political pamphlets

Four tracts published in the lead-up to the ill-fated Jewish Naturalisation Act of 1753. The act (or 'Jew Bill') sought to remove the requirement for foreign-born individuals 'professing the Jewish Religion' (26 George 2 c.26) to receive Holy Communion as part of the naturalisation process, a stipulation which had hitherto prevented non-Christians from becoming British subjects. Despite receiving the royal assent, an anti-Semitic backlash stoked-up by propaganda misrepresenting the terms of the act led to its repeal the following year.

Considerations advances an economic argument in favour of granting Jewish people 'the same Privileges they enjoy in Holland' (p.12). The pamphlet reflects on the unpopularity of the earlier Foreign Protestants Naturalization Act (1708), which offered assistance to Huguenot refugees, and includes a list of MPs who voted for the 1708 bill.

The virulently anti-Semitic An Historical Treatise, originally published in 1703, traces a 'Narrative of the Punishment of that People' from the reign of Edward I onwards. Much of the invective seems shockingly familiar: 'the impious and immoral Freedom which the Jews take amongst us, is depending upon the Force and Power of their Money; which, as we have just Reason to believe, runs through many secret Channels, in this Kingdom, corruptly, to support the impious and blasphemous Doctrine of the Jews against the Gospel of Jesus Christ' (p.6). ESTC records just four copies in institutional holdings (BL, Lambeth Palace, Southampton University and the University of Leeds).

A Modest Apology, attributed to the evangelical preacher William Romaine (1714-1795), promotes the idea of Jewish deicide, the belief that all Jews are guilty of 'Treason by aiding and abetting Traitors: For they defend their Ancestors Rebellion; they justify the crucifying of the Son of God, and if they had him in their Power they would crucify him again' (Preface). ESTC lists only six copies in institutional holdings, four in the British Isles (BL, Trinity College Cambridge, Balliol Oxford, and Worcester College Oxford) and two in North America (Harvard and the Peabody Essex Museum).

The last work is a satire by the political writer William Arnall (d.1736), writing under the pseudonym Solomon Abrabanel, a 'Circumcised Jew' (p.3). First published in 1736, the imprint is notoriously unreliable, and this sixth edition was a reissue of the second. Roth records that seven reprints were issued in 1753.

First edition; 8vo (19.5 x 12 cm); woodcut initial, head and tailpieces, lacking half-title; disbound; 3-28pp. Second edition; 8vo (20.5 x 12.5 cm); woodcut initial and headpiece, small hole to title-page (0.25 cm); disbound; 31, [1] pp. Second edition; 8vo (20 x 12.5 cm); woodcut device; disbound; vi, 16 pp. Sixth edition; 8vo (18.5 x 12 cm); woodcut initial and headpiece, waterstain to title and A2; disbound; 39, [1] pp.

ESTC T66558; Hanson 6108; Goldsmiths 830; Roth 56.ESTC T14621; Roth 43. ESTC T25829; Roth 90. ESTC T30983; Roth 50.