Browsing: Adams Family Correspondence, Volume 1

On 13 January 1775 Edward Dilly, the London bookseller, wrote John Adams: “I have also sent you 4 Copies of Mr. Robinson's Considerations on the Measures carrying on with respect to the British Colonies in America The 2d Edition with considerable Additions” (Adams Papers). Dilly's letter was acknowledged by Abigail Adams on 22 May, since her husband was attending the Continental Congress when it arrived, and with her letter she sent some newspapers containing pieces written “under the signature of Novanglus [who] has had the happiness of entertaining the same Opinions that Mr. Robinson has” (p. 200–204, below). The copy of Robinson-Morris' Considerations illustrated here is undoubtedly one of the four sent by Dilly early in 1775; Adams' ownership is indicated by the insertion in his hand of the author's name and a marginal comment at the head of the title page (unfortunately cropped in binding) which reads: “... Fortune in the County of Kent—one of the warm[est] Friends of American Liberty, in Great Britain.”