nd his body, do also fetter
his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of
his heart. Accustomed to move like a mere machine, by the will of
a master, reflection is suspended; he has not the power of
choice; and reason and conscience have but little influence over
his conduct, because he is chiefly governed by the passion of
fear. He is poor and friendless; perhaps worn out by extreme
labor, age, and disease.

Under such circumstances, freedom may often prove a misfortune to
himself, and prejudicial to society.

Attention to emancipated black people, it is therefore to be
hoped, will become a branch of our national policy; but, as far
as we contribute to promote this emancipation, so far that
attention is evidently a serious duty incumbent on us, and which
we mean to discharge to the best of our judgment and abilities.

To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored
to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty, to
promote in them habits of industry, to furnish them with
employments suited to their age, sex, talents, and other
circumstances, and to procure their children an education
calculated for their future situation in life; these are the
great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted, and
which we conceive will essentially promote the public good, and
the happiness of these our hitherto too much neglected
fellow-creatures.

A plan so extensive cannot be carried into execution without
considerable pecuniary resources, beyond the present ordinary
funds of the Society. We hope much from the generosity of
enlightened and benevolent freemen, and will gratefully receive
any donations or subscriptions for this purpose, which may be
made to our treasurer, James Starr, or to James Pemberton,
chairman of our committee of correspondence.

Signed, by order of the Society,
B. FRANKLIN, _President_.

Philadelphia, 9th of November, 1789.

Writing to John Wright in London in 1789, Franklin showed that he
never neglected the movement to abolish the slave trade:

PHILADELPHIA, 4 November, 1789.

I wish success to your endeavours for obtaining an abolition of
the Slave Trade. The epistle from your Yearly