1788 / 1859 JAMES MACGREGOR. Letter to a Clergyman Urging Him to Free His Slaves.

James D[uncan] Macgregor [1759-1830] was an early and important Scottish / Candian Presbyterian divine and abolitionist from Nova Scotia.

Macgregor arrived in Nova Scotia in 1786 and was the first Gaelic-speaking Presbyterian minister in the region just then receiving a significant influx of Scottish immigrants. By all accounts he was an earnest, devout, and effective pastor. 

Today, he is best remembered as the author of what is considered the "earliest and most outstanding production of white anti-slavery literature in Canada." Historians see it as unsurpassed in its argumentation well up into the 1840's. But he pursued the abolition of slavery with more than his pen and pulpit. He is known to have personally financed the purchase and subsequent emancipation of slaves, expending nearly 80% of his annual income in the endeavor. His endeavors helped lay the groundwork for Nova Scotia as a significant destination in the Underground Railroad. 

This volume of his works, including his Letter to a Clergyman, Urging Him to Set Free a Black Girl he Held in Slavery [1788] are very rare in any state with none on the market at the time of cataloguing. The volume also contains several sections on the imprecatory Psalms, on the Millennium, his correspondence, etc., 

[Slavery, Abolition]. Macgregor, James Duncan. George Patterson [ed.]. A Few Remains of the Rev. James MacGregor, D.D. Philadelphia. Joseph M. Wilson. 1859. 274pp.

Good + in original cloth, somewhat faded with bumping. Text generally clean and crisp, one gathering forward in the binding; a bit stuff.