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In 1718, at the age of forty-one years, he removed from his native land to the island of Barbadoes, and there established himself in mercantile business. Here he is exhibited in a new and interesting field of action, in which he appears to have taken a bold and decided part. At this period, the African slave trade was carried on, if possible, with more intense cruelty, than at any previous or subsequent stage of its uniformly iniquitous history. The treatment to which the unhappy victims of avarice were subjected in the service of their masters, on the plantations of the West Indian islands, furnished a melancholy proof of the application of human ingenuity exerted in the contrivance of the most barbarous punishments,—as well as the absence of all compassion, from the hearts of those whose mandate directed, and whose power inflicted them. Thus a witness of scenes which were calculated to excite the keenest sensibility, and awaken the tenderest sympathy of his nature, Benjamin Lay became singularly enlightened, in relation to the injustice and oppression exer-{{
