- A letter and gift from prominent British abolitionist Granville Sharp prompt a thank you from Arthur Lee, whose antislavery writings circulated among abolitionists at home and abroad. Sharp may have encountered Lee in London, or possibly become acquainted through his abolitionist correspondent in Philadelphia, Anthony Benezet, who reprinted both of Lee's antislavery essays. Those essays model the strengths and weaknesses of antebellum antislavery literature. While recognizing fully the contradiction between colonial agitation for liberty and the continued use of enslaved laborers, and despite his rational and spiritual aversion to slavery, Arthur surrenders to the "inhuman traffic" in the last year of his life.