What was advertised in a colonial American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“To be sold by … CONSTITUTIONAL Post-Riders.”

The front page of the July 1, 1774, edition of the Connecticut Gazette featured an open letter “TO THE KING” from “AMERICA” followed immediately by an advertisement for a book, The Judgment of Whole Kingdoms and Nations, Concerning the Rights, Power, and Prerogative of Kings, and the Rights, Privileges, and Properties of the People.  The petition requested a redress of grievances that took into account the “rights and privileges … solemnly given, granted, confirmed, ratified and recognized … by your royal predecessors and their parliaments.”  The book, a constitutional history of Great Britain, echoed that theme in much greater detail, making it hardly a coincidence that advertisement just happened to follow the letter.

American printers in three cities had recently produced American editions of The Judgment of Whole Kingdoms and Nations.  In 1773, John Dunlap printed it in Philadelphia and Isaiah Thomas printed it for John Langdon, a bookseller, in Boston.  The advertisement promoted a 1774 edition “JUST PUBLISH’D and to be sold by SOLOMON SOUTHWICH, in NEWPORT.”  Timothy Green, the printer of the Connecticut Gazette, also sold the book in New London.  In addition, readers could acquire it from “CONSTITUTIONAL Post-Riders” who operated out of Norwich, Lebanon, Tolland, East Haddam, and Enfield.  The National Postal Museum explains that the Constitutional Post was “an alternative to the British run Parliamentary Post.”  William Goddard originally established a “new constitutional Post … between [Philadelphia] and Baltimore” and quickly expanded it.  According to the National Postal Museum, Goddard considered the Parliamentary Post “unacceptable because it was not private – postmasters were allowed to intercept and open letters – and because he saw it as another form of taxation without the colonists’ consent.”  Many shared this view; the number of riders in Connecticut affiliated with the Constitutional Post just a few months after its founding demonstrates that was the case.  In July 1775, the Second Continental Congress assumed responsibility for the Constitutional Post, appointing Benjamin Franklin as postmaster.  Goddard desired the position, but he settled for Riding Surveyor of the Post.  By then, the Constitutional Post had demonstrated its capacity for delivering letters, newspapers, and books.  In the summer of 1774, for instance, the Constitutional Post served as a distribution network for The Judgment of Whole Kingdoms and Nations, consistent with Goddard’s vision for maintaining English rights and liberties in the colonies.