In 1767, Purchase Quarterly Meeting sent the following minute to the Yearly Meeting, then held at Flushing : " If it is not consistent with Christianity to buy and sell our fellowmen for slaves, during their lives and their posterity after them, then whether it is consistent with a Christian spirit to keep those in slavery that we have already in our possession by purchase, gift or any other ways." This was just twenty years before Wilberforce took his first step in England against the slave trade- The subject was continually before their meetings until the last slave held by a Friend was set free, in 1779. But they did not leave the matter therein 1781, Purchase Monthly Meeting, in session at Chappaqua, decided "to appoint a number of solid, judicious Friends as a committee to perform a visit to such Friends who have set their negroes free, and inspect into the circumstances of such negroes and aflford them advice, both with respect to their spiritual and their temporal good, as they may be enabled to do; and endeavor to find what in justice may be due to such negroes as may have spent the prime of their days in the service of their masters." The committee were directed to determine the amount so due, where the late masters were willing to leave it to their judgment. They were also directed to see that provision was made for the proper education of the negro youth. Reports were made from time to time of the progress of this work, until, in 1784, it was recorded that "proper settlements had been made between the Friends who had set their negroes free and the negroes so set free."