A 1708 London tract on whether the war effort should be enlarged
A Pamphlet Printed for J. Morphew
The work is a short English pamphlet, printed and sold in London by J. Morphew in 1708. Its text runs to forty-four pages, preceded by preliminary leaves, and it was issued in quarto. It is attributed to Joseph Addison, though at least one library record describes the piece as having been published anonymously. Cataloguing for the volume classifies it under the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) and under commerce, and places it among early works to 1800 — that is, among the printed polemical and informational literature of its own century rather than later historical writing about it.
Surveying the War and Weighing an Increase of Forces
The title states the pamphlet’s two connected purposes. The first is descriptive: to set out the present state of the war — an assessment of where the conflict then stood. The second is deliberative: to consider the necessity of an augmentation, meaning an increase in the forces committed to the war. The word “consider’d” in the title marks the piece as an argument weighed in public rather than a bare report; the title presents the case for enlarging the war effort as a question to be examined, and the pamphlet is organised around establishing that the state of the war made such an addition necessary.
The Commercial Stake in the Conflict
The subject headings attached to the work pair the war with commerce, so the tract is not concerned with military questions in isolation. Its argument belongs to a period in which the progress of the war and the interests of trade were debated together, and the pamphlet addresses the conflict as a matter in which commercial as well as military considerations were at stake.
The catalog records give Addison’s dates as 1672–1719. One record describes the item as a Microform Book in the series “Library of English literature ; LEL 40056”; its Regenstein, 3rd Floor Microforms call number is microfc PR1120.L537 1970 LEL 40056, with copy 1 available for building use only. Another record describes it as an E-Resource Book in the series “Goldsmiths’-Kress library of economic literature ; 04470” and “Making of the modern economy.” A further record gives the collation as 3 preliminary leaves and the height as 20 cm; its Special Collections, Rare Books call number is D282.5.A35, with copy 1 available for Special Collections Reading Room use only and by request from SCRC. The Europeana entry names the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford as the providing institution and The European Library as the aggregator, and gives the identifier 013529529. It records the type of item as Monograph, the format as Printed, the language as en, the providing country as United Kingdom, and a rights statement of InC.
