Letters from America

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William Eddis, a cultivated young Englishman loyal to the Crown, wrote these letters from Maryland, New York, and Virginia during the crucial years preceding the American Revolution. A well-informed member of the governor’s circle in Maryland, he was deeply involved in the political and social life of the Chesapeake colonies. These forty-two letters, written between 1769 and 1777, provide a valid contemporary account of the colonies during their last years of dependency and give a wealth of descriptive information about the developing Chesapeake area. Although long acknowledged as a basic source of American colonial history, this is the first edition of the letters to be published since 1792.