John Dickinson

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies

"Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies" by John Dickinson is a series of essays written between 1767 and 1768. Published under a pseudonym, these twelve letters united American colonists against British taxation by arguing that Parliament could regulate colonial trade but not raise revenue from the colonies. The essays challenged prevailing British views on sovereignty and became the most influential colonial writing until Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," shaping revolutionary thinking while advocating for peaceful resistance within the British constitutional system.