letters to all the clergymen and magistrates in the parishes, bordering upon the sea, and reproving them for their unchristian conduct In the West-Indies also he exhorted those, who attended his meetings to be merciful to their slaves, and to give them their freedom in due time.  He considered these as belonging to their families, and that religious instruction was due to these, as the branches of them, for whom one day or other they would be required to give a solemn account.  Happy had it been, if these christian exhortations had been attended to, or if those families only, whom he thus seriously addressed, had continued to be true Quakers; for they would have set an example, which would have proved to the rest of the islanders, and the world at large, that the impolicy is not less than the wickedness of oppression.  Thus was George Fox probably the first person, who publicly declared against this species of slavery.  Nothing in short, that could be deplored by humanity, seems to have escaped his eye; and his benevolence, when excited, appears to have suffered no interruption in its progress by the obstacles, which bigotry would have thrown in the way of many, on account of the difference of a persons country, or of his colour, or of his sect.

He was patient under his own sufferings.  To those, who smote his right cheek, he offered his left; and, in the true spirit of christianity, he indulged no rancour against the worst of his oppressors.  He made use occasionally of a rough expression towards them; but he would never have hurt any of them, if he had had them in his power.

He possessed the most undaunted courage; for he was afraid of no earthly power.  He was never deterred from going to meetings for worship, though he knew the officers would be there, who were to seize his person.  In his personal conversations with Oliver Cromwell, or in his letters to him as protector, or in his letters to the parliament, or to king Charles the second, or to any other personage, he discovered his usual boldness of character, and never lost, by means of any degrading flattery, his dignity as a man.

But his perseverance was equal to his courage; for he was no sooner out of gaol, than he repeated the very acts, believing them to be right, for which he had been confined.  When he was forced also out of the meeting-houses by the officers of justice, he preached at the very doors.  In short, he was never hindered but by sickness, or imprisonments, from persevering in his religious pursuits.

With respect to his word, he was known to have held it so sacred, that the judges frequently dismissed him without bail, on his bare promise that he would be forth coming on a given day.  On these occasions, he used always to qualify his promise by the expression, "if the Lord permit."