The Case of the People Called Quakers, with respect to many of their friends in South-Britain, and their friends in general in North-Britain, who conscientiously scruple the taking of the present affirmation

[London, 1715. Broadsheet. [1]p. plus printed docket title on verso. Dbd. Early folds and early stab holes in left margin. Moderate toning and foxing. Very good. Quakers seek relief on affirmation.

In 1696, after experiencing decades of exclusion and imprisonment for conscientiously refusing to take loyalty and court oaths, Quakers were granted the right by Parliament to take a "solemn affirmation" in legal situations in place of an actual oath. Over the next two decades, numerous Quakers objected to the invocation of God's name in the official affirmation and refused it as they had the oath. In 1715, a bill was under consideration in Parliament to renew indefinitely the Quakers' right to the affirmation. The Quaker authors of the present petition support the bill but ask that it be amended with a revised affirmation that does not include the name of God. ESTC lists copies at four institutions: the British Library, the Library of the Religious Society of Friends, the National Library of Scotland, and Oxford.

Smith, A Descriptive Catalogue of Friends' Books, Vol. II, p.265 (listing its imprint at "about 1721").