The Negroes brought into the English sugar islands have greatly diminished the whites there; the poor are, by this means, deprived of employment, while a few families acquire vast estates, which they spend on foreign luxuries, and educating their children in the habit of those luxuries; the same income is needed for the support of one that might have maintained one hundred. The whites who have slaves, not laboring, are enfeebled, and therefore not so generally prolific; the slaves being worked too hard, and ill fed, their constitutions are broken and the deaths among them are more than the births; so that a continual supply is needed from Africa. The northern colonies, having few slaves, increase in whites. Slaves also pejorate the families that use them; the white children become proud, disgusted with labor, and, being educated in idleness, are rendered unfit to get a living by industry.[3] As the following letter indicates, Franklin was in close touch with one of the most ardent anti-slavery men of his day, Anthony Benezet, whose pamphlets he often published: LONDON, 22 August, 1772. _Dear Friend_, I made a little extract from yours of April 27th, of the number of slaves imported and perishing, with some close remarks on the hypocrisy of this country, which encourages such a detestable commerce by laws for promoting the Guinea trade; while it piqued itself on its virtue, love of liberty, and the equity of its courts, in setting free a single Negro. This was inserted in the _London Chronicle_, of the 20th of June last. I thank you for the Virginia address, which I shall also publish with some remarks. I am glad to hear that the disposition against keeping Negroes grows more general in North America. Several pieces have been lately printed here against the practice, and I hope in time it will be taken into consideration and suppressed by the legislature. Your labors have already been attended with great effects. I hope, therefore, you and your friends will be encouraged to proceed. My hearty wishes of success attend you, being ever, my dear friend, yours affectionately, B. FRANKLIN.[4] The same sentiments of Franklin are expressed in the following letter to Dean Woodward in 1773: LONDON, 10 April, 1773. _Reverend Sir_,