their owners had to struggle, in
making them free, against the laws and customs of the times. In
Pennsylvania, where the law in this respect was the most favourable, the
parties wishing to give freedom to a slave were obliged to enter into a
bond for the payment of thirty pounds currency, in case the said slave
should become chargeable for maintenance. In New Jersey the terms were
far less favorable, as the estate of the owner remained liable to the
consequences of misconduct in the slave, or even in his posterity. In
the southern parts of America manumission was not permitted but on terms
amounting nearly to a prohibition. But, notwithstanding these
difficulties, the Quakers could not be deterred, as they became
convinced of the unlawfulness of holding men in bondage, from doing that
which they believed to be right. Many liberated their slaves, whatever
the consequences were; and some gave the most splendid example in doing
it, not only by consenting, as others did, thus to give up their
property, and to incur the penalties of manumission, but by calculating
and giving what was due to them, over and above their food and clothing,
for wages[A] from the beginning of their slavery to the day when their
liberation commenced. Thus manumission went on, some sacrificing more;
and others less; some granting it sooner, and others later; till, in the
year 1787[B] there was not a slave in the possession of an acknowledged
Quaker.

[Footnote A: One of the brightest instances was that afforded by Warner
Mifflin. He gave unconditional liberty to his slaves. He paid all the
adults, on their discharge, the sum, which arbitrators, mutually chosen,
awarded them.]

[Footnote B: Previously to the year 1787, several of the states had made
the terms of manumission more easy.]

Having given to the reader the history of the third class of forerunners
and coadjutors, as it consisted of the Quakers in America, I am now to
continue it, as it consisted of an union of these with others on the
same continent, in the year 1774, in behalf of the African race. To do
this, I shall begin with the causes which led to the production of this
great event.

And, in the first place, as example is more powerful than precept, we
cannot suppose that the Quakers could have shown these noble instances
of religious principle, without supposing also that individuals of other
religious denominations would be morally instructed by them. They who
lived in the neig