Pemberton, James, 1723-1809 to Moses Brown
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC04980 Author/Creator: Pemberton, James, 1723-1809 Place Written: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 17 May 1788 Pagination: 3 p. : docket ; 32.2 x 20.2 cm. Order a Copy
The letter is written in traditional Quaker fashion without reference to the pagan names of months, and instead uses numbers for dates throughout. Written by Pemberton, a Quaker merchant and philanthropist in Philadelphia, to Brown, a well-known Quaker merchant in Providence, Rhode Island. References Brown's letter of 9 May 1788. Says he is getting the act of the Massachusetts Assembly (probably a law on the slave trade) republished in the newspaper with the most extensive circulation in Massachusetts. Sends along information and new publications on the anti-slave trade crusaders in Britain. Hopes they may "have a beneficial tendency particularly in the Southern Governments where the people & the Rulers in some of them require to be animated to a sense of the iniquity they are ... involved in." References efforts to get anti-slave trade petitions before various state governments. Says his principal reason of writing is to inform Brown that the Quakers in Philadelphia are publishing a new edition of Robert Barclay's catechism. Postscript references a letter that was sent to Benjamin Franklin that speaks of a 1784 Connecticut law favorable to "oppressed blacks."
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