The subject of slavery was introduced in the Yearly Meeting by the
reading of certain minutes of the Meeting for Sufferings, from which it
appeared that meeting, (the executive Committee of the Society,) had
taken up the question of the foreign slave-trade, but had not yet
entertained the consideration of the slavery and internal slave-trade of
their own country. On the subject of the latter, a very faithful minute
from the Meeting for Sufferings in London was received and read.

As this term will sometimes occur in the ensuing pages, it may be
necessary to state for the information of the general reader, that the
Society of Friends is distributed into various "Yearly Meetings," of
which there are several on the Continent of North America. Within the
compass of each an annual assembly is held to regulate all the affairs
and discipline of that section of the body. There is also in each Yearly
Meeting a permanent committee called the "Meeting for Sufferings" for
administering the affairs of the Societies, in the intervals of its
annual assemblies. The technical name of this committee is an expressive
memorial of those times of trial, when its chief employment was to
record "sufferings" and persecutions, and to afford such succor and
alleviation as circumstances admitted.

An address from the Yearly Meeting of London on slavery was also
read,[A] which was followed by observations from several, which evinced
great exercise of mind on the subject. Three thousand copies of it were
ordered to be printed for distribution among Friends of Pennsylvania,
and the whole subject of slavery and the slave-trade was referred to
their Meeting for Sufferings, with a recommendation that an account
should be drawn up and printed of the former abolition of slavery within
the limits of the Society of Friends. I need hardly state how much these
measures were in unison with my own feelings, and that I heartily