ater consequence was that Clarkson himself was so
inspired he devoted his life to the cause of the blacks. In 1787 a
"Committee for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade" was
organized. It was composed chiefly of Quakers, having Granville Sharp
as President and Thomas Clarkson as its most prominent member. Their
work was organized to embrace appeals to the public and petitions to
the government. Wilberforce, a member of Parliament and an intimate
friend of Pitt, was to head the campaign in Parliament, while the
Committee was to solicit funds, collect information and arouse public
sentiment. This campaign lasted until the abolition of British slave
trade in 1806.

This work in behalf of freedom soon extended to France. A little over
three months after the London Committee was formed it received a
letter from Jean Pierre Brissot, requesting that he and Etienne
Claviere might become associates of the committee for the purpose of
publishing French translations of its literature and collecting
subscriptions to be remitted to London for the good of the common
cause. The committee declined the offer of financial aid but elected
Brissot an honorary member and recommended that a society be formed in
France. Now both Brissot and Claviere were active figures in the
Revolution. Claviere was at one time minister of finances and Brissot,
most ardent of revolutionists, was a Parish Deputy during the Reign of
Terror, and a leader of the Girondins from 1789 to 1792. Accordingly,
a society was formed in Paris in February, 1788, under the name of the
Society of Friends of the Blacks, with Claviere as President. It
adopted the same seals as the Committee in England but was an entirely
independent organization. Directly its influence began to draw within
its folds powerful figures. The famous Comte de Mirabeau was a charter
member, Marquis de Lafayette, an officer who had served in the
American Revolution, and Condorcet, a member of the Convention, whose
report as a member of the Committee of Public Instruction of the
Legislative Assembly formed the actual basis of subsequent plans for
education, were among the first additions to its membership. Other
prominent members who came in later were Sieyes, Petion, Gregoire,
Robespierre, and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Mirabeau issued the
early publications of the society as supplements to his journal; at a
later time Brissot's journal, the "Patriote francaise," became the
organ of the soci