ture being broken, desolation and bloodshed
continually fomented in those unhappy people's country." It was also
intended, said he, "to invalidate the false arguments which are
frequently advanced for the palliation of this trade, in hopes it may
be some inducement to those who are not yet defiled therewith to keep
themselves clear; and to lay before such as have unwarily engaged in
it, their danger of totally losing that tender sensibility to the
sufferings of their fellow creatures, the want whereof set men beneath
the brute creation."[37]

In the year 1769 appeared his "_Caution and Warning to Great Britain
and her Colonies on the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes in
the British Dominions_." Referring to this work, he says: "The intent
of publishing the following sheets, is more fully to make known the
aggravated iniquity attending the practice of the Slave Trade; whereby
many thousands of our fellow creatures, as free as ourselves by nature
and equally with us the subjects of Christ's redeeming Grace, are
yearly brought into inextricable and barbarous bondage; and many; very
many, to miserable and untimely ends." Fearlessly directing this as an
attack on public functionaries he remarks: "How an evil of so deep a
dye, hath so long, not only passed uninterrupted by those in power,
but hath even had their countenance, is indeed surprising; and charity
would suppose, must in a great measure have arisen from this, that
many persons in government both of the Laity and Clergy, in whose
power it hath been to put a stop to the Trade, have been unacquainted
with the corrupt motives which gives life to it, and with the groans,
the dying groans, which daily ascend to God, the common Father of
mankind, from the broken hearts of those his deeply oppressed
creatures." Coming directly to the purpose in mind, however, the
author declares: "I shall only endeavor to show from the nature of the
Trade, the plenty which Guinea affords to its inhabitants, the
barbarous treatment of the Negroes and the observations made thereon
by authors of note, that it is inconsistent with the plainest precepts
of the Gospel, the dictates of reason, and every common sentiment of
humanity."[38]

This work turned out to be the first really effective one of Benezet's
writings, creating not a little sensation both on this continent and
Europe. It was especially rousing to the Quakers here and abroad. The
Yearly Meeting of London recommended in 1785