The print alluded to was therefore probably
hung up as the pleasing record of a transaction, so highly honourable to
the principles of the society; where knowledge took no advantage of
ignorance, but where she associated herself with justice, that she might
preserve the balance equal. "This is the only treaty," says a celebrated
writer, "between the Indians and the Christians, that was never ratified
by an oath, and was never broken."
[Footnote 37: The Indians denominated Penn, brother Onas, which means
in their language a pen, and respect the Quakers as his descendants.]
The second was a print of a slave-ship, published a few years ago, when
the circumstances of the slave-trade became a subject of national
inquiry. In this the oppressed Africans are represented, as stowed in
different parts according to the number transported and to the scale of
the dimensions of the vessel. This subject could not be indifferent to
those, who had exerted themselves as a body for the annihilation of this
inhuman traffic. The print, however, was not hung up by the Quakers,
either as a monument of what they had done themselves, or as a stimulus
to farther exertion on the same subject, but, I believe, from the pure
motive of exciting benevolence; of exciting the attention of those, who
should come into their houses, to the case of the injured Africans, and
of procuring sympathy in their favour.
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