f the church. The London
Epistle for 1758, condemning the unrighteous traffic in men, was read,
and the substance of it embodied in the discipline of the meeting; and
the following query was adopted, to be answered by the subordinate
meetings:--

"Are Friends clear of importing negroes, or buying them when imported;
and do they use those well, where they are possessed by inheritance or
otherwise, endeavoring to train them up in principles of religion?"

At the close of the Yearly Meeting, John Woolman requested those members
of the Society who held slaves to meet with him in the chamber of the
house for worship, where he expressed his concern for the well-being of
the slaves, and his sense of the iniquity of the practice of dealing in
or holding them as property. His tender exhortations were not lost upon
his auditors; his remarks were kindly received, and the gentle and loving
spirit in which they were offered reached many hearts.

In 1769, at the suggestion of the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting, the
Yearly Meeting expressed its sense of the wrongfulness of holding slaves,
and appointed a large committee to visit those members who were
implicated in the practice. The next year this committee reported that
they had completed their service, "and that their visits mostly seemed to
be kindly accepted. Some Friends manifested a disposition to set such at
liberty as were suitable; some others, not having so clear a sight of
such an unreasonable servitude as could be desired, were unwilling to
comply with the advice given them at present, yet seemed willing to take
it into consideration; a few others manifested a disposition to keep them
in continued bondage."

It was stated in the Epistle to London Yearly Meeting of the year 1772,
that a few Friends had freed their slaves from bondage, but that others
"have been so reluctant thereto that they have been disowned for not
complying with the advice of this meeting."

In 1773 the following minute was made: "It is our sense and judgment that
truth not only requires the young of capacity and ability, but likewise
the aged and impotent, and also all in a state of infancy and nonage,
among Friends, to be discharged and set free from a state of slavery,
that we do no more claim property in the human race, as we do in the
brutes that perish."

In 1782 no slaves were known to be held in the New England Yearly
Meeting. The next year it was recommended to the subordinate meetin