William Allen

William Allen, Esq. is the author of at least one Revolutionary War era pamphlet. It was previously speculated that the writer of "The American Crisis: A Letter , Addressed by Permission to the Earl of Gower . . . On the present alarming Disturbances in the Colonies" (London, April 16, 1774) was the wealthy Pennsylvania Loyalist by that name, but more recent work attributes the text to a clerk of the same appellation in the Colonial Department of the secretary of state, which would explain the location given in the signature line of the postscript issued shortly after the Boston Port Act: Whitehall, April 12, 1774.