Books and Manuscripts

From the Printing Press of Benjamin Franklin

[Franklin, Benjamin] Smith, John
The Epistle From Our Yearly-Meeting, for New-Jersey, and Pennsylvania, Held at Burlington, by Adjournments, from the 27th of the Ninth Month, to the 2d of the Tenth Month, inclusive, 1760...
(Philadelphia: B. Franklin and D. Hall), 1760. Folio. 4 pp. Signed in type by Clerk John Smith. Creasing from contemporary folds; very small open tears along center fold; scattered very minor edge wear; contemporary docketing on p. 4. Miller 746; Evans 8603; Hildeburn 1669

A rare Benjamin Franklin printing of the Quaker Epistle from the 1760 Yearly-Meeting, featuring a caution against slave owning amongst Friends: “discourage the Practice of making Slaves of our Fellow Creatures, hath been visibly blessed with Success, we earnestly exhort that Friends do not abate of their Diligence in this weighty Matter, but continue in the Love which beareth long, and is kind, to labour with such, as having Membership with us, do, in any Manner, by buying, selling or keeping them, countenance the Trade, to inform their Understandings, and convince their Judgements, and some of us are firmly persuaded, that if this Care is diligently and honestly pursued, the Society will, in Time, come up more universally in fulfilling the the Evangelical Law of Righteousness in this Respect.”

This is only the fourth copy we can locate in the available auction record in the past 100 years.