&c." And about the year 1728, or 1729, I myself printed a book for
Ralph Sandyford, another of your Friends in this city, against
keeping negroes in slavery; two editions of which he distributed
gratis. And about the year 1736, I printed another book on the same
subject for Benjamin Lay, who also professed being one of your
Friends, and he distributed the books chiefly among them. By these
instances it appears, that the seed was indeed sown in the good
ground of your profession, though much earlier than the time you
mention, and its springing up to effect at last, though so late, is
some confirmation of Lord Bacon's observation, that _a good motion
never dies_; and it may encourage us in making such, though hopeless
of their taking immediate effect.
I doubt whether I shall be able to finish my Memoirs, and, if I
finish them, whether they will be proper for publication. You seem
to have too high an opinion of them, and to expect too much from
them.
I think you are right in preferring a mixed form of government
for your country, under its present circumstances; and if it were
possible for you to reduce the enormous salaries and emoluments of
great officers, which are at bottom the source of all your violent
factions, that form might be conducted more quietly and happily; but
I am afraid, that none of your factions, when they get uppermost,
will ever have virtue enough to reduce those salaries and emoluments,
but will rather choose to enjoy them.
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