d desired him
to have interviews with them on the subject. He charged him also to be very
particular in making observations as to what he should see there. This
journey was of great use to the latter in fixing him as the friend of these
oppressed people, for he saw so much of their cruel treatment in the course
of it, that he felt an anxiety ever afterwards, amounting to a duty, to do
everything in his power for their relief.

In the year 1773 William Dillwyn, in conjunction with Richard Smith and
Daniel Wells, two of his own Society, wrote a pamphlet in answer to
arguments then prevailing, that the manumission of slaves would be
injurious. This pamphlet,--which was entitled, Brief Considerations on
Slavery, and the Expediency of its Abolition; with some Hints on the Means
whereby it may be gradually effected,--proved that in lieu of the usual
security required, certain sums paid at the several periods of manumission
would amply secure the public, as well as the owners of the slaves, from
any future burthens. In the same year also, when the Society, joined by
several hundreds of others in New Jersey, presented a petition to the
legislature, (as mentioned in the former chapter,) to obtain an act of
assembly for the more equitable manumission of slaves in that province,
William Dillwyn was one of a deputation, which was heard at the bar of the
assembly for that purpose.

In 1774 he came to England, but his attention was still kept alive to the
subject. For he was the person, by whom Anthony Benezet sent his letter to
the Countess of Huntingdon, as before related. He was also the person, to
whom the same venerable defender of the African race sent his letter,
before spoken of, to be forwarded to the Queen.

That William Dillwyn and those of his own class in England acted upon
motives very distinct from those of the former class may be said with
truth, for they acted upon the constitutional principles of their own
Society, as incorporated into its discipline, which principles would always
have incited them to the subversion of slavery, as far as they themselves
were concerned, whether any other persons had abolished it or not. To which
it may be added, as a further proof of the originality of their motives,
that the Quakers have had ever since their institution as a religious body,
but little intercourse with the world.

The third class, to which I now come, consisted, as we have seen, first, of
the Quakers in America; a