of his religious travels in America, thought it his duty, to address a letter from Georgia to the inhabitants of Maryland, Virginia, and North and South Carolina. This letter was printed in the year above mentioned, and is in part as follows: —
As I lately passed through your provinces in my way hither, I was sensibly touched with a fellow-feeling for the miseries of the poor negroes. Whether it be lawful for Christians to buy slaves, and thereby encourage the nations, from whom they are bought, to be at perpetual war with each other, I shall not take upon me to determine. Sure I am, it is sinful, when they have bought them to use them as bad as though they were brutes, nay, worse; and whatever particular exceptions there may be, (as I would charitably hope there are some,) I fear the generality of you who own negroes are liable to such a charge; for your slaves, I believe, work as hard, if not harder, than the horses whereon you ride. These, after they have done their work, are fed and taken proper care of; but many negroes when wearied with labour, in your plantations, have been obliged to grind their corn after their return home: your dogs are caressed and fondled at your table, but your slaves, who are frequently styled dogs or beasts, have not an equal privilege; they are scarce permitted to pick up the crumbs which fall from their master's table: not to mention what numbers have been given up to the inhuman usage of cruel taskmasters, who, by their unrelenting scourges have ploughed their backs and made long furrows, and at length brought them even unto death. When, passing along, I have viewed your plantations cleared and cultivated, many spacious houses built and the owners of them faring sumptuously every day, my blood has frequently almost run cold within me, to consider how many of your slaves had neither convenient food to eat, nor proper raiment to put on, notwithstanding most of the comforts you enjoy were solely owing to their indefatigable labours.
The letter, from which this is an extract, produced a desirable effect upon many of those who perused it, but particularly upon such as began to be seriously disposed in these times. And as George Whitfield continued a firm friend to the poor Africans, never losing an opportunity of serving them, he interested, in the course of his useful life, many thousands of his followers in their favour.
To this account it may be added, that from the year 1762 ministers, who were in the connection of John Wesley, began to be settled in America, and that as these were friends to the oppressed Africans also, so they contributed in their turn8 to promote a softness of feeling towards them among those of their own persuasion.
In consequence then of these and other causes, a considerable number of persons of various religious denominations, had appeared at different times in America, besides the Quakers, who, though they had not distinguished themselves by resolutions and manumissions as religious bodies, were yet highly friendly to the African cause. This friendly disposition began to manifest itself about the year 1770; for when a few Quakers, as individuals, began at that time to form little associations in the middle provinces of North America, to discourage the introduction of slaves among people in their own neighbourhoods, who were not of their own Society, and to encourage the manumission of those already in bondage, they, were joined as colleagues by several persons of this description9, who co-operated with them in the promotion of their design.
This disposition, however, became more manifest in the year 1772; for the house of burgesses of Virginia presented a petition to the king, beseeching his majesty to remove all those restraints on his governors of that colony, which inhibited their assent to such laws as might check that inhuman and impolitic commerce, the Slave Trade: and it is remarkable, that the refusal of the British government to permit the Virginians to exclude slaves from among them by law, was enumerated afterwards among the public reasons for separating from the mother country.
But this friendly disposition was greatly increased in the year 1773, by the literary labours of Dr. Benjamin Rush, of Philadelphia10, who, I believe, is a member of the Presbyterian Church: for in this year, at the instigation of Anthony Benezet, he took up the cause of the oppressed Africans in a little work, which he entitled, An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements, on the Slavery of the Negroes; and soon afterwards in another, which was a vindication of the first, in answer to an acrimonious attach by a West Indian planter. These publications contained many new observations; they were written in a polished style; and while they exhibited the erudition and talents, they showed the liberality and benevolence of the author. Having had a considerable circulation, they spread conviction among many, and promoted the cause for which they had been so laudably undertaken. Of the great increase of friendly disposition towards the African cause in this very year, we have this remarkable proof: that when the Quakers, living in East and West Jersey, wished to petition the legislature to obtain an act of assembly for the more equitable manumission of slaves in that province, so many others of different persuasions joined them, that the petition was signed by upwards of three thousand persons.
But in the next year, or in the year 177411, the increased good-will towards the Africans became so apparent, but more particularly in Pennsylvania, where the Quakers were more numerous than in any other state, that they, who considered themselves more immediately as the friends of these injured people, thought it right to avail themselves of it: and accordingly James Pemberton, one of the most conspicuous of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, and Dr. Rush, one of the most conspicuous of those belonging to the various other religious communities in that province, undertook, in conjunction with others, the important task of bringing those into a society who were friendly to this cause. In this undertaking they succeeded. And hence arose that union of the Quakers with others, to which I have been directing the attention of the reader, and by which the third class of forerunners and coadjutors becomes now complete. This society, which was confined to Pennsylvania, was the first ever formed in America, in which there was an union of persons of different religious denominations in behalf of the African race.
But this society had scarcely begun to act, when the war broke out between England and America, which had the effect of checking its operations. This was considered as a severe blow upon it. But as those things which appear most to our disadvantage, turn out often the most to our benefit, so the war, by giving birth to the independence of America, was ultimately favourable to its progress. For as this contrast had produced during its continuance, so it left, when it was over, a general enthusiasm for liberty. Many talked of little else but of the freedom they had gained. These were naturally led to the consideration of those among them who were groaning in bondage. They began to feel for their hard case. They began to think that they should not deserve the new blessing which they had acquired if they denied it to others. Thus the discussions, which originated in this contest, became the occasion of turning the attention of many, who might not otherwise have thought of it, towards the miserable condition of the slaves.
Nor were writers wanting, who, influenced by considerations on the war, and the independence resulting from it, made their works subservient to the same benevolent end. A work, entitled A Serious Address to the Rulers of America on the Inconsistency of their Conduct respecting Slavery, forming a Contrast between the Encroachments of England on American Liberty and American Injustice in tolerating Slavery; which appeared in 1783, was particularly instrumental in producing this effect. This excited a more than usual attention to the case of these oppressed people, and where most of all it could be useful; for the author compared in two opposite columns the animated speeches and resolutions of the members of congress in behalf of their own liberty with their conduct in continuing slavery to others. Hence the legislature began to feel the inconsistency of the practice; and so far had the sense of this inconsistency spread there, that when the delegates met from each state to consider of a federal union, there was a desire that the abolition of the Slave Trade should be one of the articles in it. This was, however, opposed by the delegates from North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Georgia, the five states which had the greatest concern in slaves. But even these offered to agree to the article, provided a condition was annexed to it, (which was afterwards done,) that the power of such abolition should not commence
