nd secondly, of an union of these with others on
the same continent. The principal individuals concerned in this union were
James Pemberton and Dr. Rush. The former of these, having taken an active
part in several of the yearly meetings of his own Society relative to the
oppressed Africans, and having been in habits of intimacy and friendship
with John Woolman and Anthony Benezet, with the result of whose labours he
was acquainted, may be supposed to have become qualified to take a leading
station in the promotion of their cause. Dr. Rush also had shown himself,
as has appeared, an able advocate, and had even sustained a controversy in
their favour. That the two last mentioned acted also on motives of their
own, or independently of those belonging to the other two classes, when
they formed their association in Pennsylvania, will be obvious from these
circumstances; first, that most of those of the first class, who
contributed to throw the greatest light and odium upon the Slave-trade, had
not then made their public appearance in the world. And, with respect to
the second class, the little commitee belonging to it had neither been
formed nor thought of.

And as the individuals in each of the three classes, who have now been
mentioned, had an education as it were to qualify them for acting together
in this great cause, and had moved independently of each other, so it will
appear that, by means of circumstances which they themselves had neither
foreseen nor contrived, a junction between them was rendered easily
practicable, and that it was beginning to take place at the period
assigned.

To show this, I must first remind the reader that Anthony Benezet, as soon
as he heard of the result of the case of Somerset, opened a correspondence
with Granville Sharp, which was kept up to the encouragement of both. In
the year 1774, when he learned that William Dillwyn was going to England,
he gave him letters to that gentleman. Thus one of the most conspicuous of
the second class was introduced, accidentally as it were, to one of the
most conspicuous of the first. In the year 1775 William Dillwyn went back
to America, but, on his return to England to settle, he renewed his visits
to Granville Sharp. Thus the connection was continued. To these
observations I may now add; that Samuel Hoare, of the same class as William
Dillwyn, had, in consequence of the Bishop of Chester's sermon, begun a
correspondence in 1784, as before mentioned, w