Sep 30, 2021 - Sale 2580

Sale 2580 - Lot 215

Price Realized: $ 1,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(QUAKERS.) Epistle protesting the destruction of Quaker property for their lack of support for the Revolution. 3 printed pages, 13 1/4 x 8 1/4 inches, on one folding sheet, signed in type by John Drinker as clerk of a committee of six Friends, with docketing on final blank; uncut, folds, ink burns from docketing affecting 3rd-page text, minimal dampstaining. Philadelphia, "12th month, 6th" [December], 1781
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Members of the Society of Friends who remained adamantly pacifist during the Revolution were subject to punishment and harassment. This did not end with the fighting. This circular letter addressed to the president and General Assembly of Pennsylvania complains that in the wake of the Yorktown victory, when Philadelphia Quakers did not join in the celebrations on 24 October, they met with "companies of licentious people parading the streets, destroying the windows and doors of our houses, breaking into and plundering some of them." It goes on to explain their pacifism at great length, emphasizing that "it is not from imitation or for the support of ancient custom, but from a conviction of judgment, that we are led into the same practice with our ancestors." They observe that "the dispensation of war, bloodshed and calamity which hath been permitted to prevail on this continent is very solemn and awful," but they assure the assembly of their "desires and endeavors to promote the real good of our country, and that we are Your Friends."

The document is headed with its date and the caption "On the 26th ultimo a committee of six Friends, by appointment waited on the President of the Executive Council, and the Speaker of the General Assembly with Copies of the following Representation." A powerful expression of Quaker principles at a moment when they were most challenged. Evans 17166; none traced at auction.