at home, it would be a violation of common prudence, and a breach of good manners, to treat a Prince like a Peasant.  And this worthy Gentleman would deem himself much neglected, if we should show him no more Defference than to an ordinary Porter:  And therefore these florid expressions, the Sons and Daughters of the First Adam, the Brethren and Sisters of the Second Adam, and the Offspring of God, seem to be misapplied to import and insinuate, that we ought to tender Pagan Negroes with all love, kindness, and equal respect as to the best of men.

“By all which it doth evidently appear both by Scripture and Reason, the practice of the People of God in all Ages, both before and after the giving of the Law, and in the times of the Gospel, that there were Bond men, Women and Children commonly kept by holy and good men, and improved in Service; and therefore by the Command of God, Lev. 25, 44, and their venerable Example, we may keep Bond men, and use them in our Service still; yet with all candour, moderation and Christian prudence, according to their state and condition consonant to the Word of God.”

Judge Sewall had dealt slavery a severe blow, and opened up an agitation on the subject that was felt during the entire Revolutionary struggle.  He became the great apostle of liberty, the father of the anti-slavery movement in the colony.  He was the bold and stern John the Baptist of that period, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” of bondage, to prepare the way for freedom.

The Quakers, or Friends as they were called, were perhaps the earliest friends of the slaves, but, like Joseph of Arimathaea, were “secretly” so, for fear of the “Puritans.”  But they early recorded their disapprobation of slavery as follows:—­

     26th day of y’e 9th mo. 1716.

“An epistle from the last Quarterly Meeting was read in this, and y’e matter referred to this meeting, viz., whether it is agreeable to truth for friends to purchase slaves and keep them term of liffe, was considered, and y’e sense and judgment of this meeting is, that it is not agreeable to truth for friends to purchase slaves and hold them term of liffe.

“Nathaniel Starbuck, jun’r is to draw out this meeting’s judgment concerning friends not buying slaves and keeping them term of liffe, and send it to the next Quarterly Meeting, and to sign it in y’e meeting’s behalf."[377]

Considering the prejudice and persecution that pursued this good people, their testimony against slavery is very remarkable.  In 1729-30 Elihu Coleman of Nantucket, a minister of the society of Friends, wrote a book against slavery, published in 1733, entitled, “A Testimony against that Anti-Christian Practice of MAKING SLAVES OF MEN.[378] It was well written, and the truth fearlessly told for the conservative, self-seeking period he lived in.  He says,—­