"A Society in England, having for its object the Abolition of Slavery and the Slave Trade throughout the world, and denominated the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, being informed of the pacific intentions and friendly disposition of your Majesty towards our Sovereign Queen and Government, and being informed likewise, that your Majesty, in diplomatic relations with other Foreign Princes and States, has universally manifested the greatest desire to preserve peace amongst nations, and, of necessary consequence, the happiness of the human race, are encouraged to approach your Majesty, and to plead on behalf of a numerous and important class of your subjects, the negro and other black slaves. "These are a people always faithful to their friends and protectors (a most conspicuous and immediate proof of which is seen in your Majesty's Imperial Guard, formed principally of this class of your faithful subjects,) and exhibiting under suffering and oppression the greatest patience and fortitude, yet, during the long course of bygone centuries, they have been subjected to horrid cruelties and barbarities, in order to pander to the vices and to satiate the avarice of their oppressors. "Now we, the Society in England aforesaid, address your Majesty for the succour and protection of this cruelly oppressed portion of the human race, and in order that you may be graciously pleased to remove the chain of bondage from off these unfortunate victims of the violence and cupidity of wicked men, who, in defiance of all justice and mercy, claim them as their property, and buy and sell them as cattle. "We further entreat that your Majesty would be graciously pleased to place the slaves in your Imperial dominions upon a footing of equality with the rest of your faithful subjects, and to make them free men, having the rightful possession of their own persons, and being at liberty to travel whithersoever they will. "For your Majesty rightly understands and knows as well as we do, that God the Almighty Maker of us and you, has made all men equal, and has not permitted man to have property in his fellow man, which reduces them to the level of brutes; therefore, to make slaves of our fellows, our brothers and sisters, is to sin against the will and mind of God, and to provoke his wrath and indignation against us, and against our children after us.