8vo (197 x 124 mm). Title printed within double-rule border. (Some spotting, staining and browning). Contemporary panelled calf (some light wear). Provenance: Old inscriptions on title-page and facing page crossed out or effaced; Joseph Rodgers (signature on verso of final leaf); Phoebe Woolley (signature, 1805). 

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, A RARE JAMES FRANKLIN IMPRINT.  James Franklin (1697-1735), was Benjamin Franklin's older brother and master, but there was little affection between them.  In 1723 Benjamin tired of James's hard treatment, and set out for Philadelphia. "Though a brother," Franklin wrote in his Autobiography, "he considered himself as my master, and me as his apprentice, and accordingly expected the same services from me as he would from another, while I thought he demeaned me too much in some he required of me, who from a brother expected more indulgence." James Franklin established the first press in Rhode Island in 1726, where he specialized in popular religious books.  Barclay's Apology was first published in Latin in 1676, and was first published in English in 1678. Franklin's edition constituted one of the first full-length books published in Rhode Island, preceded only by a few broadsides and pamphlets and a 150-page book issued in the previous year. Alden, Rhode Island 11; Evans 3129.