730 
W O O L M A N. 
and 17th October; 45 miles north-north-west of Newcastle, 
and 317 north of London. Population in 1821, 1455. 
WOOLFARDISWORTHY, two parishes of England, in 
Devonshire, the one miles south-west of Bideford; the 
other 6 miles north-by-west of Crediton. 
WOO'LFEL, s. Skin not stripped of the wool.—Wool 
and woolfels were ever of little value in this kingdom. 
Davies . 
WOOLFORD, Great and Little, a parish and town¬ 
ship of England, in Warwickshire; 3 miles south of Ship- 
ston-upon-Stour. 
WOOLHAMPTON, a parish of England, in Berkshire ; 
7 miles east of Newbury. 
WOOLHOPE, a parish of England, in Herefordshire ; 7 
miles from Hereford. Population 485. 
WOOLLASON, a hamlet of England, in the parish of 
Mixbury, Oxfordshire. 
WOO'LLEN, adj. Made of wool not finely dressed, and 
thence used likewise for any thing coarse : it is likewise used 
in general for made of wool, as distinct from linen. 
I was wont 
To call them woollen vassals, things created 
To buy and sell with groats. Shakspeare. 
WOO'LLEN, s. Cloth made of wool. 
Odious! in woollen ! ’twould a saint provoke ! 
No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace 
Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face. Pope. 
WOOLLEY, a parish of England, in Huntingdonshire; 5J 
miles north-east of Kimbolton.—2. A township in the West 
Riding of Yorkshire'; 5J miles north-by-west of Barnesley 
Population 543.—3. A hamlet in Somersetshire; 3 miles 
from Bath. 
WOOLLI, a small kingdom of Western Africa, extending 
along the north side of the Gambia, having Tenda on the 
south-east, and Bondow on the north-east. It is level, and 
covered entirely with wood. Mr. Park, in his first journey, 
received a very hospitable reception from the king, who, 
however, endeavoured to dissuade him from his dangerous 
journey. 
WOO'LLINESS, s. State or quality of being woolly. 
WOOLLOS, St., a hamlet of England, in Monmouth¬ 
shire, adjacent to Newport. 
WOO'LLY, adj. Clothed with wool. 
When the work of generation was 
Between these woolly breeders, 
The skilful shepherd peel’d me certain wands. Shakspeare. 
Consisting of wool. 
Some few, by temp’rance taught, approaching slow, 
To distant fate by easy journeys go : 
Gently they lay ’em down as evening sheep 
On their own woolly fleeces softly sleep. Dry den. 
Resembling wool. 
What signifies 
My fleece of woolly hair, that now uncurls? Shakspeare. 
WOOLMAN (John), a minister of the society of Friends 
in North America, chiefly remarkable as an early and faithful 
advocate of the rights of the enslaved Africans, was born at 
Northampton, in Burlington county. West New-Jersey, in the 
year 1720. From some memoirs of his life left by himself, it 
appears that he had strong impressions of religion in child¬ 
hood, which being seconded by the care and admonition of 
pious parents, he arrived at manhood, after a struggle of some 
years with youthful levities, with a decidedly religious cha¬ 
racter. An incident which befel him when a child, and 
which he records as a proof of the early influence of divine 
grace on the mind, may be mentioned here, as connected also 
with his future character, and with the first developement of 
those tender sympathies of the heart which, under the guidance 
of Christian principle, fitted him so eminently to espouse the 
cause of the oppressed negroes. Going on an errand to a 
neighbour’s, he observed that a robin quitted her nest at his 
approach, and flew about in alarm for her young ones. He 
stood and threw stones at her, till being struck, she fell down 
dead. “ At first,” he says, “ I was pleased with the exploit, 
but after a few minutes was seized with horror. I beheld her 
lying dead, and thought those young ones, for which she had 
been so careful, must now perish for want of their dam to 
nourish them: and after some painful considerations on the 
subject, I climbed up the tree, took all the young birds, and 
killed them, supposing that better than to leave them to pine 
away, and perish miserably. I then went on my errand, but 
for some hours could think of little else but the cruelties I had 
committed, and was much troubled. Thus He, whose tender 
mercies are over all his works, hath placed a principle in the 
human mind, which incites to exercise goodness towards 
every living creature: and this being singly attended to, peo¬ 
ple become tender-hearted and sympathising, but being fre¬ 
quently and totally rejected, the mind becomes shut up in a 
contrary disposition.” Of his opinions at 21 he writes thus: 
“ I was early convinced in mind that true religion consisted 
in an inward life, wherein the heart doth love and reverence 
God the Creator, and learns to exercise true justice and good¬ 
ness, not only toward all men, but also toward the brute 
creatures. I found no narrowness respecting sects and opi¬ 
nions, but believed that sincere, upright-hearted people 
in every society, who truly loved God, were accepted of 
him.” 
The right of every individual, of whatever colour, who has 
not offended against society, to liberty and the common gifts 
of providence, was consequently at this time an article of 
John Woolman’s religious creed; and we shall see that lie 
soon brought himself to act in consistency with his faith. 
The first occasion of trial occurred while he was yet in servi¬ 
tude ; for he had engaged himself as clerk and assistant to a 
shopkeeper at a place called Mount-Holly. His employer 
arted with a negress, and desired Woolman to write out a 
ill of sale for her. “ The thing,” says he, “ was sudden, 
and although the thought of writing an instrument of slavery 
for one of my fellow-creatures felt uneasy, yet I remembered 
that I was hired by the year, that it was my master who di¬ 
rected me to do it, and that it was an elderly man, a member 
of our society, who bought her. So through weakness I gave 
way and wrote; but at the execution of it I was so afflicted 
in my mind, lhat I said before my master and the friend, that 
I believed slave-keeping to be a practice ‘ inconsistent with 
the Christian religion.’ This in some degree abated my 
uneasiness; yet as often as I reflected seriously upon it, I 
thought I should have been clearer if I had desired to be ex¬ 
cused from it, ‘ as a thing against my conscience:’ for such it 
was." Accordingly, on the next occasion, he took this second 
step. “ A young man of our society,” he proceeds, “ spoke 
to me to write a conveyance of a slave to him, he having 
lately taken a negro into his house. I told him I w-as not 
easy to write it; for though many of our meeting and in 
other places kept slaves, 1 still believed the practice was not 
right.” Other cases followed, in which being employed (as 
it appears for an adequate fee) to write the will of a neigh¬ 
bour or a friend, he uniformly refused to be accessary to their 
bequeathing as property the persons of his fellow-men. 
“ Deep-rooted customs,” he observes, “ though wrong, are 
not easily altered; but it is the duty of all to be ‘ firm in that’ 
which they certainly know is ‘right for them.’ A charitable 
benevolent man, well acquainted with a negro, may, I believe, 
under some circumstances, keep him in his family as a servant 
for no other motive than the negro’s good. Butman, as man, 
knows not what shall be after him, nor hath assurance that 
his children will attain to that perfection in wisdom and 
goodness necessary rightly to exercise such power," viz. as 
that of the owner over his slave. As the first-fruits of this 
firmness, and w'hich no doubt were highly grateful, he relates 
instances in which his refusal, and the reasons he gave for it, 
procured the freedom in lieu of the transmission of the slaves 
in question. 
He committed to paper his sentiments on slave-keeping, 
and after the MS. had lain long by him, it was published, 
with the approbation and at the expense of his friends, who 
began (in Pennsylvania and the Jerseys at least) to be more 
generally 
