Extremely Rare 1795 Political buying Book on Despotism

Product Name: Extremely Rare 1795 Political buying Book on Despotism
This is a beautifully bound & extremely rare copy of the first American edition of the famed 18th-century English minister and political essayist & author Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821). This book, "The Spirit of Despotism," was a discourse on the abuse of political power by rulers & officials & was influential to many political leaders in both England & the new United States. Knox privately published the first London edition in 1795, but then destroyed most of the copies, leaving this edition, printed in Philadelphia in 1795 by Lang & Ustick and Mathew Carey, as the first edition. On 12 January 1801, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Mathew Carey, "You often quote a book under the title of the Spirit of Despotism. I never before heard of it: but it is written with great buying strength of feeling & conception." Measures 4.5" wide x 6.75" high x 1" thick. Weight about 9 oz. Bound in smooth calfskin, title in red Morocco leather & gilt letters on spine. Cracking on spine, scuffing & some leather chipping.