"_Whereas_ Milley Hutchings, Daughter of Strangeman Hutchings, of Goochland County, was Educated in the profession of us the people Call'd Quakers, but for want of living agreeable to the principles of Truth hath suffered herself to be Joined in marriage to a man of a different persuasion from us in matters of Faith, by an Hireling priest, contrary to the known rules of our discipline, therefore we think it our duty, for the clearing of our profession of such libertine persons, publickly to disown the said Milley from being a Member of our Society, untill she give satisfaction for her outgoing, which we desire she may be enabled to do. Signed in and on behalf of our Monthly Meeting held at Cedar Creek in Hanover County the [Illustration: Signature - 13th of 3^d m 1779 by John Payne Clerk Mary Payne Clerk[10]] Was it well that they could not see far into the future? The great problem of the Friends during these years, the one in which John Payne was most vitally interested, was the freeing of their negroes or "black people," as (when assembled in Yearly Meeting) they had gravely decided to call them. Years before, the Quakers had crossed the seas in search of civil and religious liberty, and while they believed in each man's "inalienable right" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," they could not seek them by a resort to arms. In the Revolution they could take no part, but there was sufficient work for them at home. Before slavery, even in their own midst, could be abolished, the members of the legislature must be convinced, and new state laws framed. Of this work in the South, Thomas Nelson Page says: "The movement was largely owing in its inception to the efforts of the Quakers, who have devoted to peace those energies which others had given to war, and who have ever been moved by the Spirit to take the initiative in all action which tends to the amelioration of the human race." In his own state he considered the "problem stupendous, but it was not despaired of. Many masters manumitted their slaves, the example being set by numbers of the same benevolent sect [Quakers] to which reference has been made."