An Answer to a pamphlet, entitled, Considerations on the Bill to permit Persons professing the Jewish Religion to be naturalized; Wherein the False Reasoning, Gross Misrepresentation of Facts and perversion of Scripture are fully laid open and detected

Second Edition. Title leaf with blank verso; Advertisement to the Christian Reader 2 leaves with verso of the second blank; 2 page preface [= page 3 & 4]; the work itself: pages numbered 5 to 67. Verso of 67 is blank. Total of 36 leaves. 197 x 128 mm. (7.25 x 5 inches). Full leather binding. 8vo. Roth, Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica, page 222, number 102; Hyamson, Bibliography of Pamphlets Relating to the Jew Bill of 1753 in: TJHSE, Volume VI (1908-1910), page 181, number 24] London, 1753. AN EXAMPLE OF THE BACKLASH TO THE SHORT-LIVED JEW BILL OF 1753. In the year 1609 the naturalization of any foreigner settled in the England was made contingent upon receiving the Sacrament. Although this act was deliberately directed against Catholics, it incidentally would later affect Jews following the Re-Admission of 1653. This disability was lifted by the Whig Government of Henry Pelham in the Act of 1753 to permit persons professing the Jewish religion to be naturalized by Parliament. The Bill was, at best, of limited advantage to the Jews since only the wealthy would have been able to set in motion the machinery necessary to obtain naturalization. Although the measure was accepted unanimously by the House of Lords, it became a pawn in the upcoming general election campaign that resulted in its eventual repeal by the House of Commons. Taking full advantage of the prejudices and fears that the grant of naturalization to Jews had aroused, the Tory opposition fueled the unpopularity of the Act with a pamphlet and broadsheet campaign that warned of an England overrun with Jews. The Whig government was forced by public opinion to give way and the pro-Jewish legislation was duly repealed in the same year that was enacted. The present pamphlet is a response to the pro-Jewish pamphlet Considerations on the Bill to permit persons professing the Jewish religion to be naturalized by Parliament (London, 1753) by the pseudonymous "Philo-Patriae" [Roth, page 221, number 95]. The present author makes the claim that the Jews employed an unnamed non-Jew to write that pamphlet. Summoning various passages from the New Testament, the author of this pamphlet argues that the naturalization of the Jews would be in violation of "these Divine Laws" (pages 14 - 15). See J. Picciotto, Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History (1956), pages 73-86; A. M. Hyamson, The Sephardim of England (1951), pages 127-128; A. M. Hyamson, "The Jew Bill of 1753" in: TJHSE, Volume VI (1908-1910), pages 156-188. …