"Olson contends that attention to the visual images created in each of these roles dramatizes fundamental changes in Franklin's sensibility concerning British America. In 1754 Franklin was an American Whig supporter of the British Empire's constitutional monarchy. During the late 1750s and early 1760s he veered toward increasing the power of the Crown over Pennsylvania by changing the colony's form of government before ultimately rejecting constitutional monarchy and advocating republican politics during the 1770s and 1780s. The shifts in Franklin's fundamental political commitments are among the most arresting aspects of his life. Benjamin Franklin's Vision of American Community highlights these changes as it examines his pictorial representations of British America through several decades."--BOOK JACKET.

John Marshall (c.1784-1837) was a naval officer and biographer. He first went to sea at the age of nine, and by the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 had reached the rank of lieutenant. After the war, he started to research the lives of contemporary high-ranking naval officers, some of whose service reached as far back as 1760. These volumes, first published between 1823 and 1830, contain the results of this monumental research, and demonstrate the new 'cult' of the navy in the early nineteenth century. Some of the biographies were contributed by the officers themselves, with others containing private or official letters and other records. Organised according to seniority in rank, these volumes contain a wealth of fascinating information on the careers of naval officers and battles and wars in which they took part. Volume 1, Part 2, continues the biographies of flag officers.