[MAZZEI (Filippo)]. Recherches historiques et politiques sur - Lot 47

[MAZZEI (Filippo)]. Recherches historiques et politiques sur les États-Unis de l'Amérique septentrionale. À Colle, et se trouve à Paris, chez Froullé, 1788. In-8, 4 volumes in 3 volumes in-8, (4 including those with white versos)-xvi-383 [miscalculated 38]-(1) + (4 including those with white versos)-259-(one white)-(4 including those with white versos)-292 + (4 including those with white versos)-366 pp., marbled brown calf, spine ribbed, cloisonné and fleuronné with garnet-red title-pieces, marbled edges; section C of the first volume bound in duplicate; spines rebound with fronts partly preserved, restorations to edges, one volume with split jaws, a few leaves with wet inner margins (contemporary binding). ORIGINAL FRENCH EDITION, in the translation by the lawyer, future magistrate and politician Louis-Joseph Faure, supervised by the Marquis de Condorcet and his wife Sophie de Grouchy. AN ESSAY DEDICATED TO THE UNITED STATES, BUT DEALING MORE BROADLY WITH DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES. It was written in part at the request of Thomas Jefferson, then U.S. ambassador to France, in response to criticisms made by Abbé de Mably in his Observations sur le Gouvernement et les loix des États-Unis d'Amérique (1784) and by Abbé Raynal in his Histoire philosophique et politique des établissements et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (expanded edition 1780). Thomas Jefferson also hoped that, by providing a more accurate picture of the United States, the work would reassure financiers and encourage the intensification of economic relations between the two countries. Filippo Mazzei's far-reaching Recherches already outlined for American democracy all the political issues that would be debated in France in 1789. The work was well received, but came in for criticism from the lawyer, publicist and future politician Jacques-Pierre Brissot, and from the Comte de Mirabeau, the physiocratic economist and father of the revolutionary politician. FOLLOWING THIS IMPORTANT ESSAY BY FILIPPO MAZZEI ARE HERE PRINTED TWO TEXTS BY CONDORCET AND TURGOT, IN ORIGINAL EDITIONS: the "Lettres d'un bourgeois de New Haven sur l'unité de la législation", by the Marquis de Condorcet, with comments by Filippo Mazzei (t. I, pp. 267-381), and, in a posthumous publication by Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, "Réflexions rédigées à l'occasion du Mémoire sur la manière dont la France et l'Espagne doivent envisager les suites de la querelle entre la Grande-Bretagne et ses colonies", written in 1776, (t. III, pp. 217-282). Here, Turgot gives his opinion on a memoir that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Comte de Vergennes, had written at Louis XVI's request concerning the American Revolution, and predicts, among other things, that an American success would lead to the independence of other European colonies in America. FILIPPO MAZZEI (1730-1816), a prominent figure of the Enlightenment and an active proponent of the American cause, was originally from Tuscany, and worked first as a surgeon in Smyrna, then as a wine merchant in London. Emigrating to America with a group of local farmers, in 1773 he settled in Virginia, near Monticello, where, thanks to Thomas Jefferson, he acquired an agricultural estate that he named Colle ("hills", in Italian). Despite his sometimes difficult character, he became an intimate of the future president, with whom he exchanged views on political issues: Thomas Jefferson, for example, submitted the draft Declaration of Independence for his consideration, and based his own draft Constitution for the State of Virginia in part on a text by him. Filippo Mazzei joined the U.S. Army when the British Expeditionary Force landed, and was then entrusted by Thomas Jefferson with a dual mission in Europe: to negotiate a loan for the State of Virginia from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and to gather political and military information. He then accompanied Thomas Jefferson to Paris in 1785, remaining in close contact with James Madison and James Monroe. He was then admitted as a corresponding member of the Société des amis des noirs, and published the present Recherches, whose success led him, after Thomas Jefferson's departure, to enter the service of King Stanislas II of Poland, an enlightened and reforming monarch. In Italy from 1792, he became an active propagandist for the cause of the United States, worked to facilitate access to Italian ports for American ships, translated Thomas Jefferson's letters and speeches into Italian, and, at Jefferson's request, sought out Italian sculptors to collaborate on the ornamentation of the Capitol. FILIPPO MAZZEI'S FRIENDSHIP WITH THOMAS JEFFERSON LASTED FORTY YEARS, WITH JEFFERSON PRAISING "HIS EARLY & ZEALOUS COOPERATION IN THE E