etic nature too impelled him to speak in behalf of the
suffering soldiers of the American Revolution. Adhering to the faith
of the Quakers, he could not but shudder at the horrors of that war.
He was interested not only in the soldiers but also in the unfortunate
Americans on whom they were imposed. He saw in the whole course of war
nothing but bold iniquity and crass inconsistency of nations which
professed to be Christian. To set forth the distress which such a
state of the country caused him Benezet wrote a dissertation entitled
"_Thoughts on the Nature of War_," and distributed it among persons of
distinction in America and Europe. In 1778 when the struggle for
independence had reached a crisis he issued in the interest of peace
with the enemy a work entitled "_Serious Reflections on the Times
addressed to the Well-disposed of every Religious Denomination_."[33]

Moved by every variety of suffering whenever and wherever found,
Benezet's attention had during these years been attracted to a class
of men much farther down than the lowliest of the lowly of other
races. He had not been in this country long before he was moved to put
forth some effort to alleviate the sufferings of those bondmen whose
faces were black. In the year 1750, when the Quakers, although
denouncing the evil of slavery here and there, were not presenting a
solid front to the enemy, Anthony Benezet boldly attacked the slave
trade, attracting so much attention that he soon solidified the
anti-slavery sentiment of the Quakers against the institution.[34] For
more than thirty years thereafter he was a tireless worker in this
cause, availing himself of every opportunity to impress men with the
thought as to the wickedness of the traffic. In his class room he held
up to his pupils the horrors of the system, always mentioned it in his
public utterances, and seldom failed to speak of it when conversing
with friends or strangers. Benezet set forth in the almanacs of the
time accounts of the atrocities of those engaged in slavery and the
slave trade and published and circulated numerous pamphlets
ingeniously exposing their iniquities.[35]

Devoted as Benezet was to the cause of the blacks, he was not an
ardent abolitionist like Garrison, who fifty years later fearlessly
advocated the immediate destruction of the system. Benezet was
primarily interested in the suppression of the slave trade. He hoped
also to see the slaves gradually emancipated after having