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PREFACE.
V
the opinions of a large community, especially if their exertions should be so much in opposition to the interests, the habits, and sentiments of a people, as to excite towards them the spirit of intolerance and persecution. This remark is certainly applicable to the history of Lay and Sandiford, who were among the first of the very few in any country that had just conceptions of the rights of the enslaved Africans, and sufficient firmness to avow their opinions concerning the cruelty which was triumphantly exercised over that oppressed race of men.
At the period when they went forth distributing their essays, proclaiming
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