Early Works (1776-1786)
Before his Privy Council appointment, Chalmers applied himself to investigating the history and establishment of the English colonies in North America. Enjoying free access to the state papers and other documents preserved among what were then termed the plantation records, he became possessed of much important information. His work, Political Annals of the present United Colonies from their Settlement to the Peace of 1763, (1780), was to have formed two volumes; but the second, which should have contained the period between 1688 and 1763, never appeared. The first volume, however, is complete in itself, and traces the original settlement of the different American colonies, and the progressive changes in their constitutions and forms of government as affected by the state of public affairs in the parent kingdom. Independently of its value as being compiled from original documents, it bears evidence of great research, and has been of essential benefit to later writers. Continuing his researches, he next gave to the world An Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Britain during the Present and Four Preceding Reigns (1782) which passed through several editions.
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