of a different
colour, as brethren, and as persons for whose spiritual welfare it
became them to be concerned; so that slavery, except as to the power
legally belonging to it, was in general little more than servitude in
their hands.

This treatment, as it was thus mild on the continent of America where
the members of this society were the owners of slaves, so it was equally
mild in The West India Islands where they had a similar property. In the
latter countries, however, where only a few of them lived, it began soon
to be productive of serious consequences; for it was so different from
that which the rest of the inhabitants considered to be proper, that the
latter became alarmed at it. Hence in Barbados an act was passed in
1676, under Governor Atkins, which was entitled, An Act to prevent the
people called Quakers from bringing their Negroes into their meetings
for worship, though they held these in their own houses. This act was
founded on the pretence, that the safety of the island might be
endangered, if the slaves were to imbibe the religious principles of
their masters. Under this act Ralph Fretwell and Richard Sutton were
fined in the different sums of eight hundred and of three hundred
pounds, because each of them had suffered a meeting of the Quakers at
his own house, at the first of which eighty negroes, and at the second
of which thirty of them were present. But this matter was carried still
further; for in 1680, Sir Richard Dutton, then governor of the island,
issued an order to the Deputy Provost Marshal and others, to prohibit
all meetings of this society. In the island of Nevis the same bad spirit
manifested itself. So early as in 1661, a law was made there prohibiting
members of this society from coming on shore. Negroes were put in irons
for being present at their meetings, and they themselves were fined
also. At length, in 1677, another act was passed, laying a heavy penalty
on every master of a vessel who should even bring a Quaker to the
island. In Antigua and Bermudas similar proceedings took place, so that
the Quakers were in time expelled from this part of the world. By these
means a valuable body of men were lost to the community in these
islands, whose example might have been highly useful; and the poor
slave, who saw nothing but misery in his temporal prospects, was
deprived of the only balm which could have soothed his sorrow--the
comfort of religion.

But to return to the continent of Ame