Author: (Washington, George; Randolph, Edmund; and Murray, Judith Sargent).
Title: George Washington Transmits Letters Regarding a Speech by Lord Dorchester Considered Hostile to the U.S. [in the Massachusetts Magazine. Or, Monthly Museum of Knowledge and Rational Entertainment. No. V, Vol. I - for May, 1794.
Description: Boston: Ezra W. Weld and William Greenough, 1794. 1794. - Octavo, 8 inches high by 5 inches wide. Unbound removed self-wraps. Once bound in with a collection of other pamphlets and subsequently removed with remnants of paper along the spine. 64 pages, consisting of the title leaf and pages numbered [259]-320, plus a full-page frontispiece illustrating "A Scene from the Vicar of Wakefield". There is a tear to the front edge along the frontispiece's lower plate mark. The pages are slightly toned with some occasional foxing. Good. This American periodical includes letters submitted by George Washington regarding a speech by Lord Dorchester, the British Governor General of Canada, which were considered hostile to the U.S. In addition to Washington's brief letters to Congress here published under "Domestic Occurrences" [Pages 316-319] are Secretary of State Edmund Randolph's letter and the British Minister to the United States George Hammond's response. "Soon after Edmund Randolph's elevation to Secretary of State, the British Governor General of Canada made a speech to the Indians of the Old Northwest which was meant to innervate the tribes in the face of Wayne's formidable approach. Lord Dorchester's infamous words to the chiefs on 10 February 1794 predicted that 'from the manner in which the people of the United States push on, and act, and talk .. I shall not be surprised if we are at war with them within the present year.' .. By March, 1794, Lord Dorchester's speech appeared in the U.S. press, ominously accompanied by reports of British seizures of U.S. ships in the Caribbean under the 6 November 1793 order in council. War with Great Britain loomed closer. The U.S. congress issued a thirty day embargo for all British goods on 25 March 1794, as it contemplated more permanent economic retaliation."[Quoted from John C. Kotruch's Master Theses "The political assassination of Edmund Randolph: George Washington's presidential affair of honor" published by the University of New Hampshire, Durham, in the Fall of 2010]. On May 20, 1794, citing Lord Dorchester's incendiary remarks, Secretary of State Edmund Randolph presented the British Minister to the United States George Hammond with a diplomatic ultimatum. Randolph made it clear that the United States believed Lord Dorchester's speech was an effort to "foster and encourage in the Indians. hostile dispositions towards the United States", and that previous endeavors had likely sabotaged the U.S. attempts at achieving peace with the Indian tribes the previous year. H warned that "our honor and safety require that an invasion shall be repelled". George Hammond's response as published here was arrogant and only made matters worse. The periodical also includes a pair of essays entitled "Repository No. XX" signed Constantia [pages 260-262] and "The Gleaner No. XXIV" [pages 272-279]. Both essays are by Judith Sargent Murray. The poet and playwright Judith Sargent Murray was considered the most prominent essayist of her day. One of New England's first Universalists, and a pioneer religious educator, she married John Stevens in 1769. She was one of the Universalists who were suspended from the First Parish in 1778 for not attending church and became one of the signatories who, the following year, signed the Articles of Association which created the Independent Church of Christ. She published her first essay under the pseudonym of Constantia in 1784 and following her husband's death and marriage to John Murray, resumed her writings by publishing a two-part essay "On the Equality of the Sexes" published in the Massachusetts Magazine in 1790. In 1792, under the guise of the male pseudonym "The Gleaner", she went on to write essays for the periodical on the subjects of federalism, citizenship and virtue. Though she went on to create other personalities and also wrote her first play, it was the collection of her essays "The Gleaner" together with her two plays which she published together in 1798 that established her as a strong advocate for women's progress and rights in America. Good .

Keywords: AMERICANA; EIGHTEENTH CENTURY; GEORGE WASHINGTON; EDMUND RANDOLPH; LORD DORCHESTER; BRITISH GOVERNOR GENERAL OF CANADA; GEORGE HAMMOND; THE MASSACHUSETTS MAGAZINE; MONTHLY MUSEUM OF KNOWLEDGE AND RATIONAL ENTERTAINMENT; 18TH CENTURY; 1794; JUDITH SARGENT


See more books from our catalog: Americana