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

“It is also well worthy the Perusal of every lover of Civil Liberty and good Government in America.”

In June 1776, Thomas Fleet and John Fleet announced that they published a Boston edition of Richard Price’s Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principle of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America.  Like many other advertisements for books and pamphlets, their notice included an overview of the contents to entice prospective customers with a preview of what they would encounter when they purchased and read the work.  Section headings included “Of the Nature of Liberty in general,” “Whether the War with America is justified by the Principles of the Constitution,” and “Of the Honor of the Nation as affected by the War with America.”

Yet the Fleets did not leave it at that.  They also composed their own address to the public, drawing attention to it with a manicule.  “This judicious and exceeding well wrote Pamphlet,” they reported, “was Published in London in March last and has had a very rapid Sale there.”  The arguments presented combined with the popularity of the pamphlet, the Fleets explained, “was thought would tend much to open the Eyes of the Nation.”  The pamphlet demonstrated that the American cause had supporters on the other side of the Atlantic, though its publication did not have as much impact on policy as the Fleets suggested that it deserved.  Despite that disappointment, the Fleets considered the pamphlet “well worthy the Perusal of every lover of Civil Liberty and good Government in America.”  That being the case, the Fleets sold copies of their Boston edition “at the moderate Price of one Shilling and six Pence each” instead of the “two Shillings Sterling” that printers in London charged for copied printed there.

During the years that they published the Boston Evening-Post before the battles at Lexington and Concord, the Fleets did not gain the same reputation for advocating for the American cause as Benjamin Edes and John Gill, the printers of the Boston-Gazette, and Isaiah Thomas, the printer of the Massachusetts Spy.  The outbreak of the war may have caused them to stake a stronger position, though they may have also aimed to generate revenue in a city that the British had occupied for nearly a year and departed only a few months earlier.  They followed their promotion of Price’s pamphlet with a reminder that they stocked “A few of that celebrated Pamphlet called COMMON SENSE,” another work embraced by the Patriots who remained in Boston after British forces and their Loyalist supporters evacuated from the city.  The Fleets collaborated with the Edes and Gill in publishing and selling Thomas Paine’s influential political pamphlet.  Even though their advertisement did not necessarily reveal their political principles, the Fleets sought to activate the political principles of their prospective customers to sell their Boston edition of Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principle of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America.