great numbers of them had been then restored.  To this he sacrificed the superior emoluments of his former school, and his bodily ease also, although the weakness of his constitution seemed to demand indulgence.  By his last will he directed, that, after the decease of his widow, his whole little fortune (the savings of the industry of fifty years) should, except a few very small legacies, be applied to the support of it.  During his attendance upon it he had the happiness to find, (and his situation enabled him to make the comparison,) that Providence had been equally liberal to the Africans in genius and talents as to other people.

After a few days’ illness, this excellent man died at Philadelphia, in the spring of 1784.  The interment of his remains was attended by several thousands of all ranks, professions, and parties, who united in deploring their loss.  The mournful procession was closed by some hundreds of those poor Africans who had been personally benefited by his labours, and whose behaviour on the occasion showed the gratitude and affection they considered to be due to him as their own private benefactor, as well as the benefactor of their whole race.

Such, then, were the labours of the Quakers in America; of individuals, from 1718 to 1784, and of the body at large, from 1696 to 1787, in this great cause of humanity and religion.  Nor were the effects produced from these otherwise than corresponding with what might have been expected from such an union of exertion in such a cause; for both the evils, that is, the evil of buying and selling, and the evil of using slaves, ceased at length with the members of this benevolent society.  The leaving off all concern with the Slave Trade took place first.  The abolition of slavery, though it followed, was not so speedily accomplished; for, besides the loss of property, when slaves were manumitted, without any pecuniary consideration in return, their owners had to struggle, in making them free, against the laws and customs of the times.  In Pennsylvania, where the law in this respect was the most favourable, the parties wishing to give freedom to a slave were obliged to enter into a bond for the payment of thirty pounds currency, in case the said slave should become chargeable for maintenance.  In New Jersey the terms were far less favorable, as the estate of the owner remained liable to the consequences of misconduct in the slave, or even in his posterity.  In the southern parts of America manumission was not permitted but on terms amounting nearly to a prohibition.  But, notwithstanding these difficulties, the Quakers could not be deterred, as they became convinced of the unlawfulness of holding men in bondage, from doing that which they believed to be right.  Many liberated their slaves, whatever the consequences were; and some gave the most splendid example in doing it, not only by consenting, as others did, thus to give up their property, and to incur the penalties of manumission, but by calculating and giving what was due to them, over and above their food and clothing, for wages[A] from the beginning of their slavery to the day when their liberation commenced.  Thus manumission went on, some sacrificing more; and others less; some granting it sooner, and others later; till, in the year 1787[B] there was not a slave in the possession of an acknowledged Quaker.