had
adequate preparation to live as freedmen. Writing to Fothergill,
Benezet expressed his concurrence with the former's opinion that it
would be decidedly dangerous both to the Negroes and the masters
themselves in the southern colonies, should the slaves be suddenly
manumitted. Except in particular cases, therefore, even in the
northern colonies the liberation of slaves in large numbers was not at
first Benezet's concern. He believed that "the best endeavors in our
power to draw the notice of the governments, upon the grievous
iniquity and great danger attendant on a further prosecution of the
slave trade, is what every truly sympathizing mind cannot but
earnestly desire, and under divine direction promote to the utmost of
their power." If this could be obtained, he believed the sufferings of
"those already amongst us, by the interposition of the government, and
even from selfish ends in their masters, would be mitigated, and in
time Providence would gradually work for the release of those, whose
age and situation would fit them for freedom." Benezet thought that
this second problem could be solved by colonizing the Negroes on the
western lands. "The settlements now in prospect to be made in that
large extent of country," said he, "from the west side of the Allegany
mountains to the Mississippi, on a breadth of four or five hundred
miles, would afford a suitable and beneficial means of settlement for
many of them among the white people, which would in all probability be
as profitable to the negroes as to the new settlers." But he did not
desire to take up time especially with matters of so remote a nature,
it being indeed with reluctance that he took up at all a question
which he would have avoided, "if there had been any person to whom he
could have addressed himself with the same expectation, that what he
had in view would have thereby been answered."[36]

Taking a more advanced position with this propaganda Benezet published
in 1762 a work entitled "_A Short Account of that Part of Africa
inhabited by Negroes, with general Observations on the Slave Trade and
Slavery_." "The end proposed by this essay," says the author, "is to
lay before the candid reader the depth of evil attending this
iniquitous practice, in the prosecution of which our duty to God, the
common Father of the family of the whole earth, and our duty of love
to our fellow creatures, is totally disregarded; all social connection
and tenderness of na