dit to the most benevolent society in the world;
but that, the session, being so far advanced, the subject, could not
then be taken into consideration; and he regretted that the Slave Trade,
against which the petition was so justly directed, was in a commercial
view become necessary to almost every nation of Europe. The petition was
then brought up and read, after which it was ordered to lie on the
table. This was the first petition (being two years earlier than that
from the inhabitants of Bridgewater), which was ever presented to
parliament for the abolition of the Slave Trade.

But the society did not stop here; for having at the yearly meeting of
1783 particularly recommended the cause to a standing committee,
appointed to act at intervals, called the Meeting for Sufferings, the
latter in this same year resolved upon an address to the public,
entitled, _The Case of our Fellow-creatures, the oppressed Africans,
respectfully recommended to the serious Consideration of the Legislature
of Great Britain, by the People called Quakers_: in which they
endeavoured, in the most pathetic manner, to make the reader acquainted
with the cruel nature of this trade; and they ordered 2000 copies of it
to be printed.

In the year 1784, they began the distribution of this case. The first
copy was sent to the king through Lord Carmarthen, and the second and
the third, through proper officers, to the queen and the Prince of
Wales. Others were sent by a deputation of two members of the society to
Mr. Pitt, as prime-minister; to the Lord Chancellor Thurlow; to Lord
Gower, as president of the council; to Lords Carmarthen and Sidney, as
secretaries of state; to Lord Chief-Justice Mansfield; to Lord Howe, as
first lord of the Admiralty; and to C.F. Cornwall, Esq., as speaker of
the House of Commons. Copies were sent also to every member of both
houses of parliament.

The society, in the same year, anxious that the conduct of its members
should be consistent with its public profession on this great subject,
recommended it to the quarterly and monthly meetings to inquire through
their respective districts, whether any, bearing its name, were in any
way concerned in the traffic, and to deal with such, and to report the
success of their labours in the ensuing year. Orders were also given for
the reprinting and circulation of 10,000 other copies of _The Case_.

In the year 1785, the society interested itself again in a similar
manner. For the