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Not content with the schools which were already opened to Negroes, the friends of the race continued to agitate and raise funds to extend their philanthropic operations. With the donation of Anthony Benezet the Quakers were able to enlarge their building and increase the scope of the work.
Efforts in this direction were redoubled about the middle of the eighteenth century when Anthony Benezet, addressing himself with unwonted zeal to the uplift of these unfortunates, obtained the assistance of Clarkson and others, who solidified the antislavery sentiment of the Quakers and influenced them to give their time and means to the more effective education of the blacks.
This was the last opportunity that he had of interesting himself in behalf of this injured people for soon afterwards he was seized with the small-pox at the house of a friend in the city of York, where he died. The next person belonging to the society of the Quakers, who laboured in behalf of the oppressed Africans, was Anthony Benezet.
Always interested in the colored schools of Philadelphia, the philosopher was, while in London, connected with the English "gentlemen concerned with the pious design," serving as chairman of the organization for the year 1760. He was a firm supporter of Anthony Benezet, and was made president of the Abolition Society of Philadelphia which in 1774 founded a successful colored school.
In this point of view, John Woolman found in Anthony Benezet the coadjutor whom, of all others, the cause required. The former had occupied himself principally on the subject of slavery. The latter went to the root of the evil, and more frequently attacked the trade. The former chiefly confined his labours to America, and chiefly to those of his own society there.
M. Benezet lived at Toulouse, in 1853; and his experiences had for their scene his own house, and that of his relations, M. and Mme. L. The affair began in table-turning and table-tilting: the tilts indicated the presence of 'spirits, which answered questions, right or wrong: under the hands of the L.'s the table became vivacious, and chased a butterfly.
Rush, and Benjamin Franklin were devising plans to educate slaves for freedom; and Isaac Tatem and Anthony Benezet were actually in the schoolroom endeavoring to enlighten their black brethren.
He told him to come to see him again. He told the soldiers at his door to let Benezet come in when-ever he wished to. Soon after the Rev-o-lu-tion was over, Benezet was taken ill. When the people of Phil-a-del-phi-a heard that he was ill, they gathered in crowds about his house. Every-body loved him. Every-body wanted to know whether he was better or not.
But a summons like that of Garrison's bugle-blast could scarcely be unheeded by one who, from birth and education, held fast the traditions of that earlier abolitionism which, under the lead of Benezet and Woolman, had effaced from the Society of Friends every vestige of slave-holding.
The letter then in question was written by Anthony Benezet, in order to lay before the Countess, as a religious woman, the misery she was occasioning in Africa, by allowing the managers of her college in Georgia to give encouragement to the Slave Trade. The Countess replied, that such a measure should never have her countenance, and that she would take care to prevent it.
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