RECUEIL DES LOIX CONSTITUTIVES DES COLONIES ANGLOISES, CONFEDEREES SOUS LA DENOMINATION D'ETATS-UNIS DE L'AMERIQUE-SEPTENTRIONALE. AUQUEL ON A JOINT LES ACTES DU CONGRES GENERAL, TRADUIT DE L'ANGLOIS...

A Philadelphie [i.e. Paris], 1778.. [12],370pp. Half title. Modern three-quarter calf and marbled boards, raised bands, leather label. Very minor foxing, primarily to exterior leaves. Older library ink stamps on recto and verso of titlepage. Very good. Untrimmed and unopened. The earliest collection of the constitutions of the constituent American states published in France, and the predecessor for the more generally known translation by the Duc de la Rochefoucauld of THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE SEVERAL INDEPENDENT STATES OF AMERICA (Philadelphia, 1781 and Paris, 1783). This work was compiled by Regnier, and dedicated via a letter herein printed to Benjamin Franklin, who ordered the printing of the 1783 collection. Also included is an exceptionally early appearance in book form, in French, of the Declaration of Independence. An important early gathering.

Interestingly, this title appears under two false imprints, "En Suisse" and "A Philadelphie," the latter of which the present copy bears. The practice of using false imprints during pre-Revolutionary France was a common one, and is evidence of the flexibility in the government's relationship with the printing press - often giving the government the safety net of official denial, should any objections be raised in the face of a controversial publication. At a time when the Enlightenment was struggling with the forces of reaction in France, the use of the Philadelphia imprint, the city that engendered America's own revolution, conveyed a strong liberal-minded message, a profound sympathy with the American ideal, and an apparent prescience of what was to come. HOWES R111, "aa."