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• Rare Newspaper
• An original, printed in 1774
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Genre: Ephemera

Details: THE PENNSYLVANIA JOURNAL; AND THE WEEKLY ADVERTISER, Philadelphia, November 16, 1774 * Benjamin Franklin's "Unite Or Die" cartoon If there was one graphic which represented the spirit of the Revolutionary War it would have to be the ubiquitous segmented snake with the famous "Unite Or Die" caption. The engraving, a prominent device in the masthead of this newspaper, shows a snake cut into various pieces, each with a label of a colony with the implied message that only by each of the separate colonies uniting under a single cause could the country--the snake--hope to strike back & be successful in defeating the British. Ben Franklin is credited with creating this device, considered the very first political cartoon when he used it in his Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754 to rally the colonies to unite during the advent of the French & Indian War. It would become a symbol of colonial freedom during the Revolutionary War. This engraving is found in most history books, but very rarely is such an edition of the Pennsylvania Journal found & offered to the collector market. Over half of the first column is a very critical, yet supportive, letter: "To General Gage" which has much interesting content, a few bits including: "The whole of your proceedings are so repleat with folly...your late answer to the address of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts Bay taught me that you are a more proper object for ridicule...you have apologised for constructing what has been unjustly called a fortress on the Boston Neck. The same factious spirit which leads the Bostonians to call submission to government Slavery--Kings, Tyrants--Ministers, Rascals--& Governors a compound of the whole...You have commenced no hostile steps against the province of Massachusetts Bay, you have only raised a creature like yourself, which 'unless annoyed will annoy nobody.' " with much more, & near the end: "...The liberties of America will be safe while you are held up as an epitome of the mi