"An epistle from the last Quarterly Meeting was read in this, and y'e matter referred to this meeting, viz., whether it is agreeable to truth for friends to purchase slaves and keep them term of liffe, was considered, and y'e sense and judgment of this meeting is, that it is not agreeable to truth for friends to purchase slaves and hold them term of liffe. "Nathaniel Starbuck, jun'r is to draw out this meeting's judgment concerning friends not buying slaves and keeping them term of liffe, and send it to the next Quarterly Meeting, and to sign it in y'e meeting's behalf."[377] Considering the prejudice and persecution that pursued this good people, their testimony against slavery is very remarkable. In 1729-30 Elihu Coleman of Nantucket, a minister of the society of Friends, wrote a book against slavery, published in 1733, entitled, "_A Testimony against that Anti-Christian Practice of_ MAKING SLAVES OF MEN.[378] It was well written, and the truth fearlessly told for the conservative, self-seeking period he lived in. He says,-- "I am not unthoughtful of the ferment or stir that such discourse as this may make among some, who (like Demetrius of old) may say, by this craft we have our wealth, which caused the people to cry out with one voice, great is Diana of the Ephesians, whom all Asia and the world worship." He examined and refuted the arguments put forth in defence of slavery, charged slaveholders with idleness, and contended that slavery was the mother of vice, at war with the laws of nature and of God. Others caught the spirit of reform, and the agitation movement gained recruits and strength every year. Felt says, "1765. Pamphlets and newspapers discuss the subjects of slavery with increasing zeal." The colonists were aroused. Men were taking one side or the other of a question of great magnitude. In 1767 an anonymous tract of twenty octavo pages against slavery made its appearance in Boston. It was written by Nathaniel Appleton, a co-worker with Otis, and an advanced thinker on the subject of emancipation. It was in the form of a letter addressed to a friend, and was entitled, "Considerations on Slavery." The Rev. Samuel Webster Salisbury published on the 2d of March, 1769, "An Earnest Address to my Country on Slavery." He opened his article with an argument showing the inconsistency of a Christian people holding slaves, pictured the evil results of slavery, and then asked,--