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Clarkson, Thomas, 1760-1846

"The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839)"

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CHAPTER XX
[Sidenote: Labours of the committee during the author's journey; Quakers
the first to notice its institution; General Baptists the
next.--Correspondence opened with American societies for
Abolition.--First individual who addressed the committee was Mr. William
Smith.--Thanks voted to Ramsay.--Committee prepares lists of persons to
whom to send its publications; Barclay, Taylor, and Wedgewood, elected
members of the committee.--Letters from Brissot and others.--Granville
Sharp elected chairman,--Seal ordered to be engraved.--Letters from
different correspondents, as they offered their services to the
committee.]
The committee, during my absence, had attended regularly at their posts;
they had been both vigilant and industrious; they were, in short, the
persons who had been the means of raising the public spirit which I had
observed first at Manchester, and afterwards as I journeyed on. It will
be proper, therefore, that I should now say something of their labours,
and of the fruits of them: and if, in doing this, I should be more
minute for a few pages than some would wish, I must apologize for myself
by saying, that there are others who would be sorry to lose the
knowledge of the particular manner in which the foundation was laid, and
the superstructure advanced, of a work which will make so brilliant an
appearance in our history, as that of the abolition of the Slave Trade.


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