With this two-volume "History of Pennsylvania" by Robert Proud, The Reprint Company adds to its Series of Pennsylvania reprints which started with the "Heads of Families, First Census of the United States, 1790State of Pennsylvania." This Pennsylvania Series is also part of a larger Series of reprints on the Colonial and Revolutionary period of the original thirteen Colonies. Thirty books have been printed and are available now. When the set is complete it will include some 60 to 75 volumes and will cover the basic history of the early years of the colonies through. the Revolutionary period. In addition to these Pennsylvania volumes, books are now available on South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, New Jersey and New York. Also, "The Heads of Families, First Census of the United States, 1790," a 12-volume set covering all available records of the first census, is a part of this overall Series and is now available. THE REPRINT COMPANY April, 1967. This Volume Was Reproduced Pennsylvania State Library Library of Congress Catalog Number: 66-25101 An Introduction to This Volume and the Author Robert Proud, Pennsylvania's first historian, brought forth his two-volurne "History of Pennsylvania" in 1797 and 1798, although the book had been completed in 1780. The two volumes of the HISTORY cover the period 1681 to 1742 with an additional chapter on the period 1760 to 1770. Proud had available to him historical resources which he chose to ignore and much of his work is marred by partisanship and bias. A pacifist of staunchly conservative outlook, he was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1728, came to Philadelphia in 1759, and died there in 1813. Living through two American wars and dying during a third, he remained throughout his long life a Tory of deepest hue. Never an egalitarian, he was dismayed by the sweeping social and economic changes wrought by American independence and never reconciled himself to the objectives of the new republic. Although well-trained as a scholar, there is much truth to Proud's own assertion that his HISTORY was imperfect, deficient, and not what he had hoped for after some twenty years of gathering material and writing amidst gnawing privation as a schoolmaster. For us today the HISTORY is of interest as a keenly felt and prophetic warning of progressive decay in human affairs and the dangers of control by "forward, selfish and less qualified" men. At a time when exuberant chauvinism and bloated immodesties perfused the writings of the new republic's protagonists, Proud warned of demagoguery and the "boasting of mere theory and anticipation." Intransigent and opinionated, Proud exemplifies the dissenting com, mentator whose political criticisms and trenchant observations of the passing scene remain perennially interesting and valuable to the historian. Robert Bray Wingate March 3, 1967. THE History of Pennsylvania, IN NORTH AMERICA, FROM THE Original Institution and Settlement of that Province, under WITH A N INTRODUCTION, RESPECTING, The Life of W. PENN, prior to the grant of the Province, and the religious TO WHICH IS ADDED, A brief Description of the said Province, AND OF THE General State, in which it flourished, principally between the Years 1760 and 1770. Ufeful and interesting to be known, refpecting that Country in carly Time, &c. Written principally between the Years 1776 and 1780, BY ROBERT PROUD. PULCHRUM EST BENEFACERE REIPUBLICE, ETIAM BENEDICERE HAUD ABSUR VOLUME I. Philadelphia: PRINTED AND SOLD BY ZACHARIAH POULSON, JUNIOR, |