great effects. I hope, therefore, you and your friends will be
encouraged to proceed. My hearty wishes of success attend you,
being ever, my dear friend, yours affectionately,

B. FRANKLIN.[4]

The same sentiments of Franklin are expressed in the following letter
to Dean Woodward in 1773:

LONDON, 10 April, 1773.

_Reverend Sir_,

Desirous of being revived in your memory, I take this
opportunity, by my good friend Mrs. Blacker, of sending you a
printed piece, and a manuscript, both on a subject you and I
frequently conversed upon with concurring sentiments, when I had
the pleasure of seeing you in Dublin. I have since had the
satisfaction to learn, that a disposition to abolish slavery
prevails in North America, that many of the Pennsylvanians have
set their slaves at liberty, and that even the Virginia Assembly
have petitioned the King for permission to make a law for
preventing the importation of more into that colony. This
request, however, will probably not be granted, as their former
laws of that kind have always been repealed, and as the interest
of a few merchants here has more weight with government than that
of thousands at a distance.[5]

The following letter from Richard Price attests Franklin's interest
and efforts in behalf of the slaves:

HACKNEY, 26 September, 1787.

_My dear Friend_,

I am very happy when I think of the encouragement which you have
given me to address you under this appellation. Your _friendship_
I reckon indeed one of the distinctions of my life. I frequently
receive great pleasure from the accounts of you, which Dr. Rush
and Mr. Vaughan send me. But I receive much greater pleasure from
seeing your own hand.

I have lately been favored with two letters, which have given me
this pleasure, the last of which acquaints me, that my name has
been added to the number of the corresponding members of the
Pennsylvania Society for Abolishing Negro Slavery, of which you
are president, and also brought me a pamphlet containing the
constitution and the laws of Pennsylvania, which relate to the
object of the Society. I hope that you and the Society will
accept my thanks, and believe that I am truly sensible of the