Harvard Orders British Books Amidst Strife with Britain, Delivered by a Ship that Later that Year was Central to the Boston Tea Party

HARVARD

Edité par London, 1773

A propos de cet article

Thomas Longman, Manuscript Document, List of Books Shipped to Harvard College, April 17, 1773, London, England. 3 pp. This list of books shipped to Harvard College by London bookseller Thomas Longman in 1773 illustrates the dependence the American colonies had on Great Britain for scholarship immediately before the Revolutionary War. The list includes 77 titles with the costs of each, many of them multiple volumes. Another fourteen titles have notes such as "reprinting," "not yet published," "out of print," "never published," and "new editions with many additions and corrections by ye Editors," which indicate why they were been shipped.The volumes shipped include a wide array of disciplines, including theology, jurisprudence, history, natural history, astronomy, voyages and exploration, medicine, and drama. The individual titles ranged in price from 10 pence for mathematician John Landen's 14-page "Observations on Stewart" [Animadversions on Dr Stewart's Method of Computing the Sun's Distance from the Earth (1771)] to 4.12 for William Robertson's The History of Scotland, 2 vols. (1759). Among the intriguing titles are John Huddlestone Wynne, A General History of the British Empire in America, 2 vols. (1770); copies of the periodicals Gentlemen's Magazine (1771), London Magazine, and The Critical Review, or Annals of Literature; and volume 5 (1771) of Catherine Macaulay, A History of England from the Accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line, 8 vols. (1763-1783).The bill included 15 shillings for a trunk; 1 shilling, 6 pence for a case; and 1 for insurance. With shipping charges and a deduction of 5 percent for "ready Money," the total bill was 50. The books arrived aboard the ship Dartmouth, built in 1767 in Bedford Village, Massachusetts, and owned by Quaker Joseph Rotch (1704-1784) and his three sons, titans of the whaling industry. Captain James Hall and the Ship Dartmouth that he commanded likely arrived in Boston late in June 1773. In the province of Massachusetts Bay, he obtained a cargo of whale oil from the Rotch ships, which he delivered to London, perhaps in August or September 1773.On November 28, 1773, Captain Hall and the Dartmouth arrived in Boston after a voyage of eight weeks from London, carrying 114 chests of tea. The Dartmouth was one of seven ships that the East India Company sent to the American colonies in September and October 1773. Four were bound for Boston and one each for New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston. At the latter locations, protesters forced the tea consignees to resign or return the tea to England.In Boston, however, Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson convinced the tea consignees, two of whom were his sons, not to back down. The day after the arrival of the Dartmouth,thousands of people gathered at the Old Soth Meeting House for a mass meeting led by Samuel Adams. The meeting passed resolutions urging Captain Hall to return to England without paying the duties required by the Tea Act. In early December two more tea ships-Eleanor and Beaver-arrived in Boston.On the evening of December 16, a group of from 30 to 130 men, some dressed as Mohawk warriors, boarded the three vessels and dumped all 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor, in what came to be known as the Boston Tea Party. Excerpt"London, April 17th 1773, Ship'd on board the Dartmouth Captain Hall for Boston In New England by Thos Longman Bookseller in London, One Trunk and one Case of Books for the use of Hartford College, and are Consign'd to Mr Thos Hubbard Treasurer of the said College."Historical BackgroundIn 1723, the Harvard library contained 3,500 volumes, divided into two collections, one for "common use" and another for valuable and restricted volumes. In January 1764, a devastating fire began in the library and spread, destroying Harvard Hall. Most of the library collection, then numbering approximately 5,000 volumes, was lost. Only about 400 books that were on loan or in bo. (See website for full description).

N° de réf. du vendeur 27688

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Harvard Orders British Books Amidst Strife with Britain, Delivered by a Ship that Later that Year was Central to the Boston Tea Party
• Éditeur: London
• Date de parution: 1773
• Reliure: No binding
• État de l'article: Fine
• Type de livre: Manuscript Document
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Revolutionary War
  • Ephemera
  • History