that all the quarterly
meetings give this book the widest circulation possible. The Quakers
in various parts accordingly approached numerous classes of persons,
all sects and denominations, and especially public officials. Desiring
also to reach the youth the agents for distribution visited the
schools of Westminster, the Carter-House, St. Paul's, Merchant
Tailors', Eton, Winchester, and Harrow. From among the youths thus
informed came some of those reformers who finally abolished the slave
trade in the English dominions.

The most effective of Benezet's works, however, was his "_An
Historical Account of Guinea, its Situation, Produce, and the General
Disposition of its Inhabitants, with an Enquiry into the Rise and
Progress of the Slave Trade, its Nature and Calamitous Effect_." This
volume approached more nearly than his other writings what students of
to-day would call a scientific treatise. The author devoted much time
to the collection of facts and substantiated his assertions by
quotations from the standard authorities in that field. While it added
nothing really new to the argument already advanced, the usual
theories were more systematically arranged and more forcefully set
forth.[39] "This book," says a writer, "became instrumental beyond any
other work ever before published in disseminating a proper knowledge
and detestation of this Trade."[40]

The most important single effect the book had, was to convert Thomas
Clarkson, who thereafter devoted his life to the cause of abolishing
the slave trade. While a Senior Bachelor of Arts at the University of
Cambridge, Clarkson had in 1784 distinguished himself by winning a
prize for the best Latin dissertation. The following year a prize was
offered for the best essay on the subject "anne Liceat invitos in
servitutem dare," is it lawful to make slaves of others against their
will? Knowing that he was then unprepared to compete, he hesitated to
enter the contest, not wishing to lose the reputation he had so
recently won. Yet owing to the fact that it was expected of him, he
entered his name, actuated by no other motive than to distinguish
himself as a scholar. As there was then a paucity of literature on
slavery in England, his first researches in this field were not
productive of gratifying results. "I was in this difficulty," says
Clarkson, "when going by accident into a friend's house, I took up a
newspaper there lying on the table. One of the first articles whic