Are there, for instance, any vicious customs creeping into the society, or any new dispositions among its members contrary to the Quaker principles?
The answers brought by the deputies shew it, and advice is contained in the letter adapted to the case.

Are the times, seasons of difficulty and embarrassment in the commercial world?
Is the aspect of the political horizon gloomy, and does it appear big with convulsions?
New admonition and, advices follow.
A third subject, comprehended in the letter, and which I believe since the year 1787 has frequently formed a standing article in it, is the slave-trade.

The Quakers consider this trade as so extensively big with misery to their fellow creatures, that their members ought to have a deep and awful feeling, and a religious care and concern about it.

This and occasionally other subjects having been duly weighed by the committee, they begin to compose the letter.
When the letter is ready, it is brought into the public meeting, and the whole of it, without interruption, is first read audibly.

It is then read over again, and canvassed, sentence by sentence.