Nouveau Voyage dans les Etats-Unis de l'Amérique septentrionale, fait en 1788

3 vols. [1], lii, 395 pp.; [1], 460 pp.; [1], xxiii, 448 pp. (8vo), 19x11.5 cm (7½x4½"), contemporary tree-calf, red morocco labels, gilt rules and lettering. Folding table.

Brissot De Warville, Jacques Pierre. Nouveau Voyage dans les Etats-Unis de l'Amérique Septentrionale, Fait en 1788.

Paris, Buisson, Imprimeur et Libraire, 1791.

First Edition.

The first English edition appeared in 1792, followed by many editions in numerous languages.

Clark, Travels in the Old South, vol. 2, 80; Sabin 8035.

Inscribed atop title-page of Volume I: "D. Wigglesworth, professor [...] / the author & his excellent Notes on populati[on] / Brissot." Signed in all three volumes "Thomas Wigglesworth / 1792." Signed by Edward Wigglesworth 1818 on the front pastedowns of all three volumes.

Before dying in the guillotine during the Terror, Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793) had campaigned for the abolition of the black trade by creating the Society of Friends of Blacks in 1788.

He went to the United States to study ways of empowering oppressed people and returning them to freedom. During his four-month stay in the Boston, Harvard and Philadelphia area, he met with George Washington and several other national figures to advocate for the anti-slavery cause.

His work paints a very interesting economic and political portrait of the United States at the end of the 18th century, while focusing on the Quaker society and, of course, the situation of the black people. He studied at length the longevity of the inhabitants, notably by drawing up a "Table comparing the probabilities of life in New England and Europe" (table dépliante dans le tome II).

Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville (1754-1793) accomplished a lot before perishing beneath the guillotine.

A crusading revolutionary and journalist, he published numerous reformist books and articles and spent four months in the Bastille.

In 1788 he toured the United States for the anti-slavery cause and as agent for an investment scheme.

Back in Paris, he achieved great power - practically controlling French foreign policy - as the leader of the Girondists; but, when the tide turned, he was swept away.

In America he toured widely, taking a special interest in the Quakers, dined with James Madison in Philadelphia, and spent three days at Mount Vernon with the Washingtons. Much of his time was spent in and around Boston, and a Harvard he met Edward Wigglesworth (1732-1794), the second Hollis Professor of Divinity, grandson of the poet Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1705) and son of Edward Wigglesworth, the distinguished first Hollis Professor.

"Inspired by the English antislavery movement, Brissot founded the Society of the Friends of Blacks in February 1788. He left for the United States in May, but, when the Estates-General were convened in France, he returned and launched a newspaper, Le Patriote français (May 1789).

In his Preface to "Nouveau Voyage." Brissot expresses clearly his aim of encouraging the French people to follow the American example: "The publication of 'Voyages and Travels' will doubtless appear, at first view, an operation foreign to the present circumstances of France. I should even myself regret the time I have spent in reducing this Work to order if I did not think that it might be useful and necessary in supporting our Revolution. The object of these Travels was not to study antiques or to search for unknown plants, but to study men who had just acquired their liberty. A free people can no longer be strangers to the French. We have now, likewise, acquired our liberty. It is no longer necessary to learn of the Americans the manner of acquiring it, but we must be taught by them the secret of preserving it. This secret consists in the morals of the people ? the Americans have it, and I see with grief not only that we do not yet possess it but that we are not even thoroughly persuaded of its absolute necessity in the preservation of liberty" (Preface).

"After Louis XVI s flight to Varennes, Brissot attacked the king s inviolability in a long speech to the Jacobins (July 10, 1791) that contained all the essentials of his future foreign policy. Elected to the Legislative Assembly, he immediately concerned himself with foreign affairs, joining the diplomatic committee. On April 3, 1793, Robespierre accused him of being the friend of the traitor General Charles-François Dumouriez and of being chiefly responsible for the war. Brissot replied, denouncing the Jacobins and calling for the dissolution of the municipality of Paris. He was not conspicuous in the struggle between the Girondins and the Montagnards (April May), but on June 2, 1793, his arrest was decreed with that of his Girondin friends. He fled but was captured at Moulins and taken to Paris. Sentenced by the Revolutionary tribunal on the evening of October 30, Brissot was guillotined the next day" (Encyclopedia Britannica).

Brissot refers to Wigglesworth on page 135 of volume I; and in his chapter in volume II on longevity in the United States, Brissot refers to Wigglesworth's published research on the subject and uses his table of comparative longevities.

Brissot was expressing his thanks to the American academic. Edward Wigglesworth passed this set on before his death to his son Thomas (1775-1855), an East India merchant based in Boston; and Thomas in turn gave the set to his son Edward (1804-1876), an attorney, merchant philanthropist, and co-compiler of the 13-volume Encyclopaedia Americana (Philadelphia, 1828-1832).

Rare and precious presentation copy of the first edition of this important book by Brissot about slavery and Freedom during the French Revolution.