In the same year also, when the
society, joined by several hundreds of others in New Jersey, presented a
petition to the legislature, (as mentioned in the former chapter,) to
obtain an act of assembly for the more equitable manumission of slaves
in that province, William Dillwyn was one of a deputation, which was
heard at the bar of the assembly for that purpose.
In 1774, he came to England, but his attention was still kept alive to
the subject; for he was the person by whom Anthony Benezet sent his
letter to the Countess of Huntingdon, as before related. He was also the
person to whom the same venerable defender of the African race sent his
letter, before spoken of, to be forwarded to the Queen.
That William Dillwyn, and those of his own class in England, acted upon
motives very distinct from those of the former class, may be said with
truth; for they acted upon the constitutional principles of their own
society, as incorporated into its discipline: which principles would
always have incited them to the subversion of slavery, as far as they
themselves were concerned, whether any other person had abolished it or
not. To which it may be added, as a further proof of the originality of
their motives, that the Quakers have had, ever since their institution
as a religious body, but little intercourse with the world.
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