Opinions on Interesting Subjects of Public Law and Commercial Policy; Arising from American Independence.

CHALMERS, George.

$1,500.00

Item Number: 127018

London: Printed for J. Debrett, 1784.

First edition of Chalmers’ treatise regarding trade regulations between England and America following American Independence. Octavo, bound in paper wrappers. In very good condition. Exceptionally rare.

Chalmers moved to Maryland as a young man and practiced law in Baltimore until the outbreak of the Revolution. Here he gives a clearly expressed statement of the various difficulties that must be resolved between Britain and her newly independent colonies. For instance: “The Treaty is explicit enough as to the political associations that compose the States, which are acknowledged to be free and independent; but it is altogether silent as to the Individuals who formed those celebrated confederations; it admits the thirteen societies, in their associated capacity, to be sovereign . . . but it does not explicitly renounce the allegiance of the colonists who, at the epoch of peace, were still British subjects. . . .” This in a long discussion of the injustices visited on Loyalists both in their former home and in Britain in the matter of sequestered properties. There is also an extended discussion of trade and exports such as wheat, corn, timber, fish and fish oil, with tables of tonnage and values.