The Pennsylvania State Trials: Containing the Impeachment, Trial, and Acquittal of Francis Hopkinson, and John Nicholson, Esquires; the former being judge of the Court of Admiralty, and the latter, the Comptroller-General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Vol. 1

Philadelphia: Francis Bailey, 1794. Hardcover. Good. "Printed by Francis Bailey . . . for Edmund Hogan." xii, 776 p.: tables; 22 cm. Contemporary full calf; red leather spine label with gilt-tooled title: "Hogan's State Trials." Although this is "Vol. I," no more published. First Edition. Early Am. Imprints, ser. 1 (Evans ), no. 27132. The Dedication by Edmund Hogan is dated Jan. 1795. Special title page for each trial: An Account of the Impeachment and Trial of the late Francis Hopkinson, Esquire, Judge of the Court of Admiralty for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; and, An Account of the Impeachment, Trial, and Acquittal of John Nicholson, Esquire, Comptroller-General of the State of Pennsylvania. The list of subscribers (pp. [ix]-xii) contains members of the Pennsylvania legislature and other prominent figures including Thomas Bradford, Benjamin Franklin Bache, William Bingham, Tench Francis, Albert Gallatin, Jared Ingersoll, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, David Rittenhouse, Arthur St. Clair, and the Library Company. Includes a table with the votes in the Senate on Nicholson's trial, and an alphabetical index of the letters, official documents, witnesses, names of the speakers, and other occurrences in the two trials. Inscription on front fixed endpaper covered by bookplate of the Belles Lettres Society of Dickinson College indicating that this was presented to the Society by Joshua Hoover in 1827. Written in pencil on front free endpaper: "Joshua Brinkle." Oval stamp of Dickinson College Library on both front endpapers. On the title page, "J. P. Brinckle" is crossed out and "Kemp Roberts" written below. Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791), a Signer of the Declaration of Independence and composer, was tried in 1780 on charges of accepting bribes; he was acquitted. John Nicholson (d. 1800), financier, Comptroller General of Pennsylvania, and land speculator, was charged with financial irregularities in 1793; he was acquitted. In Good Condition: loss of leather at ends of spine and in the middle of the spine, including from the spine label; tear from fore-edge across pp. 55-56, without loss of text; light foxing; otherwise clean and solid.