12 March 1776. 2/so. PRINTED IN RED INK. Each issue containing 6 pages. Manifestly a related weekly, in a similar denunciatory vein, by the same printer-publisher, Shaw. It may contain the submissions from interested parties that Shaw repeatedly solicits in The Crisis . In the first issue, addressed to Parliment, the unidentified authors proclaim that "America will resist to the last drop of blood; she is properly prepared to repel your Force by Land and Sea; it will be impossible to bring her under your yoke..." Not in Sabin.