Having had a considerable circulation, they spread conviction among many, and promoted the cause for which they had been so laudably undertaken.

Of the great increase of friendly disposition towards the African cause in this very year, we have this remarkable proof: that when the Quakers, living in East and West Jersey, wished to petition the legislature to obtain an act of assembly for the more equitable manumission of slaves in that province, so many others of different persuasions joined them, that the petition was signed by upwards of three thousand persons.
[Footnote B: Dr.Rush has been better known since for his other literary works, such as his _Medical Dissertations_, his _Treatises on the Discipline of Schools_, _Criminal Law_, &c.] But in the next year, or in the year 1774[A], the increased good-will towards the Africans became so apparent, but more particularly in Pennsylvania, where the Quakers were more numerous than in any other state, that they, who considered themselves more immediately as the friends of these injured people, thought it right to avail themselves of it: and accordingly James Pemberton, one of the most conspicuous of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, and Dr.Rush, one of the most conspicuous of those belonging to the various other religious communities in that province, undertook, in conjunction with others, the important task of bringing those into a society who were friendly to this cause.

In this undertaking they succeeded.

And hence arose that union of the Quakers with others, to which I have been directing the attention of the reader, and by which the third class of forerunners and coadjutors becomes now complete.

This society, which was confined to Pennsylvania, was the first ever formed in America, in which there was an union of persons of different religious denominations in behalf of the African race.
[Footnote A: In this year, Elhanan Winchester, a supporter of the doctrine of universal redemption, turned the attention of many of his hearers to this subject, both by private interference, and by preaching expressly upon it.] But this society had scarcely begun to act, when the war broke out between England and America, which had the effect of checking its operations.