< Back

[Borlase, Edmund].
The History of the Execrable Irish Rebellion trac'd from many preceding Acts, to the Grand Eruption The 23. of October, 1641. And thence pursued to the Act of Settlement, MDCLXII. [John Conduit’s copy]
Publisher: Printed for Henry Brome, and Richard Chiswell in St. Paul's Church Yard, London, MDCLXXX. London,
Date of Publication: 1680
Stock Code: 14259
First printing. Royal quarto, [xxxii], 327. [i], 138, [14] Index. With folding table detailing the cost of the Rebellion to the Crown. Contemporary mottled calf, recently re-backed, with six raised bands and blind-embossed floral device to each compartment. All edges speckled red. With the engraved heraldic bookplate of John Conduitt, of Cranbury Park, Hampshire to front paste-down, and the ownership inscriptions of Henry White Physick and his son, Lyttleton Physick (d. 1844). With the shelf mark of John Conduitt’s library to the top right of front paste-down. John Conduitt (1688 – 1737) was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. A captain in the dragoon guards stationed in Portugal he rose to be Deputy Paymaster General to the British forces in Gibraltar and by the time of his return to England in 1717 he was a rich man. That same year Conduitt became acquainted with Sir Isaac Newton and his half-niece and adopted daughter, Catherine Barton, who he would marry in a whirlwind romance. Elected as MP for Whitchurch, Hampshire he took an active interest in Newton’s affairs and specifically in the running of Isaac Newton's office of Master of the Mint in the latter years of Newton's life, and after Newton's death in March 1727 Conduitt succeeded him to the post. The two men were close friends with Newton living with Conduitt and his wife towards the end of his life, at Conduitt’s estate Cranbury Park. Conduitt was executor of Newton’s estate (including his library), was his first biographer and is buried next to Newton at Westminster Abbey. Books from Conduitt’s library are rare with only two copies appearing at auction in the last 130 years, one being this copy which sold at the Henkels in Philadelphia in 1916. Henry White Physick (1751-1828) was one of the prominent Physicks of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. He was raised on John Penn’s farm (the last governor of colonial Pennsylvania) and would go on to reside at the historic Octorara Farm, MD. The Physicks were participants in many of the significant chapters of early American history. Henry White’s father, Edmund, acted as agent for Thomas Penn, (chief proprietor of Pennsylvania and son of William Penn, the founder of colonial-era Pennsylvania) and oversaw the financing and surveying of the Mason-Dixon line. Henry's brother Philip Syng Physick (1768 – 1837) was the first professor of anatomy at Pennsylvania Medical School and was one of the preeminent physicians in America. Called the "Father of American Surgery"he was the first person to perform a blood transfusion and was a close personal friend of Benjamin Franklin, founding a hospital with him. His grandfather, the silversmith Philip Syng Jr(1703–1789) in 1752 made the Syng inkstand, which was used to sign the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution in 1787. The Physicks were also founding members of the first scientific association in America, the American Philosophical Society. A similarly learned man, Henry White Physick graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1780, towards the end of the American War of Independence. The subject matter of this work no doubt having a profoundly contemporary meaning for him. His papers are now in the Pennsylvania State archives.
Largely a compilation from other sources, which Borlase uses in defence of the 1662 Act of Settlement which redistributed land from the Catholic landowners to the Protestant planters. A standard work on the subject but with a significant and important provenance from both sides of the Atlantic. Some wear and minor scuffs to boards, corners worn.


£3500.00