1780 AMERICAN REVOLUTION & QUAKERS. Quakers Urged to Chose the Ancient Way over Patriotism & Nationalism

An excellent "global" counterpart to the Epistle to Philadelphia we have just listed, this example also containing the strict unified declaration of Quaker pacifism issued at the absolute height of both the American Revolutionary War and the Anglo-French War.

 Printed by the central London Yearly Meeting during its mid-May sessions, this circular letter was distributed to congregations across Great Britain, Ireland, and the embattled American colonies during a period of total global warfare. The London leadership urge unyielding commitment to the Quaker Peace Testimony under extreme political and nationalist pressure.

By 1780, in addition to the American Revolution, the European conflict had expanded into a massive global war involving France and Spain, leaving Quaker communities on both sides of the Atlantic facing intense societal hostility, heavy wartime taxation, and property confiscation for their absolute refusal to participate in or fund military operations. This epistle provided the vital spiritual and institutional scaffolding that emboldened Friends to resist state-mandated conscription and maintain their pacifist counter-culture amidst rampant wartime nationalism.

Beyond its focus on non-violence, the 1780 epistle is deeply tied to the foundational era of American abolitionism. The year 1780 was a watershed moment in the anti-slavery movement, marked by Pennsylvania passing its historic Gradual Abolition Act, a legislative milestone driven largely by decades of persistent Quaker agitation and their internal campaign to completely eliminate slaveholding within their own meetings. 

[American Revolution. Passive Resistance & Pacifism]. Bleckly, William. The Epistle from the Yearly-Meeting in London, Held by Adjournments, from the 15th of the Fifth Month 1780, to the 20th of the same, inclusive. To the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings of Friends in Great Britain, Ireland, and elsewhere. 

Very fine bifolium  with original folds, some light handling at the extremities, but one the whole excellently preserved.