[236] Other sects followed the example of the Friends, _cf._ Ebeling, IV, 220, but their work was mostly significant in connection with the legislative work of the Assembly. For the effects of the work of the Friends _cf._ Bowden, _History of the Friends_, II, 221. [237] _Votes and Proceedings_, 1767-1776, p. 696. [238] 1 _Pa. Arch._, VII, 79; _Journal of House of Rep._, 1776-1781, p. 311. [239] _Col. Rec._, XII, 99; _Pa. Packet_, Sept. 16, 1779; _Journals of House, 1776-1781_, pp. 392, 394, 399, 412, 424, 435; _Packet_, Mar. 13, 1779; Dec. 25, 1779; Jan. 1, 1780; _Gazette_, Dec. 29, 1779; Vaux, _Memoirs of Benezet_, 92. The distribution of the vote seems to have had no political, no religious, and probably no economic significance. The measure was popular in and out of the Assembly. _Packet_, Dec. 25, 1779; _Jour. of House, 1776-1781_, p. 435. An earlier bill had been published in the _Packet_, Mar. 4, 1779. It is very interesting. The bill as finally drafted became the first act for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Accordingly its authors had to do much original and constructive work. In the course of the work their ideas underwent some change, and the transition is easily seen in comparing the first bill of 1779 with the act as passed in 1780. In some respects the first is more liberal than the second; in other respects less so. Thus at first it was intended to make the children of slaves servants until twenty-one only. (_Packet_, Mar. 4, 1779). "A Citizen" discussing this objected that the master would receive inadequate compensation for rearing negro children, and urged that the age limit be made twenty-eight or even thirty. (_Packet_, Mar. 13, 1779), and so pay for the unproductive years, which was but just. The law made the age twenty-eight. On the other hand it was at first proposed to continue the prohibition of intermarriage and the permission to bind out idle free negroes. (_Packet_, Mar. 4, 1779). Both these provisions were omitted from the law.