NEGRO SLAVERY.
391
The next laborer in behalf of the negroes whom we
shall have occasion to notice, is Kalph Sandiford. He
was descended from a respectable family in Barbadoes,
and was educated as a member of the Episcopal Church,
by a pious tutor, probably in Great Britain. On emigrat¬
ing to Pennsylvania, he joined the Society of Friends,
and soon began to direct his attention towards the con¬
dition of the black population. He rejected many advan¬
tageous propositions of pecuniary advancement, as they
came from those who had acquired their property by the
oppression of their slaves, and appears to have been very
earnest and constant in his endeavors to prevail both on
the members of his own religious society, as well as his
friends generally, entirely to relinquish the practice of
slaveholding. In 1729, he appeared as a public advocate
of the blacks, by publishing a work, entitled " The
Mystery of Iniquity, in a Brief Examination of the
Practice of the Times," which he circulated at his own
expense wherever he deemed it might be useful. We
have never read the essay, but the author is represented
to be a man of talents and unquestioned probity, and the
work as every way worthy of him. In the words of
Clarkson, " it was excellent as a composition. The lan¬
guage was correct. The style manly and energetic, and
" Extracts from the Minutes and Advices," &c, printed by James
Phillips, in 1783; and an Epistle, in 1763.—Annual Epistles from
the Yearly Meeting in London, p. 273. Baltimore, 1806.
In this year, 1718, appeared "An Address to the Elders of the
Church," by William Burling, strongly condemnatory of slavehold
ing. "The same year," says Benjamin Lay, "I was convinced of
the same ' hellish practice.' "—Editor.
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