ſaid meeting, it being a thing of too great weight for this meeting to determine.
"Signed by order of ye meeting.
"Anthony Morris."
The minutes of the Yearly Meeting, held at Burlington in the ſame year, record the reſult of this firſt effort among the Quakers.
"At a Yearly Meeting, held at Burlington the 5th day of the 7th Month, 1688.
"A paper being here preſented by ſome German Friends Concerning the Lawfulneſs & Unlawfulneſs of Buying & Keeping of Negroes It was adjudged not to be ſo proper for this Meeting to give a Poſitive Judgment in the Caſe It having ſo general a Relation to many other Parts & therefore at preſent they Forbear It." Extract from the Original Minutes, copied by Nathan Kite. Compare Bettle, in Penn. Hiſt. Soc. Coll., i., 365.
Richard Baxter has been repreſented as having "echoed the opinions of Puritan Maſſachuſetts." Bancroft, iii., 412. We have already ſhown that the Puritans of Maſſachuſetts were not hoſtile to ſlavery. Neither was Baxter; for he expreſſly recognized the lawfulneſs of the purchaſe and uſe of men as ſlaves, although he denounced man-ſtealing as piracy. The principal point of his Chriſtian Directory (publiſhed in 1673) in this matter, was concerning the religious obligations growing out of the relation of maſter and ſlave. Works, iv., 212–20., xvii., 330., xix., 210.
