Meeting for Sufferings, as representing it, recommended
to the quarterly meetings to distribute a work, written by Anthony
Benezet, in America, called _A Caution to Great Britain and her
Colonies, in a short Representation of the calamitous State of the
enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions._ This book was accordingly
forwarded to them for this purpose. On receiving it, they sent it among
several public bodies, the regular and dissenting clergy, justices of
the peace, and particularly among the great Schools of the kingdom, that
the rising youth might acquire a knowledge, and at the same time a
detestation, of this cruel traffic. In this latter base, a deputation of
the society waited, upon the masters, to know if they would allow their
scholars to receive it. The schools of Westminster, the Charter-house,
St. Paul, Merchant-Taylors, Eton, Winchester, and Harrow, were among
those visited. Several academies also were visited for this purpose.

But I must now take my leave of the Quakers as a public body[A] and go
back to the year 1783, to record an event, which will be found of great
importance in the present history, and in which only individuals
belonging to the society were concerned. This event seems to have arisen
naturally out of existing or past circumstances. For the society, as I
have before stated, had sent a petition to parliament in this year,
praying for the abolition, of the Slave Trade. It had also laid the
foundation for a public distribution of the books as just mentioned,
with a view of enlightening others on this great subject. The case of
the ship Zong, which I have before had occasion to explain, had occurred
this same year. A letter also had been presented, much about the same
time, by Benjamin West, from Anthony Benezet, before mentioned, to our
queen, in behalf of the injured Africans, which she had received
graciously. These subjects occupied at this time the attention of many
Quaker families, and among others, that of a few individuals, who were
in close intimacy with each other. These, when they met together,
frequently conversed upon them. They perceived, as facts came out in
conversation, that there was a growing knowledge and hatred of the Slave
Trade, and that the temper of the times was ripening towards its
abolition. Hence a disposition manifested itself among these, to unite
as labourers for the furtherance of so desirable an object. An union was
at length proposed and approved of, a