Mémoire adressé aux souverains de l'Europe, sur l'état présent des affaires de l'ancien & du nouveau monde (...). Traduit de l'Anglois par M***** [John Turberville Needham]

Second edition of this French version (the first having appeared in 1781), approved by the author, of the Memorial most humbly addressed to the sovereigns of Europe, on the present state of affairs (London, July 1780) (cf. Sabin 64827).

Disbound copy, presented in a modern marbled paper wrapper.

This text had in fact been the subject of an earlier translation based on the Translation of the memorial by Edmund Jennings and John Adams, which failed to satisfy Pownall (namely the Pensées sur la Révolution de l'Amérique-Unie, issued with the Amsterdam imprint in 1780).

The substance of the various versions nonetheless converges, forming a prescient exhortation to the sovereigns of Europe to confer together in order to enter into commercial and economic relations with the future power that Pownall already discerned in the English colonies of America.

The English publicist Thomas Pownell (1722–1805) travelled to the American colonies in 1753, and in 1754 warned the government of the disastrous consequences that might ensue from the convocation of the Albany Congress; his foresight was not misplaced, for that congress later served as both encouragement and model for the one that proclaimed independence. Although he failed to secure approval for the plan he had proposed, he accepted appointments as governor in Massachusetts (1757), New Jersey and South Carolina (1759). Recalled at his own request in 1761, he became Director-General of the Board of Control; but having at the same time obtained the rank of colonel, he served in two campaigns with the British army operating in Germany under the command of Prince Ferdinand. In 1768 he entered the House of Commons, where he opposed with all his influence the measures intended to sustain the American war, and in 1780 resigned his seat to retire to Bath.