“And thou, Philadelphia, the virgin settlement of this province, named before thou wert born, what love, what care, what service, and what travail has there been to bring thee forth, and preserve thee from such as would defile thee!  Oh, that thou mayest be kept from the evil that would overwhelm thee! that faithful to the God of Mercies, in a life of righteousness, thou mayest be preserved to the end!”

On the 11th, with John G. Whittier, I left for New York, and the next day we proceeded by steam packet to Newport, on Rhode Island, to attend the New England yearly meeting of the Society of Friends, which was to be held the next week.  We arrived about seven o’clock in the morning.  I found the change of climate particularly refreshing and agreeable.  During the last fortnight, the range of the thermometer had frequently reached 94 degrees or 96 degrees in the shade:  a tropical heat, without those alleviations which render the heat of the tropics not only tolerable, but sometimes delightful.  In Rhode Island, the climate, while we were there, was almost as temperate as an English summer.

Some parts of the New England States are much resorted to by southern families of wealth; and their annual migrations have the effect of materially adding to the vast amount of complicated pro-slavery interests which exist in the free States, as well as of diffusing pro-slavery opinions and feelings throughout the entire community.  We may hope this current will soon set in the opposite direction.  The season was too early for the arrival of these visitors, and the hotels were generally filled with “Friends,” collected from near and distant places, to attend the yearly meeting.  There were upwards of a hundred boarding at the same house with ourselves.  Soon after our arrival I addressed a letter, making the same application for the use of the meeting house for my friend, John Candler, who was also here, and myself, which had been complied with at New York, forwarding at the same time my credentials.  My request, however, in this instance was not granted.  Yet there was plainly a willingness on the part of many to receive information, and we caused it to be known that we should be at home at our hotel, on the evening of the sixteenth.  About two hundred friends assembled, and appeared interested in a brief outline of the state and prospects of the cause in Europe which I endeavored to give them.

The subject of slavery was brought before the yearly meeting by a proposition from one of its subordinate, or “quarterly meetings,” to encourage more action, on the part of the society, for its abolition.  A proposal was immediately made, and assented to without discussion, that the consideration of it should be referred to a committee.  On the reading of the address on slavery from the London yearly meeting, it was, in like manner, immediately proposed and agreed to, that it should be referred to the same committee.