acknowledged to be in profession with them, shall have any concern in
the slave-trade.

The Quakers began to consider this subject, as a Christian body, so
early as in the beginning of the last century. In the year 1727, they
passed a public censure upon this trade. In the year 1758, and
afterwards in the year 1761, they warned and exhorted all in profession
with them "to keep their hands clear of this unrighteous gain of
oppression." In the yearly meeting of 1763, they renewed their
exhortation in the following words: "We renew our exhortation, that
Friends every where be especially careful to keep their hands clear of
giving encouragement in any shape to the slave-trade; it being evidently
destructive of the natural rights of mankind, who are all ransomed by
one Saviour, and visited by one divine light in order to salvation; a
traffic calculated to enrich and aggrandize some upon the miseries of
others; in its nature abhorrent to every just and tender sentiment, and
contrary to the whole tenour of the Gospel."

In the same manner, from the year 1763, they have publicly manifested a
tender concern for the happiness of the injured Africans, and they have
not only been vigilant to see that none of their own members were
concerned in this impious traffic, but they have lent their assistance
with other Christians in promoting its discontinuance.

They have forbidden also the trade of privateering in war. The Quakers
consider the capture of private vessels by private persons, as a robbery
committed on the property of others, which no human authority can make
reconcileable to the consciences of honest individuals. And upon this
motive they forbid it, as well as upon that of their known profession
against war.