Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania

Letters from a farmer in Pennsylvania, to the inhabitants of the British Colonies

Frontispiece and title page of a 1903 reprint of the letters
Author	John Dickinson
Country	British Empire
Language	English
Published	December 1767 – April 1768
Text	Letters from a farmer in Pennsylvania, to the inhabitants of the British Colonies at Wikisource

Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania is a series of essays written by the Pennsylvania lawyer and legislator John Dickinson (1732–1808) and published under the pseudonym "A Farmer" from 1767 to 1768. The twelve letters were widely read and reprinted throughout the Thirteen Colonies, and were important in uniting the colonists against the Townshend Acts in the run-up to the American Revolution. According to many historians, the impact of the Letters on the colonies was unmatched until the publication of Thomas Paine's Common Sense in 1776.^[1] The success of the letters earned Dickinson considerable fame.^[2]

The twelve letters are written in the voice of a fictional farmer, who is described as modest but learned, an American Cincinnatus, and the text is laid out in a highly organized pattern "along the lines of ancient rhetoric".^[3] The letters laid out a clear constitutional argument, that the British Parliament had the authority to regulate colonial trade but not to raise revenue from the colonies. This view became the basis for subsequent colonial opposition to the Townshend Acts,^[4] and was influential in the development of colonial thinking about the relationship with Britain.^{[5]: 215–216} The letters are noted for their mild tone, and urged the colonists to seek redress within the British constitutional system.^[1][6] The character of "the farmer", a persona built on English pastoral writings whose style American writers before Dickinson also adopted, gained a reputation independent of Dickinson, and became a symbol of moral virtue, employed in many subsequent American political writings.^[4]