First separate edition of a revolutionary treatise on the relations between the American colonies and the colonising countries by the French economist Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727-1781). He explains his theory that the colonising countries should withdraw from the colonies on a friendly basis allowing the colonies to have their own government and trade with other countries independently. If the colonising countries would grant the colonies independence, they could still have the benefit of trading and settling there. Turgot had composed the treatise already in 1776 at the request of King Louis XVI, who solicited his ministers' opinions regarding the proper French policy toward the American Revolution. It was first published as Reflexions rédigées... in Mazzei's Recherches historiques et politiques (1788).
A very good copy, with only a few small spots. Goldsmith 14728; Kress B2230; Sabin 97456.