A PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOURSE, ADDRESSED TO THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, IN THE PRESENCE OF A RESPECTABLE AUDIENCE, ASSEMBLED AT THE MEETING-HOUSE IN BRATTLE-STREET, IN BOSTON, ON THE EIGHTH OF NOVEMBER M,DCC,LXXX; AFTER THE INAUGURATION OF THE PRESIDENT INTO OFFICE. BY ... PRESIDENT OF THE SAID ACADEMY

Boston: Benjamin Edes and Sons, 1780. 35, [1 blank] pp, with the half title, as issued. Disbound, light toning and foxing. Else Very Good.

DAB ranks Bowdoin "among the founders of the republic." His observations on American society, in the midst of the Revolution, are thus particularly interesting. Of the "aboriginal natives," he says dismissively, worthwhile knowledge "may be comprized in a very narrow compass."
His "ardent wish" is "that we may ever deserve to be possessed of freedom and independence." The former was our entitlement as England's subjects; "the latter--independence-- wholly alien at the time from our inclinations, but now radicated in them, was the necessary effect of her obstinate injustice."
This pamphlet "includes a discussion of newly discovered deposits of talc, and its uses" [Rink]. The talc is located in New Hampshire.
FIRST EDITION. Evans 16720. Rink 3478. ESTC W28873. (Inventory #: 36558)