When this proclamation was issued, there were upwards of 2,000 people of colour, residing in this city, and nearly all obnoxious to the operations of the law; many of them had resided here for a considerable time, and were comfortably situated--they became unsettled and deprived of employment by this act of banishment and proscription, and much suffering and distress ensued. They deputed two of their number to select and provide a place for them to remove to, who procured a tract of land in Canada. In the meantime some of them commenced making preparations to leave the country, and as the time was very short which the trustees allowed them, they had to incur great losses in disposing of their property, selling for twenty dollars, what cost one hundred dollars. When the thirty days expired, and it was ascertained all did not, or could not comply with the requisitions of the trustees, mobs assailed them at different times, stoning their houses and destroying their property; in the progress of these disgraceful transactions one white man was killed and others wounded. It is thought about five hundred have gone to Canada, many of these with means exceedingly limited to provide necessaries in a wilderness country, and encounter the rigours of a northern winter; one of their agents, a coloured man, informed me of an instance where twenty-eight persons had set out with a sum not exceeding twenty-five dollars. I confess my mind has been impressed with fearful apprehensions that they will greatly suffer or perish with hunger and cold! Some of them view this act of banishment with so much horror, they have told me the white people had better take them out in the commons and shoot them down, than send them to Canada to perish with hunger and cold! _The Friend_, Nov. 28, 1829. FIRST PROTEST AGAINST SLAVERY IN THE UNITED STATES Prof. Steward invites attention also to the following extract from _The Friend_ published in Philadelphia April 1831, said to be the first document against slavery published in this country: "At a General Court held at Warwick the 16th. of May 1657.