The petition was then brought up and read, after which it was ordered to lie on the table.

This was the first petition (being two years earlier than that from the inhabitants of Bridgewater), which was ever presented to parliament for the abolition of the Slave-trade.
But the Society did not stop here; for having at the yearly meeting of 1783 particularly recommended the cause to a standing commitee appointed to act at intervals, called the Meeting for Sufferings, the latter in this same year resolved upon an address to the public, entitled, The Case of our Fellow-creatures, the oppressed Africans, respectfully recommended to the serious Consideration of the Legislature of Great Britain, by the People called Quakers: in which they endeavoured in the most pathetic manner to make the reader acquainted with the cruel nature of this trade; and they ordered two thousand copies of it to be printed.
In the year 1784 they began the distribution of this case.

The first copy was sent to the King through Lord Carmarthen, and the second and the third, through proper officers, to the Queen and the Prince of Wales.

Others were sent by a deputation of two members of the society to Mr.Pitt, as prime-minister; to the Lord Chancellor Thurlow; to Lord Gower, as president of the council; to Lords Carmarthen and Sidney, as secretaries of state; to Lord Chief Justice Mansfield; to Lord Howe, as first lord of the Admiralty; and to C.F.Cornwall, Esq.

as speaker of the House of Commons.