[Footnote B: Thus in 1778-1782, 1784-1786. The members also of this
meeting petitioned their own legislature on this subject, both in 1783
and in 1786.]
But, whilst the Quakers were making these exertions at their different
yearly meetings in America, as a religious body, to get rid both of the
commerce and slavery of their fellow-creatures, others, in the same
profession; were acting as individuals, (that is, on their own grounds,
and independently of any influence from their religious communion,) in
the same cause, whose labours it will now be proper, in a separate
narrative, to detail.
The first person of this description in the Society, was William
Burling, of Long Island. He had conceived an abhorrence of slavery from
early youth. In process of time he began to bear his testimony against
it, by representing the unlawfulness of it to those of his own Society,
when assembled at one of their yearly meetings. This expression of his
public testimony, he continued annually on the same occasion. He wrote
also several Tracts with the same design, one of which, published in the
year 1718, he addressed to the elders of his own church, on the
inconsistency of compelling people and their posterity to serve them
continually and arbitrarily, and without any proper recompense for their
services.
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