The book’s foreword says that the essays, called Cato’s Letters , would years later “exercise a profound influence on the arguments put forward by American colonists in their struggles with the British crown.” The introduction quotes an expert saying the essays were “the most popular, quotable, esteemed source of political ideas in the colonial period.”

The American Founders praised the essays, and it is not hard to see why. Letter #59 argues that “Liberty is the unalienable right of all mankind.” Letter #62 defined liberty as “the power which every man has over his own actions, and his right to enjoy the fruit of his labour, art, and industry, as far as by it he hurts not the society, or any members of it, by taking from any member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys.”

Cato’s Letters heaps abuse on self‐​interested government officials and their misguided policies. Centuries before public choice theory, Trenchard and Gordon described government as it actually operated rather than as the public‐​interest fairy tales that governments want people to believe. Letter #60 argues, “The experience of every age convinces us, that we must not judge of men by what they ought to do, but by what they will do; and history affords but few instances of men trusted with great power without abusing it.”

Letter #17 describes “what measures are actually taken by wicked and desperate ministers to ruin and enslave their country.” Some of those measures are “contriving and forming wicked and dangerous projects, to make the people poor, and themselves rich; well knowing that dominion follows property,” and another is “by all practicable means of oppression, provoke the people to disaffection; and then make that disaffection an argument for new oppression.”

This government strategy will sound familiar to readers of Cato Institute commentaries: