An excellent work; Whelpley seems to have waited to publish the present work posthumously; perhaps the avoid being drawn into public controversy over the issue. It immediately went throuth several imprints. On the heals of the War of 1812, the explosion of domestic and foreign missions, and the growing call for the abolition of slavery, many Christians were open to the idea of Christian non-resistance / pacifism. 

Samuel Whelpley (1766 – 1817) was an American Presbyterian preacher and religious writer. His parents were subsistence farmers who belonged to a small Baptist church, where Whelpley's father was a deacon.

Whelpley was converted as a child and sensed a call to the Christian ministry. He studied Theology under Dr. Stephen West, became a Baptist preacher, and on June 21, 1792, was ordained pastor of the congregation where his father was deacon. After preaching for some time to this church, Whelpley moved to West Stockbridge, where in 1792 a Baptist congregation was formed, and where in 1794 a church was built. He spent several years there before being persuaded to move to Green River, New York to lead a nondenominational congregation. Around 1798, he moved from Green River to Morristown, New Jersey, where he took charge of an academy, "gaining an increasing reputation as both a preacher and an academic instructor."

He later became a Presbyterian doctrinally and was ordained into their membership, but retained many of his early Baptist sensibilities of abolitionism, religious liberty and tolerance, and strains of non-resistance. 

Signed by Baptist, Deacon Jesse Tourtellot on the ffep.

Philadelphus [i.e. Samuel Whelpley]. Letters Addressed to Caleb Strong, Esq. Late Governor of Massachusetts, Showing that Retaliation, Capital Punishment, and War, are Prohibited by the Gospel; Justified by no Good Principle; Not Necessary to the Safety of Individauls or Nations; But, Incompatible with their Welfare; Inconsistent with the Christian Character; and Contrary to the Laws of Christ. Providence. Printed by Miller & Hutchens. 1818. 126pp.

Good + in original quarter calf with mineral blue boards. Some rubbing, and foxing as shown, but a rather nicely preserved example.