Meeting, for the
year 1768, was not the _first sowing_ of the good seed you
mention; for I find by an old pamphlet in my possession, that
George Keith, near a hundred years since, wrote a paper against
the practice, said to be "given forth by the appointment of the
meeting held by him, at Phillip James's house, in the city of
Philadelphia, about the year 1693"; wherein a strict charge was
given to Friends, "that they should set their Negroes at liberty,
after some reasonable time of service, &c., &c." And about the
year 1728, or 1729, I myself printed a book for Ralph Sandyford,
another of your Friends in this city, against keeping Negroes in
slavery, two editions of which he distributed gratis. And about
the year 1736 I printed another book on the same subject for
Benjamin Lay, who also professed being one of your Friends, and
he distributed the books chiefly among them. By these instances
it appears, that the seed was indeed sown in the good ground of
your profession, though much earlier than the time you mention,
and its springing up to effect at last, though so late, is some
confirmation of Lord Bacon's observation, that _a good motion
never dies_; and it may encourage us in making such, though
hopeless of their taking immediate effect.[8]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Correspondence_, VII, pp.
201-202.

[2] _Ibid._, II, p. 314.

[3] _The Works of Benjamin Franklin_, II, p. 316.

[4] _Ibid._, VIII, pp. 16-17.

[5] _Works of Benjamin Franklin_, VIII, p. 42.

[6] _Works of Benjamin Franklin_, X, p. 320.

[7] _Ibid._, II, p. 515.

[8] _Works of Benjamin Franklin_, X, p. 403.

ON THE SLAVE TRADE

"Dr. Franklin's name, as President of the Abolition Society, was
signed to the memorial presented to the House of Representatives of
the United States, on the 12th of February, 1789, praying them to
exert the full extent of power vested in them by the Constitution, in
discouraging the traffic of the human species. This was his last
public act. In the debates to which this memorial gave rise, several
attempts were made to justify the trade. In the _Federal Gazette_ of
March 25th, 1790, there appeared an essay, signed Historicus, written
by Dr. Franklin, in which he communicated a Speech, said to have been
delivered in the Divan of Algiers, in 1687, in opposition to the
prayer of the petitio