Some pleasing intelligence having been sent on this subject by the Society in America to the Society in England, the yearly meeting of 1772 thought it their duty to notice it, and to keep their former resolutions alive by the following minute:—­“It appears that the practice of holding Negros in oppressive and unnatural bondage hath been so successfully discouraged by Friends in some of the colonies as to be considerably lessened.  We cannot but approve of these salutary endeavours, and earnestly entreat they may be continued, that, through the favour of divine Providence, a traffic so unmerciful and unjust in its nature to a part of our own species, made, equally with ourselves, for immortality, may come to be considered by all in its proper light, and be utterly abolished as a reproach to the Christian name.”

I must beg leave to stop here for a moment, just to pay the Quakers a due tribute of respect for the proper estimation, in which they have uniformly held the miserable outcasts of society, who have been the subject of these minutes.  What a contrast does it afford to the sentiments of many others concerning them!  How have we been compelled to prove by a long chain of evidence, that they had the same feelings and capacities as ourselves!  How many, professing themselves enlightened, even now view them as of a different species!  But in the minutes, which have been cited, we have seen them uniformly represented as persons “ransomed by one and the same Saviour”—­“as visited by one and the same light for salvation”—­and “as made equally for immortality as others.”  These practical views of mankind, as they are highly honourable to the members of this society, so they afford a proof both of the reality and of the consistency of their religion.

But to return:—­From this time there appears to have been a growing desire in this benevolent society to step out of its ordinary course in behalf of this injured people.  It had hitherto confined itself to the keeping of its own members unpolluted by any gain from their oppression.  But it was now ready to make an appeal to others, and to bear a more public testimony in their favour.  Accordingly, in the month of June 1783, when a bill had been brought into the House of Commons for certain regulations to be made with respect to the African trade, the Society sent the following petition to that branch of the legislature:—­

“Your petitioners, met in this their annual assembly, having solemnly considered the state of the enslaved Negros, conceive themselves engaged, in religious duty, to lay the suffering situation of that unhappy people before you, as a subject loudly calling for the humane interposition of the legislature.

“Your petitioners regret that a nation, professing the Christian faith, should so far counteract the principles of humanity and justice, as by the cruel treatment of this oppressed race to fill their minds with prejudices against the mild and beneficent doctrines of the Gospel.