“Consider, Friends, it is no transgression for a master of a family to instruct his family himself, or for some others to do it in his behalf; but rather it is a very great duty incumbent upon them. Abraham and Joshua did so: of the first the Lord said, Gen. xviii. 19, ‘I know that Abraham will command his children and his household after him; and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon Abraham the things that he hath spoken of him.’ And the latter said, Josh. xxiv. 15, ‘Choose ye this day whom ye will serve; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.’ We declare that we esteem it a duty incumbent on us to pray with and for those in and belonging to our families, and to teach, instruct, and admonish them; this being a command of the Lord, disobedience whereunto will provoke his displeasure; as may be seen, Jer. x. 25, ‘Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not upon thy name.’ Now Negroes, Tawnies, Indians, make up a very great part of the families in this island; for whom an account will be required by him who comes to judge both quick and dead, at the great day of judgment, when everyone shall be ‘rewarded according to the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil:’ at that day, we say, of the resurrection both of the good and of the bad, of the just and of the unjust, when ‘the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe in that day.’ 2 Thess. i. 8, &c. See also 2 Pet. iii. 3, &c.” This wicked slander (of our endeavouring to make the negroes rebel) our adversaries took occasion to raise, from our having had some meetings with and amongst the negroes; for both I and other Friends had several meetings with them in several plantations, wherein we exhorted them to justice, sobriety, temperance, chastity, and piety, and to be subject to their masters and governors; which was altogether contrary to what our envious adversaries maliciously suggested against us. As I had been to visit the governor as soon as I was well able, after I came thither; and so when I was at Thomas Rous’s, the governor came to see me, carrying himself very courteously.