In 1808, when expressions from Cuffe showing his interest in Africa appeared, considerable progress had been made by the English philanthropists. In the first place, they had carried on successful propaganda. They were in touch with the Americans and had the support of the Quakers. In a pamphlet specifically printed to call the attention of Parliament to the "case of their fellow creatures" the Quakers asserted that "Africa, so populous, and so rich in vegetable and mineral productions, instead of affording all the advantages of a well regulated commerce, is scarcely known but as a mart for slaves, and as the source of violent barbarities, perpetuated in order to secure them, by men professing the Christian religion."[18] The leading men in the African Institution, Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, and Granville Sharp, exerted much influence both through personal activity and the agency of the African Institution. In the second place, the Englishmen, as stated above, had actually established a settlement on the Guinea coast known as Sierra Leone. Many Negroes from London and vicinity, the black American Loyalists, and the Jamaica Maroons, settled in Nova Scotia, and the "Willyfoss" Negroes were transported to the Africa coast. The commendable intentions of the promoters of this settlement on the west coast of Africa were conveyed to Cuffe by his Philadelphia friend, James Pemberton, who was in touch with the activities of the African Institution. In September, 1808, he wrote: I perceive they are earnestly attentive to pursue the laudable object of promoting the civilization of the Blacks in their own country with a view to draw them off from the wild habits of life to which they have been accustomed, by instructing them in the arts of agriculture, mechanic labor, and domestic industry, by which means they hope to be instrumental in preparing the minds of those uninstructed people gradually to become qualified to receive religious instruction. Pemberton also called attention to the fact that the leaders of the African Institution were distinguished men and he especially noted that the president was the Duke of Gloucester, a nephew of the King. Moreover, he likened the plan for benefiting the African to the one which the Friends were using to civilize the American Indian. In the concluding paragraph of the letter, Pemberton sounds a personal call to Cuffe: