e, that of 1763
endeavoured to draw the cords, still tighter, by attaching criminality
to those who should aid and abet the trade in any manner. By the minute,
which was made on this occasion, I apprehend that no one belonging to
the Society could furnish even materials for such voyages. "We renew our
exhortation, that Friends everywhere be especially careful to keep their
hands clear of giving encouragement in any shape to the Slave Trade, it
being evidently destructive of the natural rights of mankind, who are
all ransomed by one Saviour, and visited by one divine light, in order
to salvation; a traffic calculated to enrich and aggrandize some upon
the misery of others; in its nature abhorrent to every just and tender
sentiment, and contrary to the whole tenour of the Gospel."

Some pleasing intelligence having been sent on this subject, by the
Society in America to the Society in England, the yearly meeting of 1772
thought it their duty to notice it, and to keep their former resolutions
alive by the following minute:--"It appears that the practice of holding
negroes in oppressive and unnatural bondage hath been so successfully
discouraged by Friends in some of the colonies, as to be considerably
lessened. We cannot but approve of these salutary endeavours, and
earnestly intreat that they may be continued, that through the favour of
divine Providence a traffic, so unmerciful and unjust in its nature to a
part of our own species made, equally with ourselves, for immortality,
may come to be considered by all in its proper light, and be utterly
abolished as a reproach to the Christian name."

I must beg leave to stop here for a moment, just to pay the Quakers a
due tribute of respect for the proper estimation, in which they have
uniformly held the miserable outcasts of society, who have been the
subject of these minutes. What a contrast does it afford to the
sentiments of many others concerning them! How have we been compelled to
prove by a long chain of evidence, that they had the same feelings and
capacities as ourselves! How many, professing themselves enlightened,
even now view them as of a different species! But in the minutes which
have been cited we have seen them uniformly represented, as persons
"ransomed by one and the same Saviour," "as visited by one and the same
light for salvation," and "as made equally for immortality as others."
These practical views of mankind, as they are highly honourable to the
membe