David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

“ The mournful procession was closed by some hundreds of those poor Africans who had been previously benefited by his labours, and whose behaviour on the occasion showed the gratitude and affection which they considered to be due to him as their own special benefactor, as well as the benefactor of their whole race.” In his lifetime he had fruit of his anti-slavery exertions in America — first, the emancipation of all slaves held by " the Friends " — and, secondly, the law passed in 1780 for the gradual abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania. ”

“ Antoine Benezet received a good commercial education in London. At the age of fourteen “he was united in membership with the religious Society of Friends, called Quakers.” Having too scrupulous a conscience for trading speculations, he wished to be a mechanic, but could not persevere in his resolution from a want of muscular vigour; and he had not fixed upon any business or occupation in his eighteenth year, when he emigrated with his parents to America and made Philadelphia his home ”

“ In 1771 was published his most important work:— “Some historical account of Guinea, its situation, produce, and the general disposition of its inhabitants, with an inquiry into the rise and progress of the slave trade, its nature and lamentable effects, also a republication of the sentiments of several authors of note on this interesting subject, particularly an extract of a treatise by Granville Sharp; by Anthony Benezet.” ”

“ He opened an evening school for black people in Philadelphia. His professional experience and habits of observation entitled him to be heard in reply to the fashionable assertion that the blacks are, in their mental capacities, inferior to human beings born with a white skin. ”

“ Besides, no man has a right to acquire or to purchase them; men and their liberty are not in commercio, they are neither saleable or purchaseable. Every one of those unfortunate men, who are pretended to be slaves, has a right to be declared to be free, for he never lost his liberty ”

“ An liceat invitos in servitutem dare? and Clarkson was thus required to study the history and moral bearings of the slave trade. A part of the “few weeks” allotted for the composition of the essay had passed, and he felt hampered by the scantiness of the information he had collected. “Going by accident (he himself narrates) into a friend’s house, I took up a newspaper then lying on the table, and one of the articles which attracted my attention was an advertisement of Anthony Benezet’s Historical Account of Guinea. ”

“ This right he carries about with him, and is entitled everywhere to get it declared. As soon, therefore, as he comes into a country in which the judges are not forgetful of their own humanity, it is their duty to remember that he is a man, and to declare him to be free. ”

“ Granville Sharp’s copy of one of Benezet’s works contains an autograph note, from which I extract the following:—
“The author of this book, as printed at Philadelphia in 1762, was Mr. Anthony Benezet of that city, descended from a French family which forsook (and lost very considerable property in) France for the sake of their religion; so that the present Mr. B. is obliged to earn his bread in the laborious office of a schoolmaster, and is also unhappily involved in the errors of Quakerism ”

“ II. Anthony Benezet.
Antoine Benezet, the amiable and useful author and correspondent concerning slavery and the slave trade, was by birth a Frenchman, the son of a Huguenot gentleman. [A mistake concerning him has accidentally found its way into a noble and careful publication, “The Imperial Dictionary of Biography,” which begins an article thus:— “Benezet, Antoine, a man of colour.”] E. M. Chandler, a poet of America (in some verses addressed to Anthony Benezet) , correctly indicates France as his birthplace:—
“Friend of the Afric! ”

“ In that city, John Stephen Benczet lived for sixteen years, and was a prosperous merchant. In the register of Les Grecs French Church we find, on 11th July 1716, “Jean Estienne Benezet” and his wife “Judith” bringing their daughter Marianne for baptism. Other children may have been born with ordinary rapidity. ”