Emancipate Your Colonies!

London: Printed by C. and W. Reynell, for Robert Heward,, 1830. One of Bentham's strongest anti-colonial statements First edition, later issue, combining sheets printed in 1793 with a title page and a postscript dated 1829. This work is among Bentham's few works on French politics to be written in the later stages of the French Revolution. Bentham bombarded the revolutionaries with advice and proposals, took in many political refugees, and was made an honorary citizen in October 1792. Emancipate Your Colonies was written shortly after this, in December 1792 or January 1793. Following the deaths of many moderates and the increasing violence among those remaining, Bentham was convinced that no further attempts at internal reform should be made until matters settled down. The work instead addresses French holdings in America and the West Indies, expounding Bentham's deep conviction that such colonies are of little or no use to their mother country. For Philip Schofield, it stands as "one of Bentham's strongest anti-colonial statements" (p. 241). The text is also referred to as Jeremy Bentham to the National Convention of France, after the drop-head title on page [1]. Bentham privately circulated these sheets among his friends and contacts in 1793, including one copy presented to Talleyrand's secretary, Gallois. In the two-page postscript, Bentham modifies his position slightly, stating of Australia that "it is in his eyes preponderantly possible that, long before this century is at an end, the settlements in that vast and distant country will, all of them, have emancipated themselves" (p. 2). Octavo (222 x 133 mm), pp. [2], 48, 2. Recent half calf, spine lettered, ruled, and decorated in gilt, marbled paper sides, top edge gilt. With late 19th-century library stamp of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York to title page verso. Light chipping to content margins, short closed tear to upper margin of title page, neatly repaired: a very good copy. Chuo E2.2; ESTC T103431 (1793); Everett, p. 541; Goldsmiths' 26210; Muirhead, p. 17. Philip Schofield, "Jeremy Bentham on South Australia, colonial government, and representative democracy", in Tim Causer, Margot Finn & Philip Schofield, eds., Jeremy Bentham and Australia, 2023.