The next was Ralph Sandiford, a merchant in Philadelphia.  This worthy person had many offers of pecuniary assistance, which would have advanced him in life, but he declined them all because they came from persons, who had acquired their independence by the oppression of their slaves.  He was very earnest in endeavouring to prevail upon his friends, both in and out of the Society, to liberate those whom they held in bondage.  At length he determined upon a work called The Mystery of Iniquity, in a brief Examination of the Practice of the Times.  This he published in the year 1729, though the chief judge had threatened him if he should give it to the world, and he circulated it free of expense wherever he believed it would be useful.  The above work was excellent as a composition.  The language of it was correct.  The style manly and energetic.  And it abounded with facts, sentiments, and quotations, which, while they showed the virtue and talents of the author, rendered it a valuable appeal in behalf of the African cause.

The next public advocate was Benjamin Lay[A], who lived at Abington, at the distance of twelve or fourteen miles from Philadelphia.  Benjamin Lay was known, when in England, to the royal family of that day, into whose private presence he was admitted.  On his return to America, he took an active part in behalf of the oppressed Africans.  In the year 1737, he published a treatise on Slave-keeping.  This he gave away among his neighbours and others, but more particularly among the rising youth, many of whom he visited in their respective schools.  He applied also to several of the governors for interviews, with whom he held conferences on the subject.  Benjamin Lay was a man of strong understanding and of great integrity, but of warm and irritable feelings, and more particularly so when he was called forth on any occasion in which the oppressed Africans were concerned.  For he had lived in the island of Barbadoes, and he had witnessed there scenes of cruelty towards them, which had greatly disturbed his mind, and which unhinged it, as it were, whenever the subject of their sufferings was brought before him.  Hence if others did not think precisely as he did, when he conversed with them on the subject, he was apt to go out of due bounds.  In bearing what he believed to be his testimony against this system of oppression, he adopted sometimes a singularity of manner, by which, as conveying demonstration of a certain eccentricity of character, he diminished in some degree his usefulness to the cause which he had undertaken; as far indeed as this eccentricity might have the effect of preventing others from joining him in his pursuit, lest they should be thought singular also, so far it must be allowed that he ceased to become beneficial.  But there can be no question, on the other hand, that his warm and enthusiastic manners awakened the attention of many to the cause, and gave them first impressions concerning it, which they never afterwards forgot, and which rendered them useful to it in the subsequent part of their lives.