ke similar
measures.--Quakers, as individuals, also become labourers; William
Burling and others.--Individuals of other religious denominations take
up the cause also; Judge Sewell and others.--Union of the Quakers with
others in a society for Pennsylvania, in 1774; James Pemberton; Dr.
Rush.--Similar union of the Quakers with others for New York and other
provinces.

The next class of the forerunners and coadjutors, up to the year 1787,
will consist, first, of the Quakers in America; and then of others, as
they were united to these for the same object.

It may be asked, How the Quakers living there should have become
forerunners and coadjutors in the great work now under our
consideration. I reply, first, that it was an object for many years with
these to do away the Slave Trade as it was carried on in their own
ports. But this trade was conducted in part, both before and after the
independence of America, by our own countrymen. It was, secondly, an
object with these to annihilate slavery in America; and this they have
been instruments in accomplishing to a considerable extent. But any
abolition of slavery within given boundaries must be a blow to the Slave
Trade there. The American Quakers, lastly, living in a land where both
the commerce and slavery existed, were in the way of obtaining a number
of important facts relative to both, which made for their annihilation;
and communicating many of these facts to those in England, who espoused
the same cause, they became fellow-labourers with these in producing the
event in question.

The Quakers in America, it must be owned, did most of them originally as
other settlers there with respect to the purchase of slaves. They had
lands without a sufficient number of labourers, and families without a
sufficient number of servants, for their work. Africans were poured in
to obviate these difficulties, and these were bought promiscuously by
all. In these days, indeed, the purchase of them was deemed favourable
to both parties, for there was little or no knowledge of the manner in
which they had been procured as slaves. There was no charge of
inconsistency on this account, as in later times. But though many of the
Quakers engaged, without their usual consideration, in purchases of this
kind, yet those constitutional principles, which belong to the society,
occasioned the members of it in general to treat those whom they
purchased with great tenderness, considering them, though