The American colonies won their independence from Britain with the help of strong and effective aid from France, and this very rare and little-researched periodical played a dominant role in bringing the French to the side of the Americans. Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amerique contains among the earliest, and in some cases the first European printings of many of the most basic documents in American history, including the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation, and several of the state constitutions.

The present set collates as follows:

title page 1l; Avertissement 1l.; 1-103, [1]; 88; [65] -80; 17 - 92; [1] - 103, [1]; [1] -  118;

[1] - 88; [1] -95, [1]; [1] - 101, [1], [1l. blank]; 80; [1] - 80; Table and Index; 19; [1] - 88; 113-144; 161-231, [1], [233] -272; cxcxiij - ccxxiv, Table and Index, 11;

i-xlij; 1l. blank; Avis 1l.; xiv - [for xlv] - xcxviv [for xciv]; 1l. blank; xcxvii- [for xcvij] - cxxj, [1]; [cxxiii] - clcij; i - ccliv; i - civ;

[1] - 128, 137-160; Table and Index 8; [1] - 112; Table and Index 7; [1] -160; Table and Index, 10;

cv - ccxiv, folding table, ccxv-cccxvij [no cccv]; i - lxiv, 1l. blank; lix-cxxiv, 1l. blank, cxxv -ccviij; i - xlvj, Avis 1l., xlvij - cclxxxvj, [1], Avertissement 1l., cccxxj -ccclxxxviij; 1l. blank; Table and Index 8;

[1] - 368; [1] - 320 [of 368, per Ford]; Table and Index 11;

[i] - cxxvi, 1l. blank; cxxix-ccxlvj; 1l.notice; ccxlix-cccx; 1l. blank; cccxiij - ccclix; [1]; cccxxxvij; [1], 1l. blank;

[i] - lxiij, [1], (lacking Avertissement leaf, per Ford); lxv - clxxxvj; *m, 1l.; clxxxvij- ccclxx; ccclxix - ccclxxij; Table and Index 10, 1l., blank, Retranchement 1l.;

[i] - cxxviiij; lxxxj [for cxxix,no ccxxv-vi]; ccxxix-ccxciv; 1l. blank; ccxcvij - cccxxxiv; 1l. blank; cccxxxvij - ccclxxix, [1]; [i] -l; 1l. blank; liij -ccxc; Avis, 1l.;  ccxciij -cccxliv;

[1] - 348;

cccxlv-ccccxx; [i] -clxxxij, 1l., blank; clxxxv-ccxxj; 1l., blank; ccxxv - cclxxxj; title-page 1l., : Relation Naïve et Impartale Des operations de la flotte aux orders du Lord Howe en Amerique, depuis l'arrivee de l'esacdre de Toulon, jusqu'au depart du Lord Howe pour l'Angleterre. Avec des Observations. Par un Officier qui a servi sur la flotte. A Londres: 1779; Avertissement (cclxxxiv) - ccxlvj; 1l., blank; cccxlix-ccccxix;

[i] - cc, folding table, cci-ccxciij, [1], 1l. blank; ccxcviij-ccccij.

The volumes are bound in contemporary French ¼ calf, spines gilt, marbled paste-paper boards, the bindings are worn and rubbed, the volumes have recently been professionally restored, with period style spine labels with repairs to several worn boards and corners,  some foxing, staining and marginal worming, only occasionally just affecting some text, else very good set.

This rare periodical, overtly hostile to Great Britain was a semi-clandestine publication with a false Antwerp imprint, which was issued for almost four years, 1776-1779. The Affaires was according to Barbier¹, edited by Benjamin Franklin², Antoine Court de Gébelin, Jean Baptist Rene Robinet, and Louis-Alexandre, duc de La Rochefoucauld d'Enville, John Adams was an additional American collaborator³. Subsequent scholarship has determined that its publication was secretly subsidized by the Comte de Vergennes, the French minister of foreign affairs with whom Franklin had been in contact. Its editors combed American and British newspapers and periodicals, letters, seized documents, pamphlets, etc., for inclusion in its pages.

Bernard Fay, states that Edme-Jacques Genet (1726-1781), (father of Edmund Charles "Citizen" Genet), chief interpreter to the French Foreign Minister, Charles Gravier, the comte de Vergennes,  was the secret director of the project and that Franklin was the editor in chief and cites the correspondence between them discussing the best means of working up public opinion.⁴ Franklin contributed at least ten articles to this journal⁵; he provided its editors with documents and summaries of political events in England and in America and with information about significant battles of the American Revolution as well as the text of letters and other material.⁶  After Franklin secured diplomatic recognition and financial assistance from France, in February 1778, the publication of this journal was terminated during the following year.⁷

As its title indicates, it was devoted to the history of the American Revolution, and the plan of the work was threefold: To print in diary form a narrative of events; To reprint from newspapers and pamphlets matter of especial interest; to give, in what purported to be letters from a London banker, (The "Banquier de Londres" has since been identified as the above mentioned duc de La Rochefoucauld d'Enville, although other sources state it was Edward Bancroft), the inside political history and parliamentary proceedings of Great Britain. Long extracts from Paine's Common Sense are herein printed in translation as well as Price's Observations on Civil Liberty.   

The work as thus printed, though containing many errors, is one of singular value for the history of the period covered. Edited in a partisan manner, it was clearly intended to neutralize the accounts published by the ordinary French journals, who drew their news from the English press, and by giving the French people accurate information concerning the causes and progress of the war, encourage them in their sympathy with the American cause, and so add another lever to the forces that were acting on the French government to make it recognize our independence. The Affaires published many important American documents including two different translations of the Declaration of Independence, including its first European printing and its first and appearances in France, the Articles of Confederation, which was provided by Franklin, who arrived in Paris on December 21, 1776, from a copy of John Dickinson's draft of the Articles, which in the United States were still secret documents which had only circulated in committee in the Continental Congress.  The Articles were translated in full and appear in the Dec. 27, 1776 issue of the Affaires, and constitute the first unrestricted publication in any language of the Articles of Confederation. The Affaires also prints several of the state constitutions, translated by La Rochefoucauld, translations that had been completed with the allegedly "eager assistance of Benjamin Franklin." The Treaty of Amity and Commerce concluded between France and the United States on February 6, 1778 is also printed herein.

"Yet the rarity of this work, together with the ignorance of its contents shown by bibliographers, beginning with Rich's misstatement that "this work appears to have been an imitation of Almon's ‘Remembrancer,'" ⁸ (an assertion repeated by Howes) - has made it practically neglected as a source of history." - Ford. (Its editor's did reprint some material from the Remembrancer). The Affaires was unknown to Justin Winsor, who compiled a list of French publications as sources for study of the American Revolution. Bernard Fay (former librarian of the Bibliotheque Nationale) listed this work in his Bibliographie critique des ouvrages francais relatifs aux Etats-Unis 1770-1800, but even the Bibliotheque Nationale at the time did not have a complete set, lacking the last two volumes and most of the indexes. (They have since completed their holdings and have all 15 volumes, bound in 17). John Russell Bartlett in the JCB Catalog (2185) states: "This remarkable collection of papers relating to the American Revolution is, from its scarcity, so little known, that no satisfactory account of it exists ... It is singular that a work so extensive and so important should have escaped the notice of Brunet."

Paul Leicester Ford writing in Larned's Literature of American History, as well as Sabin, Hatin and Howes cite this work, but from the information they give, did not have access to a complete copy. Ford also did a study in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in which he attempted to reconstruct an optimum collation from a composite of the incomplete sets available.⁹

The work has also been neglected from a bibliographical stand point. Issued at irregular intervals, several times changed in plan and method of publication, few of the volumes with title-pages, and full of typographical errors in pagination and the numbering of the parts, it is one of the most intricate and puzzling studies in collation. Barbier and Rich, merely stated that it was in fifteen volumes. Sabin gives it as "24 cahiers divided into 8 tomes, usually bound in 17 volumes;" and only Leclerc ¹⁰ even attempted a collation, which made from a single imperfect set, is of really no value bibliographically.

The work was issued in parts, or "cahiers," bound in blue paper wrappers, which were numbered, and are now virtually unobtainable in this state. The "cahiers" were also numbered on the signature leaf till number 36 was reached, after which the numbering was disregarded, so that it becomes impossible to distinguish the parts. The work consists of two concurrent series of "Journals" and "Lettres d'un Banquier," paginated in Arabic and Latin numerals. Though the work is nominally in fifteen volumes, and often found bound in seventeen volumes, but three title-pages were issued.                    

The work contains a number of documents which have their first Continental publication in within its pages, including the Articles of Confederation, the Constitutions of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina, and Maryland, Paine's Common Sense, and most importantly two different translations of The Declaration of Independence. These documents had a profound effect on French opinion concerning the American Revolution but would have an equally profound effect in the subsequent French Revolution, conveying to the journals French subscribers American perceptions of natural liberties and of Republican institutions. It is evident from the writings of the time that French learned opinion looked at the American founding texts as "usable matter," even more so when the French revolutionary leaders themselves undertook to institutionalize the nouveau régime and adopt a declaration of rights that would help to perpetuate the revolution.

The first translation of the Declaration¹¹, is found in the August 16, 1776 issue, volume two, cahier number 7, in the "Banker's Letter", and is the first European printing of the document, preceding other French and British printings by one to two weeks.  The text was translated not from the engrossed and signed "Unanimous Declaration," but from the last version after it was revised by the Continental Congress; that version was sold as a broadside by the Philadelphia printer John Dunlap in July 1776, before the declaration was "unanimously" signed by the representatives of the thirteen states on August 2^nd. The translated title, though, resembles that of Jefferson's "rough draft," since, as in that draft, the preposition "of" in "A Declaration of the Representatives" was reproduced in the translation as "Déclaration des Représentans des Colonies Unies...." Franklin is supposed to be the one who transmitted Jefferson's first drafts to his French friends in Paris. It is unclear whether La Rochefoucauld was the translator of the declarations in the Affaires.

Extremely Rare and fundamentally important collection of documents on the early years of the American Revolution, in many cases containing the earliest European printings of several foundation texts of American history.

Hatin, Bibliographie ...de la presse francaise, p. 74; Fay, Bibliographie Critique Des Ouvrages Francais Relatifs aux Etats-Unis (1700-1800), p.12, 51-53;  Ford, Franklin, 326; Howes A-85; Sabin 491. Not in Streeter, Eberstadt, Rosenbach, etc. The only sets we can trace in the trade were offered by Nebenzahl, Catalog 12:3 (1963) who offered La Rochefoucauld's own set ($ 9500.00), and an incomplete set by the Reese Company (219:11). Most of the institutional holdings listed on OCLC, upon inspection, are either incomplete, or imperfect, including institutions founded by Franklin. There are complete sets at the Library of Congress, the Bibliotheque Nationale, the John Carter Brown Library and Yale. Another one of the complete sets is John Adams's copy at the Boston Public Library, (which also owns his incomplete set as well). 

1. Dictionaire des Ouvrages," anonymes.

2. See The Papers of Benjamin Franklin: Volume 23, October 27, 1776 through April 30, 1777, Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique, articles appearing in, XXIII: 214, 375n, 480-1, 521n, 607n; Volume 24, May 1, 1777 through September 30, 1777, Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique: publishes "Memoir and Supplemental Observations," XXIV: 178,180; Genêt edits, XXIV: 201n; BF's essay on credit, address to Dutch holders of British stock, XXIV: 508n; Volume 25, October 1, 1777 through February 28, 1778 Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique: BF's "Comparison of Great Britain and America as to Credit," XXV: 540n, 627n; mentioned, XXV: 10n, 327; publishes American state constitutions, XXV: 93-4, 168, 681n; American news, XXV: 310n, 327n; Volume 26, March 1 through June 30, 1778, Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique, Les: BF's contributions to, XXVI: 52n, 271n, 680;mentions Lind pamphlet, XXVI: 271n; material wished for, XXVI: 363n; unable to publish congressional resolution, XXVI: 426n; Genet volunteers to translate articles for, XXVI: 592; carries news of Franco-British hostilities, XXVI: 680n; Volume 27, July 1 through October 31, 1778, Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique, Les: publishes Cooper letter, XXVII: lxiii, 226; BF, Adams, Lee contribute material to, XXVII: lxvi, 22, 154-5, 211, 616-17, 617-18, 623-7; mentioned, XXVII: 3, 281; carries Bonvouloir letter, XXVII: 189n; publishes account of Barren Hill, other American news, XXVII: 204n; carries news of Ushant, XXVII: 211n; issue of, carries rebuttals to Carlisle commission, XXVII: 617n, 623-4; Volume 28, November 1, 1778 through February 28, 1779, Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique, Les: articles in, under Genet's editorship, XXVIII: 58, 180n, 185, 256-9; issues of, generally dated before actually published, XXVIII: 58n, 180n; BF contributes to, XXVIII: 256-9

3. Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Volume 27, July 1 through October 31, 1778: Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique, Les: BF, Adams, Lee contribute material to, XXVII: lxvi, 22, 154-5, 211, 616-17, 617-18, 623-7. See: Watts, George Byron, Les Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amerique and John Adams (Charlotte:1965)

4. Fay, Bernard, The Revolutionary Spirit in America and France, pp., 89-91; See Calendar of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. I pp., 450, 465, and 536, and Vol. III, p. 56, etc.

5. Echeverria, Durand, Mirage in the West, p.56

6. See Gilbert Chinard, "Adventures in a Library," Newberry Library Bulletin, 8 (1952), pp. 223-38.

7. Fay, Bernard, The Revolutionary Spirit in America and France, pp., 89-91; Echeverria, Durand, Mirage in the West, pp. 55-56

8. Bibliotheca Americana Nova, I. 247

9. Ford, Paul Leicester, Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amerique," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 13 (1889), pp., 222-226

10. Bibliotheca Americana (1878), 646. The set of fourteen slightly imperfect volumes was priced at two hundred fifty francs.

11. Durand Echeverria mistakenly identifies a printing in the Gazette de Leyde), Nouvelles politiques publiées à Leyde, ou Nouvelles extraordinaires de divers endroits (1760-1810), Aug. 30, 1776, as the first French translation, missing its appearance two weeks earlier in the Affaires. See the excellent study of the French translations of the Declaration of Independence and its influence in France by Marienstras, Elise and Naomi Wulf, French Translations and Reception of the Declaration of Independence. http://chnm.gmu.edu/declaration/marien.html The study is invaluable for its examination of the impact of America's founding texts upon French Revolutionary thinking.