Page:Notices of Negro slavery as connected with Pennsylvania.djvu/25

Rh bill, having expired by its limitation, was re-enacted. Thus much for the acts of Assembly.

To return to an earlier period. In the year 1712, the Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia addressed an epistle to the Yearly Meeting of Friends in London, stating that for a number of years they had been seriously concerned on account of the importation and trade in slaves, and of the detention of them and their posterity "in bondage without any limitation or time of redemption from that condition;" that the meeting, by its advice, had endeavored, and in some degree succeeded in discouraging the traffic; yet, that as "settlements increased so other traders nocked in among them over whom they had no Gospel authority," and that the number of negroes was thereby greatly increased in the province; they desired that the London Yearly Meeting would consult with Friends in the other colonies who were more engaged in