It will be
proper, therefore, that I should now say something of their labours, and of
the fruits of them. And if, in doing this, I should be more minute for a
few pages than some would wish, I must apologize for myself by saying that
there are others, who would be sorry to lose the knowledge of the
particular manner in which the foundation was laid, and the superstructure
advanced, of a work, which will make so brilliant an appearance in our
history as that of the abolition of the Slave-trade.
The commitee having dispersed five hundred circular letters, giving an
account of their institution, in London and its neighbourhood, the Quakers
were the first to notice it. This they did in their yearly epistle, of
which the following is an extract:--"We have also thankfully to believe
there is a growing attention in many, not of our religious Society, to the
subject of Negro-slavery; and that the minds of the people are more and
more enlarged to consider it as an aggregate of every species of evil, and
to see the utter inconsistency of upholding it by the authority of any
nation whatever, especially of such as punish, with loss of life, crimes
whose magnitude bears scarce any proportion to this complicated iniquity.
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