he Negroes to some Learning, Reading and Writing and" to "endeavor
to the utmost of their Power in the sweet love of Truth to instruct
and teach 'em the Principles of Truth and Religiousness, and learn
some Honest Trade or Imployment and then set them free. And," says he,
"all the time Friends are teaching of them let them know that they
intend to let them go free in a very reasonable Time; and that our
Religious Principles will not allow of such Severity, as to keep them
in everlasting Bondage and Slavery."[2]

[Footnote 1: Locke, _Anti-slavery_, etc., p. 31.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p. 32.]

The struggle of the Northern Quakers to enlighten the colored people
had important local results. A strong moral force operated in the
minds of most of this sect to impel them to follow the example of
certain leaders who emancipated their slaves.[1] Efforts in this
direction were redoubled about the middle of the eighteenth century
when Anthony Benezet,[2] addressing himself with unwonted zeal to the
uplift of these unfortunates, obtained the assistance of Clarkson and
others, who solidified the antislavery sentiment of the Quakers and
influenced them to give their time and means to the more effective
education of the blacks. After this period the Quakers were also
concerned with the improvement of the colored people's condition in
other settlements.[3]

[Footnote 1: Dr. DuBois gives a good account of these efforts in his
_Suppression of the African Slave Trade_.]

[Footnote 2: Benezet was a French Protestant. Persecuted on account of
their religion, his parents moved from France to England and later to
Philadelphia. He became a teacher in that city in 1742. Thirteen years
later he was teaching a school established for the education of the
daughters of the most distinguished families in Philadelphia. He was
then using his own spelling-book, primer, and grammar, some of the
first text-books published in America. Known to persecution himself,
Benezet always sympathized with the oppressed. Accordingly, he
connected himself with the Quakers, who at that time had before
them the double task of fighting for religious equality and the
amelioration of the condition of the Negroes. Becoming interested in
the welfare of the colored race, Benezet first attacked the slave
trade, so exposing it in his speeches and writings that Clarkson
entered the field as an earnest advocate of the suppression of the
iniquitous traffic. See Benezet, _