Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty: The Principles of Government and the Justice and Policy of the War With America

Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America. To Which is Added an Appendix Containing a State of the National Debt, an Estimate of the Money Drawn from the Public by the Taxes, and an Account of the National Income and Expenditure since the Last War.

London: T. Cadell, 1776. 128 pp. Reprinted 2007 by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN-13: 978-1-58477-853-0. ISBN-10: 1-58477-853-9. Cloth. $65.

* First issued in March 1776, this pamphlet defended the rights of the American colonists and attacked Great Britain's attempt to suppress the Revolution on economic, political and moral grounds. Immediately popular in America, it played an important role in the Continental Congress's decision to declare independence. Indeed, it was such an important influence that Congress invited Price to join the revolution and regulate its finances, an invitation he declined. He remained an ardent supporter of the revolution, however, and in 1777 published Additional Observations on the Nature and Value of Civil Liberty, and the War with America. In 1784 he published Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution; And the Means of Making It a Benefit to the World. Little known today but quite influential during his lifetime, Price [1723-1791] was a Welsh moral and political philosopher, mathematician, expert on insurance and finance and an advocate of political and religious liberty. An important financial advisor to the British government and one of the founders of the Unitarian Church, his friends included Joseph Priestley and Benjamin Franklin; his enemies included Edmund Burke.