is much cheaper there than it ever can be by Negroes here. Why
then will Americans purchase slaves? Because slaves may be kept
as long as a man pleases, or has occasion for their labor; while
hired men are continually leaving their masters (often in the
midst of his business and setting up for themselves).[2]

The Negroes brought into the English sugar islands have greatly
diminished the whites there; the poor are, by this means,
deprived of employment, while a few families acquire vast
estates, which they spend on foreign luxuries, and educating
their children in the habit of those luxuries; the same income is
needed for the support of one that might have maintained one
hundred. The whites who have slaves, not laboring, are enfeebled,
and therefore not so generally prolific; the slaves being worked
too hard, and ill fed, their constitutions are broken and the
deaths among them are more than the births; so that a continual
supply is needed from Africa. The northern colonies, having few
slaves, increase in whites. Slaves also pejorate the families
that use them; the white children become proud, disgusted with
labor, and, being educated in idleness, are rendered unfit to get
a living by industry.[3]

As the following letter indicates, Franklin was in close touch with
one of the most ardent anti-slavery men of his day, Anthony Benezet,
whose pamphlets he often published:

LONDON, 22 August, 1772.

_Dear Friend_,

I made a little extract from yours of April 27th, of the number
of slaves imported and perishing, with some close remarks on the
hypocrisy of this country, which encourages such a detestable
commerce by laws for promoting the Guinea trade; while it piqued
itself on its virtue, love of liberty, and the equity of its
courts, in setting free a single Negro. This was inserted in the
_London Chronicle_, of the 20th of June last.

I thank you for the Virginia address, which I shall also publish
with some remarks. I am glad to hear that the disposition against
keeping Negroes grows more general in North America. Several
pieces have been lately printed here against the practice, and I
hope in time it will be taken into consideration and suppressed
by the legislature. Your labors have already been attended with