The Lobbying of London Quakers for Pennsylvania Friends
The Lobbying of London Quakers for Pennsylvania Friends IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LONDON QUAKERS developed a highly effective political lobby, the London Meeting for Sufferings, capable of exerting political pressure on behalf of Quakers throughout the British Isles and the Empire—in the provinces as well as the metropolis, in the American provinces as well as the English. Since Pennsylvania was the American province most clearly dominated by Friends closely tied to the London Meeting, one would have expected it to be consistently the main American beneficiary of the Londoners' attention throughout the eighteenth century. In fact, however, London lobbying for Pennsylvania Friends was uneven over the years. In the quarter century from 1730 to 1755 Pennsylvania did become the strongest American concern of the London Meeting for Sufferings, but immediately after that London lobbying for all the colonies, Pennsylvania included, dropped off abruptly. By the eve of the American Revolution there was almost no lobbying.