The Character of the Pretender. By his Secretary, the late Lord Bolingbroke. Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum

[No Place] Printed in the Year 1756. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. 8vo, 192 x 120 mms., pp. 15, [1], later plain grey wrappers; title spotted, tear on verso of last leaf neatly repaired. This copy, with a manuscript letter from the chief figure behind the book, explains the fuller context of this well-recorded anti-Jacobite publication from 1756. The ESTC (T106589) finds no copies with a similar MS letter or any other kind of MS letter. One copy listed in the ESTC, however, the one at the British Library, is known to have a MS annotation that suggested it, too, arrived to its recipient accompanied by a MS letter at the time: that recipient's annotation reads in part, "Rec. Mar. 3. 1756 at London from Edinburgh / inclosed in a Letter dat. Feb. 24. 1756 & signed the / Friend of Liberty". Then, in square brackets, the recipient adds that "this paper", meaning, presumably, the printed pamphlet itself, and "ye letter" were "wrote by Peters", the "Bookseller in Edinburgh". The letter that accompanied the British Library copy of the book is no longer present with the book, however. The copy of The Character of the Pretender (1756) on offer, however, has a full-page letter that appears to be an analogous communication, as it, too, is dated to February 24, 1756, and is signed "The Friend of Liberty". Presumably the man behind the book wrote similar letters to accompany some or all of the copies that he posted to various people in the kingdom. This is the manuscript letter in the copy on offer, the addressee presumably being a bishop or archbishop in Scotland: My Lord In the present Juncture of Affairs, 'tis beyond question, the duty of every man who wishes well to our happy Constitution, to do every thing in his power, for disappointing the designs of Our Enemies. As the French will probably play their Old Game, the Pretender, on us, I have thought it proper to [?cause] print Lord Bolingbroke's Character of him, & have sent a Copy to every Minister in Scotland, that they may use their endeavours to undeceive the poor deluded Jacobites in their Parishes. Your Lordships known regard for the Interests of Religion & Liberty, has encouraged me to use the freedom of Sending one of them to Your Lordship, who I'm confident will take the most proper Method for publishing it throughout your Diocese, as one of the best Antidotes against the deadly poison of Jacobitism. I am descended from the Old Stock of Whigs before the Revolution, And have the honour to be with all imaginable Respect My Lord Your Lordships Most Obedient and Most humble Servant The Friend of Liberty Febr[uar]y 24th. 1756. To have this letter, with its additional and decidedly full context to the publication of the anti-Jacobite tract The Character of the Pretender (1756), is remarkable and salutary, but the question remains: Who is "The Friend of Liberty"? There is no editor specified on the title-page of The Character of the Pretender (1756). Nor is there a publisher or place of publication given in the imprint. The imprint consists of the sparest statement: "Printed in the year, 1756." In the February 1756 issue of Scots Magazine, however, there is a notice of The Character of the Pretender (1756) under the section headed "New Books". The notice appears, tellingly, in a subsection for books published in Edinburgh, and both the price of the book is given, "2 d.", and the publishers are given as well, or booksellers from whom the book could be obtained: "Gray & Peter". There is only one duo named Gray and Peter who worked together as booksellers in Edinburgh in the late 1750s: William Gray and Walter Peter, who would later found a circulating library together. The online Scottish Book Trade Index has entries on them, but detail is sorely lacking. This letter, likely written by Walter Peter, or written at his behest, must be one of the more informative texts to survive from their joint ventures. At this time in British and Scottish history there was considerable overlap in anti-Jacobitism and anti-Catholicism, as well as general opposition to the French, as a nation from whom an invasion was periodically, and justifiably, feared. Related tracts distributed by Gray and Peter, tracts whose context is perhaps illuminated indirectly by the present letter, include A Specimen of the Unrelenting Cruelty of Papists in France, and the Unshaken Faith and Patience of the Protestants of that Kingdom; Now Entering upon the Seventieth Year of their Persecutions (1755) and Britain's Remembrancer: or, The Danger Not Over: Being Some Thoughts on the Proper Improvement of the Present Juncture (1757). As to the editorship or authorship of The Character of the Pretender (1756), the ESTC gives of course Bolingbroke as the primary author, but adds that the book was "Probably edited by [Gabriel?] Peters". The surname "Peters" was presumably gleaned from the examination of the BL copy, where the recipient, in an annotation, probably wrongly, gave "Peters" rather than "Peter" as the name of the Edinburgh bookseller from whom he or she received the book. (The conjecture that the full name of the editor is Gabriel Peters appears problematic today, as he is known now, according to the Scottish Book Trade Index, primarily as a stationer who plied his trade in the early 1770s.) That standard survey of Jacobitism and anti-Jacobitism compiled by Charles Sanford Terry, The Rising of 1745, with a Bibliography of Jacobite History, 1689-1788 (1903), has an entry on The Character of the Pretender (1756), but offers no attribution for the work beyond Bolingbroke (p. 263). Nor does Terry cite Walter Peter at any point in his bibliographical survey. The information provided by the full-page letter in this copy of The Character of the Pretender (1756), seen against the partially-correct annotation in the BL's copy, with the addition of the short but probably accurate notice in Scots Magazine from February 1756, combines to strongly suggest a new attribution: the men behind this publication were very likely William Gray and Walter Peter, with the latter of the two, Peter, likely having had by far the larger share in the production. ESTC T106589 finds The Character of the Pretender (1756) to be particularly rare in North America, with only four copies found there: two held by the Huntington in California, and one each held by the Newberry in Chicago and Princeton in New Jersey. For the British Isles and Ireland, the ESTC finds several copies in Scotland, and then only BL, Cambridge, Lambeth, and Westminster Abbey, the abbey, interestingly, holding the copy once owned by Zachary Pearce, who, in 1756, was both the Dean of Westminster and the Bishop of Rochester.