creatures, and a multitude of men escape not his notice; and though many of them are trodden down and despised, yet he remembers them.  He seeth their affliction, and looketh upon the spreading increasing exaltation of the oppressor.  He turns the channel of power, humbles the most haughty people, and gives deliverance to the oppressed, at such periods as are consistent with his infinite justice and goodness.  And wherever gain is preferred to equity, and wrong things publickly encouraged, to that degree that wickedness takes root and spreads wide amongst the inhabitants of a country, there is a real cause for sorrow, to all such whose love to mankind stands on a true principle, and wisely consider the end and event of things.”  Consideration on keeping Negroes, by John Woolman, part 2. p. 50.]

He complains, “That they were suffered to live with their women in no better way than direct fornication; no care being taken to oblige them to continue together when married; but that they were suffered at their will to leave their wives, and take to other women.”  I shall conclude this sympathizing clergyman’s observations, with an instance he gives, to shew, “that not only discouragements and scoffs at that time prevailed in Barbadoes, to establish an opinion that the Negroes were not capable of religious impressions, but that even violence and great abuses were used to prevent any thing of the kind taking place.  It was in the case of a poor Negro, who having, at his own request, prevailed on a clergyman to administer baptism to him, on his return home the brutish overseer took him to task, giving him to understand, that that was no sunday’s work for those of his complexion; that he had other business for him, the neglect whereof would cost him an afternoon’s baptism in blood, as he in the morning had received a baptism with water, (these, says the clergyman, were his own words) which he accordingly made good; of which the Negro complained to him, and he to the governor; nevertheless, the poor miserable creature was ever after so unmercifully treated by that inhuman wretch, the overseer, that, to avoid his cruelty, betaking himself to the woods, he there perished.”  This instance is applicable to none but the cruel perpetrator; and yet it is an instance of what, in a greater or less degree, may frequently happen, when those poor wretches are left to the will of such brutish inconsiderate creatures as those overseers often are.  This is confirmed in a History of Jamaica, wrote in thirteen letters, about the year 1740, by a person then residing in that island, who writes as follows, “I shall not now enter upon the question, whether the slavery of the Negroes be agreeable to the laws of nature or not; though it seems extremely hard they should be reduced to serve and toil for the benefit of others, without the least advantage to themselves.  Happy Britannia, where slavery is never known! where liberty and freedom chears every misfortune.  Here (says