Fine collection of five complete issues of 'The London Chronicle' newspaper, each issue containing references to Franklin's famous pamphlet 'The Interest of Great Britain with Regard to Her Colonies...'

London: The London Chronicle, 1760. Comprising: Vol. VIII, nos 514, 517, 520, 525, and 529. Each 8 pages, small folio (11 x 8 inches). Disbound. Includes the ad for the pamphlet, "This day published...," April 17, 1760; review and excerpts from the pamphlet, praising it highly, April 24; two lengthy letters attacking the pamphlet, with footnotes by the Chronicle editor defending it, May 6 and May 15, 1760. Early publications and reviews of Franklin's works are scarce.

The pamphlet was the rare ‘Canada pamphlet'. Franklin anticipates a British victory in the French and Indian wars, and debates which territory is more important for Great Britain to retain: Canada or sugar-rich Guadelope. ‘In recent years Franklin's authorship has been re-established in the minds of all but a few doubters, though, as Franklin himself seems to have acknowledged, he received some help from his friend and ally [Richard] Jackson' (The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, 1966, 9: 53). Together with the advocacy of the retention of Canada, most interesting is a passage where Franklin discusses the possibility that colonies may grow as this ‘may render them dangerous. Of this I own, I have not the least conception, when I consider that we have already fourteen separate governments ... and if we extend ... shall probably have as many more ... Those we now have, are not only under different governors, but have different forms of government, different laws, different interests, and some of them different religious persuasions and different manners' (pp.39-40). Bound with six other pamphlets concerning Britain's territorial ambitions and conflicts overseas. See Ford 268; Howes J-26; Sabin 35450.

WITH: Another issue, Vol. XI., no 836, May 1 to 4, 1762. With notice of Franklin receiving from Oxford an honorary doctorate in Civil Law.