The same honourable gentleman had observed, that the conduct of other nations should not hinder us from doing our duty; but yet neutrals would furnish our islands with slaves. What was the inference from this moderate assertion, but that we might as well supply them ourselves? He hoped, if we were yet to be supplied, it would never be by Englishmen. We ought no longer to be concerned in such a crime.

An adversary, Mr. Baillie, had said, that it would not be fair to take the character of this country from the records of the Old Bailey. He did not at all wonder, when the subject of the Slave-trade was mentioned, that the Old Bailey naturally occurred to his recollection. The facts which had been described in the evidence, were associated in all our minds with the ideas of criminal justice. But Mr. Baillie had forgot the essential difference between the two cases. When we learnt from these records, that crimes were committed in this country, we learnt also, that they were punished with transportation and death. But the crimes committed in the Slave-trade were passed over with impunity. Nay, the perpetrators were even sent out again to commit others.

As to the mode of obtaining slaves, it had been suggested as the least disreputable, that they became so in consequence of condemnation as criminals. But he would judge of the probability of this mode by the reasonableness of it. No less than eighty thousand Africans were exported annually by the different nations of Europe from their own country. Was it possible to believe, that this number could have been legally convicted of crimes, for which they had justly forfeited their liberty? The supposition was ridiculous. The truth was, that every enormity was practised to obtain the persons of these unhappy people. He referred those present to the case in the evidence of the African trader, who had kidnapped and sold a girl, and who was afterwards kidnapped and sold himself. He desired them to reason upon the conversation which had taken place between the trader and the captain of the ship on this occasion. He desired them also to reason upon the instance mentioned this evening, which had happened in the river Cameroons, and they would infer all the rapine, all the desolation, and all the bloodshed, which had been placed to the account of this execrable trade.

An attempt had been made to impress the House with the horrible scenes which had taken place in St. Domingo, as an argument against the abolition of the Slave-trade; but could any more weighty argument be produced in its favour? What were the causes of the insurrections there? They were two. The first was the indecision of the National Assembly, who wished to compromise between that which was right and that which was wrong on this subject. And the second was the oppression of the People of Colour, and of the Slaves. In the first of the causes we saw something like the moderation of Mr. Dundas and Mr. Addington. One day this Assembly talked of liberty, and favoured the Blacks. Another day they suspended their measures, and favoured the Whites. They wished to steer a middle course; but decision had been mercy. Decision even against the Planters would have been a thousand times better than indecision and half measures. In the mean time, the People of Colour took the great work of justice into their own hands. Unable, however, to complete this of themselves, they called in the aid of the Slaves. Here began the second cause; for the Slaves, feeling their own power, began to retaliate on the Whites. And here it may be observed, that, in all revolutions, the clemency or cruelty of the victors will always be in proportion to their former privileges, or their oppression. That the Slaves then should have been guilty of great excesses was not to be wondered at; for where did they learn their cruelty? They learnt it from those who had tyrannized over them. The oppression, which they themselves had suffered, was fresh in their memories, and this had driven them to exercise their vengeance so furiously. If we wished to prevent similar scenes in our own islands, we must reject all moderate measures, and at once abolish the Slave-trade. By doing this, we should procure a better treatment for the Slaves there; and when this happy change of system should have taken place, we might depend on them for the defence of the islands as much as on the Whites themselves.

Upon the whole, he would give his opinion of this traffic in a few words. He believed it to be impolitic—he knew it to be inhuman—he was certain it was unjust—he though it so inhuman and unjust, that, if the colonies could not be cultivated without it, they ought not to be cultivated at all. It would be much better for us to be without them, than not abolish the Slave-trade. He hoped therefore that members would this night act the part which would do them honour. He declared, that, whether he should vote in a large minority or a small one, he would never give up the cause. Whether in the House of Parliament or out of it, in whatever situation he might ever be, as long as he had a voice to speak, this question should never be at rest. Believing the trade to be of the nature of crimes and pollutions, which stained the honour of the country, he would never relax his efforts. It was his duty to prevent man from preying upon man; and if he and his friends should die before they had attained their glorious object, he hoped there would never be wanting men alive to their duty, who would continue to labour till the evil should be wholly done away. If the situation of the Africans was as happy as servitude could make them, he could not consent to the enormous crime of selling man to man; nor permit a practice to continue, which put an entire bar to the civilization of one quarter of the globe. He was sure that the nation would not much longer allow the continuance of enormities which shocked human nature. The West Indians had no right to demand that crimes should be permitted by this country for their advantage; and, if they were wise, they would lend their cordial assistance to such measures, as would bring about, in the shortest possible time, the abolition of this execrable trade.

Mr. Dundas rose again, but it was only to move an amendment, namely, that the word "gradually" should be inserted before the words "to be abolished" in Mr. Wilberforce's motion.

Mr. Jenkinson (now Lord Hawkesbury) said, that the opinions of those who were averse to the abolition had been unfairly stated. They had been described as founded on policy, in opposition to humanity. If it could be made out that humanity would be aided by the abolition, he would be the last person to oppose it. The question was not, he apprehended, whether the trade was founded in injustice and oppression. He admitted it was: nor was it, whether it was in itself abstractedly an evil: he admitted this also: but whether, under all the circumstances of the case, any considerable advantage would arise to a number of our fellow-creatures from the abolition of the trade in the manner in which it had been proposed.

He was ready to admit, that the Africans at home were made miserable by the Slave-trade, and that, if it were universally abolished, great benefit would arise to them. No one, however, would assert, that these miseries arose from the trade as carried on by Great Britain only. Other countries occasioned as much of the evil as we did; and if the abolition of it by us should prove only the transferring of it to those countries, very little benefit would result from the measure.

What then was the probability of our example being followed by foreign powers? Five years had now elapsed since the question was first started, and what had any of them done? The Portuguese continued the trade. The Spaniards still gave a bounty to encourage it. He believed there were agents from Holland in this country, who were then negotiating with persons concerned in it in order to secure its continuance. The abolition also had been proposed in the National Assembly of France, and had been rejected there. From these circumstances he had a right to infer, that if we gave up the trade, we should only transfer it to those countries: but this transfer would be entirely against the Africans. The mortality on board English ships, previously to the regulating bill, was four and an eighth per cent. Since that time it had been reduced to little more than three per cent.[A] In French ships it was near ten, and in Dutch ships from five to seven, per cent. In Portuguese it was less than either in French or Dutch, but more than in English ships since the regulating bill. Thus the deaths of the Africans would be more than doubled, if we were to abolish the trade.

[Footnote A: Mr. Wilberforce stated it on the same evening to be between ten and eleven per cent. for the last year. The number then exported from Africa to our islands was rather more than 22,000, of whom more than 2,300 died.]

Perhaps it might be replied, that, the importations being stopped in our own islands, fewer Africans would experience this misery, because fewer would be taken from their own country on this account. But he had a right to infer, that as the planters purchased slaves at present, they would still think it their interest to have them. The question then was, whether they could get them by smuggling. Now it appeared by the evidence, that many hundred slaves had been stolen from time to time from Jamaica, and carried into Cuba. But if persons could smuggle slaves out of our colonies, they could smuggle slaves into them; but particularly when the planters might think it to their interest to assist them.

With respect to the slaves there, instances had been related of their oppression, which shocked the feelings of all who heard them: But was it fair to infer from these their general ill usage? Suppose a person were to make a collection of the different abuses, which had happened for a series of years under our own happy constitution, and use these as an argument of its worthlessness; should we not say to him, that in the most perfect system which the human intellect could form, some defects would exist; and that it was unfair to draw inferences from such partial facts? In the same manner he would argue relative to the alleged treatment of the slaves. Evidence had been produced upon this point on both sides. He should not be afraid to oppose the authorities of Lord Rodney, and others, against any, however respectable, in favour of the abolition. But this was not necessary. There was another species of facts, which would answer the same end. Previously to the year 1730 the decrease of the slaves in our islands was very considerable. From 1730 to 1755 the deaths were reduced to only two and a half per cent. above the births: from 1755 to 1768 to only one and three fourths; and from 1768 to 1788 to only one per cent. This then, on the first view of the subject, would show, that whatever might have been the situation of slaves formerly, it had been gradually improved. But if, in addition to this, we considered the peculiar disadvantages under which they laboured; the small proportion of females to males; and the hurricanes, and famines, which had swept away thousands, we should find it physically impossible, that they could have increased as related, if they had been treated as cruelly as the friends of the abolition had described.

This species of facts would enable him also to draw still more important conclusions; namely, that as the slaves in the West Indies had gradually increased, they would continue to increase; that very few years would pass, not only before the births were equal to the deaths, but before they were more numerous than the deaths; and that if this was likely to happen in the present state of things, how much more would it happen, if by certain regulations the increase of the slaves should be encouraged?

The only question then was, whether it was more advantageous to breed or to import. He thought he should prove the former; and if so, then this increase was inevitable, and the importations would necessarily cease.

In the first place, the gradual increase of the slaves of late years clearly proved, that such increase had been encouraged. But their price had been doubled in the last twenty years. The planter therefore must feel it his interest to desist from purchasing, if possible. But again, the greatest mortality was among the newly imported slaves. The diseases they contracted on the passage, and their deaths in the seasoning, all made for the same doctrine. Add to this, that slaves bred in the islands were more expert at colonial labour, more reconciled to their situation, and better disposed towards their masters, than those who were brought from Africa.

But it had been said, that the births and deaths in the islands were now equal; and, that therefore no further supply was wanted. He denied the propriety of this inference. The slaves were subject to peculiar diseases. They were exposed also to hurricanes and consequent famines. That the day, however, would come, when the stock there would be sufficient, no person who attended to the former part of his argument could doubt. That they had gradually increased, were gradually, increasing, and would, by certain regulations, increase more and more, must be equally obvious. But these were all considerations for continuing the traffic a little longer.

He then desired the House to reflect upon the state of St. Domingo. Had not its calamities been imputed by its own deputies to the advocates for the abolition? Were ever any scenes of horror equal to those which had passed there? And should we, when principles of the same sort were lurking in our own islands, expose our fellow-subjects to the same miseries, who, if guilty of promoting this trade, had, at least, been encouraged in it by ourselves?

That the Slave-trade was an evil, he admitted. That the state of slavery itself was likewise an evil, he admitted; and if the question was, not whether we should abolish, but whether we should establish these, he would be the first to oppose himself to their existence; but there were many evils, which we should have thought it our duty to prevent, yet which, when they had once arisen, it was more dangerous to oppose than to submit to. The duty of a statesman was, to consider abstractedly what was right or wrong, but to weigh the consequences which were likely to result from the abolition of an evil, against those, which were likely to result from its continuance. Agreeing then most perfectly with the abolitionists in their end, he differed from them only in the means of accomplishing it. He was desirous of doing that gradually, which he conceived they were doing rashly. He had therefore drawn up two propositions. The first was, That an address be presented to His Majesty, that he would recommend to the colonial assemblies to grant premiums to such planters, and overseers, as should distinguish themselves by promoting the annual increase of the slaves by birth; and likewise freedom to every female slave, who had reared five children to the age of seven years. The second was, That a bounty of five pounds per head be given to the master of every slave-ship, who should import in any cargo a greater number of females than males, not exceeding the age of twenty-five years. To bring forward these propositions, he would now move that the chairman leave the chair.

Mr. Este wished the debate to be adjourned. He allowed there ware many enormities in the trade, which called for regulation. There were two propositions before the House: the one for the immediate, and the other for the gradual, abolition of the trade. He thought that members should be allowed time to compare their respective merits. At present his own opinion was, that gradual abolition would answer the end proposed in the least exceptionable manner.

Mr. Pitt rejoiced that the debate had taken a turn, which contracted the question into such narrow limits. The matter then in dispute was merely as to the time at which the abolition should take place. He therefore congratulated the House, the country, and the world, that this great point had been gained; that we might now consider this trade as having received its condemnation; that this curse of mankind was seen in its true light; and that the greatest stigma on our national character, which ever yet existed, was about to be removed! Mankind, he trusted, were now likely to be delivered from the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted the human race—from the most severe and extensive calamity recorded in the history of the world.

His honourable friend (Mr. Jenkinson) had insinuated, that any act for the abolition would be evaded. But if we were to enforce this act with all the powers of the country, how could it fail to be effectual? But his honourable friend had himself satisfied him upon this point. He had acknowledged, that the trade would drop of itself, on account of the increasing dearness of the commodity imported. He would ask then, if we were to leave to the importer no means of importation but by smuggling; and if, besides all the present disadvantages, we were to load him with all the charges and hazards of the smuggler, would there be any danger of any considerable supply of fresh slaves being poured into the islands through this channel? The question under these circumstances, he pronounced, would not bear a dispute.

His honourable friend had also maintained, that it would be inexpedient to stop the importations immediately, because the deaths and births in the islands were as yet not equal. But he (Mr. Pitt) had proved last year, from the most authentic documents, that an increase of the births above the deaths had already taken place. This then was the time for beginning the abolition. But he would now observe, that five years had elapsed since these documents were framed; and therefore the presumption was, that the Black population was increasing at an extraordinary rate. He had not, to be sure, in his consideration of the subject, entered into the dreadful mortality arising from the clearing of new lands. Importations for this purpose were to be considered, not as carrying on the trade, but as setting on foot a Slave-trade, a measure which he believed no one present would then support. He therefore asked his honourable friend, whether the period he had looked to was now arrived? whether the West Indies, at this hour, were not in a state, in which they could maintain their population?

It had been argued, that one or other of these two assertions was false; that either the population of the slaves must be decreasing, (which the abolitionists denied,) or, if it was increasing, the slaves must have been well treated. That their population was rather increasing than otherwise, and also that their general treatment was by no means so good as it ought to have been, were both points which had been proved by different witnesses. Neither were they incompatible with each other. But he would see whether the explanation of this seeming contradiction would not refute the argument of expediency, as advanced by his honourable friend. Did the slaves decrease in numbers?—Yes. Then ill usage must have been the cause of it; but if so, the abolition was immediately necessary to restrain it. Did they, on the other hand, increase?—Yes. But if so, no further importations were wanted: Was their population (to take a middle course) nearly stationary, and their treatment neither so good nor so bad as it might be?—Yes. But if so, this was the proper period for stopping further supplies; for both the population and the treatment would be improved by such a measure.

But he would show again the futility of the argument of his honourable friend. He himself had admitted, that it was in the power of the colonists to correct the various abuses, by which the Negro population was restrained. But they could not do this without improving the condition of their slaves; without making them approximate towards the rank of citizens; without giving them some little interest in their labour, which would occasion them to work with the energy of men. But now the Assembly of Grenada had themselves stated, "that though the Negros were allowed the afternoons of only one day in every week, they would do as much work in that afternoon, when employed for their own benefit, as in the whole day, when employed in their masters' service." Now after this confession, the House might burn all his calculations relative to the Negro population; for, if it had not yet quite reached the desirable state which he had pointed out, this confession had proved, that further supplies were not wanted. A Negro, if he worked for himself, could do double work. By an improvement then in the mode of labour, the work in the islands could be doubled. But if so, what would become of the argument of his honourable friend? for then only half the number of the present labourers were necessary.

He would now try this argument of expediency by other considerations. The best informed writers on the subject had told us, that the purchase of new Negros was injurious to the planters. But if this statement was just, would not the abolition be beneficial to them? That it would, was the opinion of Mr. Long, their own historian. "If the Slave-trade," says he, "was prohibited for four or five years, it would enable them, to retrieve their affairs by preventing them from running into debt, either by renting or purchasing Negros." To this acknowledgment he would add a fact from the evidence, which was, that a North American province, by such a prohibition alone for a few years, from being deeply plunged in debt, had become independent, rich, and flourishing.

The next consideration was the danger, to which the islands were exposed from the newly imported slaves. Mr. Long, with a view of preventing insurrections, had advised, that a duty, equal to a prohibition, might be laid on the importation of Coromantine slaves. After noticing one insurrection, which happened through their means, he speaks of another in the following year, in which thirty-three Coromantines, "most of whom had been newly imported, murdered and wounded no less than nineteen Whites in the space of an hour." To the authority of Mr. Long he would add the recorded opinion of a Committee of the House of Assembly of Jamaica, which was appointed to inquire into the best means of preventing future insurrections. The Committee reported, that "the rebellion had originated, like most others, with the Coromantines," and they proposed that a bill should be brought in for laying a higher duty on the importation of these particular Negros, which should operate as a prohibition. But the danger was not confined to the introduction of Coromantines. Mr. Long accounts for the frequent insurrections in Jamaica from the greatness of its general importations. "In two years and a half," says he, "twenty-seven thousand Negros have been imported—No wonder that we have rebellions!" Surely then, when his honourable friend spoke of the calamities of St. Domingo, and of similar dangers impending over our own islands, it ill became him to be the person to cry out for further importations! It ill became him to charges upon the abolitionists the crime of stirring up insurrections, who only recommended what the Legislature of Jamaica itself had laid down in a time of danger with an avowed view to prevent them. It was indeed a great satisfaction to himself, that among the many arguments for prohibiting the Slave-trade, the security of our West Indian possessions against internal commotions, as well as foreign enemies, was among the most prominent and forcible. And here he would ask his honourable friend, whether in this part of the argument he did not see reason for immediate abolition. Why should we any longer persist in introducing those latent principles of conflagration, which, if they should once burst forth, might annihilate the industry of a hundred years? which might throw the planters back a whole century in their profits, in their cultivation, and in their progress towards the emancipation of their slaves? It was our duty to vote, that the abolition of the Slave-trade should be immediate, and not to leave it to he knew not what future time or contingency.

Having now done with the argument of expediency, he would consider the proposition of his right honourable friend Mr. Dundas; that, on account of some patrimonial rights of the West Indians, the prohibition of the Slave-trade would be an invasion of their legal inheritance. He would first observe, that, if this argument was worth any thing, it applied just as much to gradual as to immediate abolition. He had no doubt, that, at whatever period we should say the trade should cease, it would be equally set up; for it would certainly be just as good an argument against the measure in seventy years hence, as it was against it now. It implied also, that Parliament had no right to stop the importations: but had this detestable traffic received such a sanction, as placed it more out of the jurisdiction of the legislature for ever after, than any other branch of our trade? In what a situation did the proposition of his honourable friend place the legislature of Great Britain! It was scarcely possible to lay a duty on any one article, which might not in some way affect the property of individuals. But if the laws respecting the Slave-trade implied a contract for its perpetual continuance, the House could never regulate any other of the branches of our national commerce.

But any contract for the promotion of this trade must, in his opinion, have been void from the beginning: for if it was an outrage upon justice, and only another name for fraud, robbery, and murder, What pledge could devolve upon the legislature to incur the obligation of becoming principals in the commission of such enormities by sanctioning their continuance?

But he would appeal to the acts themselves. That of 23 George II. c. 31, was the one upon which the greatest stress was laid. How would the House be surprised to hear, that the very outrages committed in the prosecution of this trade had been forbidden by that act! "No master of a ship trading to Africa," says the act, "shall by fraud, force, or violence, or by any indirect practice whatever, take on board or carry away from that coast any Negro, or native of that country, or commit any violence on the natives, to the prejudice of the said trade; and every person so offending, shall for every such offence forfeit one hundred pounds." But the whole trade had been demonstrated to be a system of fraud, force, and violence; and therefore the contract was daily violated, under which the Parliament allowed it to continue.

But why had the trade ever been permitted at all? The preamble of the act would show: "Whereas the trade to and from Africa is very advantageous to Great Britain, and necessary for supplying the Plantations and Colonies thereunto belonging with a sufficient number of Negros at reasonable rates, and for that purpose the said trade should be carried on"—Here then we might see what the Parliament had in view, when it passed this act. But no one of the occasions, on which it grounded its proceedings, now existed. He would plead, then, the act itself as an argument for the abolition. If it had been proved that, instead of being very advantageous to Great Britain, it was the most destructive to her interests—that it was the ruin of her seamen—that it stopped the extension of her manufactures;—if it had been proved, in the second place, that it was not now necessary for the supply of our Plantations with Negros;—if it had been further established, that it was from the beginning contrary to the first principles of justice, and consequently that a pledge for its continuance, had one been attempted to be given, must have been absolutely void—where in this act of parliament was the contract to be found, by which Britain was bound, as she was said to be, never to listen to her own true interests and to the cries of the natives of Africa? Was it not clear, that all argument, founded on the supposed pledge of Parliament, made against those who employed it?

But if we were not bound by existing laws to the support of this trade, we were doubly criminal in pursuing it: for why ought it to be abolished at all? Because it was incurable injustice. Africa was the ground, on which he chiefly rested; and there it was, that his two honourable friends, one of whom had proposed gradual abolition, and the other regulation, did not carry their principles to their full extent. Both had confessed the trade to be a moral evil. How much stronger then was the argument for immediate than for gradual abolition! If on the ground of a moral evil it was to be abolished at last, why ought it not now? Why was injustice to be suffered to remain for a single hour? He knew of no evil, which ever had existed, nor could he imagine any to exist, worse than the tearing of eighty thousand persons annually from their native land, by a combination of the most civilized nations, in the most enlightened quarter of the globe; but more especially by that nation, which called herself the most free and the most happy of them all.

He would now notice the objection, that other nations would not give up the Slave-trade, if we were to renounce it. But if the trade were stained but by a thousandth part of the criminality, which he and others, after a thorough investigation of the subject, charged upon it, the House ought immediately to vote its abolition. This miserable argument, if persevered in, would be an eternal bar to the annihilation of the evil. How was it ever to be eradicated, if every nation was thus prudentially to wait till the concurrence of all the world should be obtained? But it applied a thousand times more strongly in a contrary way. How much more justly would other nations say, "Great Britain, free as she is, just and honourable as she is, not only has not abolished, but has refused to abolish, the Slave-trade. She has investigated it well. Her senate has deliberated upon it. It is plain, then, that she sees no guilt in it." With this argument we should furnish the other nations of Europe, if we were again to refuse to put an end to this cruel traffic: and we should have from henceforth not only to answer for our own, but for their crimes also. Already we had suffered one year to pass away; and now, when the question was renewed, not only had this wretched argument been revived, but a proposition had been made for the gradual abolition of the trade. He knew indeed the difficulty of reforming long established abuses: but in the present case, by proposing some other period than the present, by prescribing some condition, by waiting for some contingency, perhaps till we obtained the general concurrence of Europe, (a concurrence which he believed never yet took place at the commencement of any one improvement in policy or morals,) he feared that this most enormous evil would never be redressed. Was it not folly to wait for the stream to run down before we crossed the bed of its channel? Alas! we might wait for ever. The river would still flow on. We should be no nearer the object, which we had in view, so long as the step, which could alone bring us to it, was not taken.

He would now proceed to the civilization of Africa; and as his eye had just glanced upon a West Indian law in the evidence upon the table, he would begin with an argument, which the sight of it had suggested to him. This argument had been ably answered in the course of the evening; but he would view it in yet another light. It had been said, that the savage disposition of the Africans rendered the prospect of their civilization almost hopeless. This argument was indeed of long standing; but, last year, it had been supported upon a new ground. Captain Frazer had stated in his evidence, that a boy had been put to death at Cabenda, because there were those who refused to purchase him as a slave. This single story was deemed by him, and had been considered by others, as a sufficient proof of the barbarity of the Africans, and of the inutility of abolishing the Slave-trade. But they, who had used this fact, had suppressed several circumstances relating to it. It appeared, on questioning Captain Frazer afterward, that this boy had previously run away from his master three several times; that the master had to pay his value, according to the custom of the country, every time he was brought back; and that partly from anger at the boy for running away so frequently, and partly to prevent a repetition of the same expense, he determined to destroy him. Such was the explanation of the signal instance, which was to fix barbarity on all Africa, as it came out in the cross-examination of Captain Frazer. That this African master was unenlightened and barbarous, he freely admitted: but what would an enlightened and civilized West Indian have done in a similar case? He would quote the law, passed in the West Indies in 1722, which he had just cast his eye upon in the book of evidence, by which law this very same crime of running away was by the legislature of an island, by the grave and deliberate sentence of an enlightened legislature, punished with death; and this, not in the case only of the third offence, but even in the very first instance. It was enacted, "That, if any Negro or other slave should withdraw himself from his master for the term of six months; or any slave, who was absent, should not return within that time, every such person should suffer death." There was also another West Indian law, by which every Negro was armed against his fellow-negro, for he was authorized to kill every runaway slave; and he had even a reward held out to him for so doing. Let the House now contrast the two cases. Let them ask themselves which of the two exhibited the greater barbarity; and whether they could possibly vote for the continuance of the Slave-trade, upon the principle, that the Africans had shown themselves to be a race of incorrigible barbarians?

Something like an opposite argument, but with a like view, had been maintained by others on this subject. It had been said, in justification of the trade, that the Africans had derived some little civilization from their intercourse with us. Yes: we had given them just enough of the forms of justice to enable them to add the pretext of legal trials to their other modes of perpetrating the most atrocious crimes. We had given them just enough of European improvements, to enable them the more effectually to turn Africa into a ravaged wilderness. Alas! alas! we had carried on a trade with them from this civilized and enlightened country, which, instead of diffusing knowledge, had been a check to every laudable pursuit. We had carried a poison into their country, which spread its contagious effects from one end of it to the other, and which penetrated to its very centre, corrupting every part to which it reached. We had there subverted the whole order of nature; we had aggravated every natural barbarity, and furnished to every man motives for committing, under the name of trade, acts of perpetual hostility and perfidy against his neighbour. Thus had the perversion of British commerce carried misery instead of happiness to one whole quarter of the globe. False to the very principles of trade, misguided in our policy, unmindful of our duty, what almost irreparable mischief had we done to that continent! How should we hope to obtain forgiveness from Heaven, if we refused to use those means, which the mercy of Providence had still reserved to us for wiping away the guilt and shame, with which we were now covered? If we refused even this degree of compensation, how aggravated would be our guilt! Should we delay, then, to repair these incalculable injuries? We ought to count the days, nay the very hours, which intervened to delay the accomplishment of such a work.

On this great subject, the civilization of Africa, which, he confessed, was near his heart, he would yet add a few observations. And first he would say, that the present deplorable state of that country, especially when we reflected that her chief calamities were to be ascribed to us, called for our generous aid, rather than justified any despair, on our part, of her recovery, and still less a repetition of our injuries. On what ground of theory or history did we act, when we supposed that she was never to be reclaimed? There was a time, which it might be now fit to call to remembrance, when human sacrifices, and even, this very practice of the Slave-trade, existed in our own island. Slaves, as we may read in Henry's History of Great Britain, were formerly an established article of our exports. "Great numbers," he says, "were exported, like cattle, from the British coast, and were to be seen exposed for sale in the Roman market."—"Adultery, witchcraft, and debt," says the same historian, "were probably some of the chief sources of supplying the Roman market with British slaves—prisoners taken in war were added to the number—there might be also among them some unfortunate gamesters, who, after having lost all their goods, at length, staked themselves, their wives, and their children." Now every one of these sources of slavery had been stated to be at this hour a source of slavery in Africa. If these practices, therefore, were to be admitted as proofs of the natural incapacity of its inhabitants, why might they not have been applied to ancient Britain? Why might not then some Roman senator, pointing to British barbarians, have predicted with equal boldness, that these were a people, who were destined never to be free; who were without the understanding necessary for the attainment of useful arts; depressed by the hand of Nature below the level of the human species; and created to form a supply of slaves for the rest of the world? But happily, since that time, notwithstanding what would then have been the justness of these predictions, we had emerged from barbarism. We were now raised to a situation, which exhibited a striking contrast to every circumstance, by which a Roman might have characterized us, and by which we now characterized Africa. There was indeed one thing wanting to complete the contrast, and to clear us altogether from the imputation of acting even to this hour as barbarians; for we continued to this hour a barbarous traffic in slaves. We continued it even yet, in spite of all our great pretensions. We were once as obscure among the nations of the earth, as savage in our manners, as debased in our morals, as degraded in our understandings, as these unhappy Africans. But in the lapse of a long series of years, by a progression slow, and for a time almost imperceptible, we had become rich in a variety of acquirements. We were favoured above measure in the gifts of Providence, we were unrivalled in commerce, preeminent in arts, foremost in the pursuits of philosophy and science, and established in all the blessings of civil society: we were in the possession of peace, of liberty, and of happiness: we were under the guidance of a mild and a beneficent religion; and we were protected by impartial laws, and the purest administration of justice: we were living under a system of government, which our own happy experience led us to pronounce the best and wisest, and which had become the admiration of the world. From all these blessings we must for ever have been excluded, had there been any truth in those principles, which some had not hesitated to lay down as applicable to the case of Africa; and we should have been at this moment little superior, either in morals, knowledge, or refinement, to the rude inhabitants of that continent.

If then we felt that this perpetual confinement in the fetters of brutal ignorance would have been the greatest calamity which could have befallen us; if we viewed with gratitude the contrast between our present and our former situation; if we shuddered to think of the misery, which would still have overwhelmed us, had our country continued to the present times, through some cruel policy, to be the mart for slaves to the more civilized nations of the world;—God forbid, that we should any longer subject Africa to the same dreadful scourge, and exclude the sight of knowledge from her coasts, which had reached every other quarter of the globe!

He trusted we should no longer continue this commerce; and that we should no longer consider ourselves as conferring too great a boon on the natives of Africa in restoring them to the rank of human beings. He trusted we should not think ourselves too liberal, if, by abolishing the Slave-trade, we gave them the same common chance of civilization with other parts of the world. If we listened to the voice of reason and duty this night, some of us might live to see a reverse of that picture, from which we now turned our eyes with shame. We might live to behold the natives engaged in the calm occupations of industry, and in the pursuit of a just commerce. We might behold the beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon their land, which at some happy period in still later times might blaze with full lustre; and joining their influence to that of pure religion, might illuminate and invigorate the most distant extremities of that immense continent. Then might we hope, that even Africa (though last of all the quarters of the globe) should enjoy at length, in the evening of her days, those blessings, which had descended so plentifully upon us in a much earlier period of the world. Then also would Europe, participating in her improvement and prosperity, receive an ample recompense for the tardy kindness (if kindness it could be called) of no longer hindering her from extricating herself out of the darkness, which, in other more fortunate regions, had been so much more speedily dispelled.

—Nos primus equis Oriens afflavit anhelis; Illic sera rubens accendit lumina Vesper.

Then might be applied to Africa those words, originally used indeed with a different view:

Hic demum exactis —— —— Devenere locos laetos, et amoena vireta Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas; Largior hic campos aether et lumine vestit Purpurco:

It was in this view—it was as an atonement for our long and cruel injustice towards Africa, that the measure proposed by his honourable friend Mr. Wilberforce most forcibly recommended itself to his mind. The great and happy change to be expected in the state of her inhabitants was, of all the various benefits of the abolition, in his estimation the most extensive and important. He should vote against the adjournment; and he should also oppose every proposition, which tended either to prevent, or even to postpone for an hour, the total abolition of the Slave-trade.

Mr. Pitt having concluded his speech (at about six in the morning), Sir William Dolben, the chairman, proposed the following questions. The first was on the motion of Mr. Jenkinson, "that the chairman do now leave the chair." This was lost by a majority of two hundred and thirty-four to eighty-seven. The second was on the motion of Mr. Dundas, "that the abolition should be gradual;" when the votes for gradual exceeded those for immediate by one hundred and ninety-three to one hundred and twenty-five. He then put the amended question, that "it was the opinion of the committee, that the trade ought to be gradually abolished." The committee having divided again, the votes for a gradual abolition were two hundred and thirty, and those against any abolition were eighty-five.

After this debate, the committee for the abolition of the Slave-trade held a meeting. They voted their thanks to Mr. Wilberforce for his motion, and to Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, and those other members of the House, who had supported it. They resolved also, that the House of Commons, having determined that the Slave-trade ought to be gradually abolished, had by that decision manifested their opinion, that it was cruel and unjust. They resolved also, that a gradual abolition of it was not an adequate remedy for its injustice and cruelty; neither could it be deemed a compliance with the general wishes of the people, as expressed in their numerous and urgent petitions to Parliament. And they resolved lastly, that the interval, in which the Slave-trade should be permitted to continue, afforded a prospect of redoubled cruelties and ravages on the coast of Africa; and that it imposed therefore an additional obligation on every friend to the cause to use all constitutional means to obtain its immediate abolition.

At a subsequent meeting they voted their thanks to the right honourable Lord Muncaster, for the able support he had given to the great object of their institution by his Historical Sketches of the Slave-trade, and of its Effects in Africa, addressed to the People of Great Britain; and they elected the Reverend Richard Gifford and the Reverend Thomas Gisborne honorary and corresponding members; the first on account of his excellent sermon before mentioned and other services, and the latter on account of his truly Christian and seasonable pamphlet, entitled Remarks on the late Decision of the House of Commons respecting the Abolition of the Slave-trade.

On the twenty-third of April, the House of Commons resolved itself into a committee of the whole House, to consider the subject again; and Mr. Beaufoy was put into the chair.

Mr. Dundas, upon whom the task of introducing a bill for the gradual abolition of the Slave-trade now devolved, rose to offer the outlines of a plan for that purpose. He intended, he said, immediately to abolish that part of the trade, by which we supplied foreigners with slaves. The other part of it was to be continued seven years from the first of January next. He grounded the necessity of its continuance till this time upon the documents of the Negro-population in the different islands. In many of these, slaves were imported, but they were re-exported nearly in equal numbers. Now all these he considered to be in a state to go on without future supplies from Africa. Jamaica and the ceded islands retained almost all the slaves imported into them. This he considered as a proof that these had not attained the same desirable state; and it was therefore necessary, that the trade should be continued longer on this account.

It was his intention, however, to provide proper punishments, while it lasted, for abuses both in Africa and the Middle Passage. He would take care, as far as he could, that none but young slaves should be brought from the Coast of Africa. He would encourage establishments there for a new species of traffic. Foreign nations should be invited to concur in the abolition. He should propose a praedial rather than a personal service for the West Indies, and institutions, by which the slaves there should be instructed in religious duties. He concluded by reading several resolutions, which he would leave to the future consideration of the House.

Mr. Pitt then rose. He deprecated the resolutions altogether. He denied also the inferences, which Mr. Dundas had drawn from the West-Indian documents relative to the Negro-population. He had looked over his own calculations from the same documents again and again, and he would submit them, with all their data, if it should be necessary, to the House.

Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. Fox held the same language. They contended also, that Mr. Dundas had now proved, a thousand times more strongly than ever, the necessity of immediate abolition. All the resolutions he had read were operative against his own reasoning. The latter observed, that the Slave-traders were in future only to be allowed to steal innocent children from their disconsolate parents.

After a few observations by Lord Sheffield, Mr. Drake, Colonel Tarleton, and Mr. Rolle, the House adjourned.

On the twenty-fifth of April it resumed the consideration of the subject. Mr. Dundas then went over his former resolutions, and concluded by moving, "that it should not be lawful to import any African Negros into any British colonies, in ships owned or navigated by British subjects, at any time after the first of January 1800."

Lord Mornington (now Marquis Wellesley) rose to propose an amendment. He congratulated his countrymen, that the Slave-trade had received its death-wound. This traffic was founded in injustice; and between right and wrong there could be no compromise. Africa was not to be sacrificed to the apparent good of the West-Indies. He would not repeat those enormities out of the evidence, which had made such a deep impression upon the House. It had been resolved, that the trade should be abolished. The question then was, how long they were to persevere in the crime of its continuance. One had said, that they might be unjust for ten years longer; another, only till the beginning of the next century. But this diversity of opinion had proceeded from an erroneous statement of Mr. Dundas against the clear and irrefragable calculations of Mr. Pitt. The former had argued, that, because Jamaica and the ceded islands had retained almost all the slaves which had been imported into them, they were therefore not yet in a situation to support their population without further supplies from Africa. But the truth was, that the slaves, so retained, were kept, not to maintain the population there, but to clear new land. Now the House had determined, that the trade was not to be continued for this purpose. The population, therefore, in the islands was sufficient to continue the ordinary cultivation of them.

He deprecated the idea, that the Slave-trade had been so sanctioned by the acts of former parliaments, that the present could make no alteration in it. Had not the House altered the import of foreign sugar into our islands? a measure, which at the time affected the property of many. Had they not prohibited the exports of provisions from America to the same quarter? Again, as to compacts, had the Africans ever been parties to these? It was rather curious also, when King James the Second gave a charter to the slave-traders, that he should have given them a right to all the south of Africa, and authority over every person born therein! But, by doing this, it was clear, that he gave them a right which he never possessed himself. After many other observations, he concluded by moving, "that the year 1793 be substituted in the place of the year 1800."

In the course of the debate, which followed, Mr. Burdon stated his conviction of the necessity of immediate abolition; but he would support the amendment, as the shortest of the terms proposed.

Mr. Robert Thornton would support it also, as the only choice left him. He dared not accede to a motion, by which we were to continue for seven years to imbrue our hands in innocent blood.

Mr. Ryder would not support the trade for one moment, if he could avoid it. He could not hold a balance with gold in one scale, and blood in the other.

Mr. William Smith exposed the wickedness of restricting the trade to certain ages. The original motion, he said, would only operate as a transfer of cruelty from the aged and the guilty to the young and the innocent. He entreated the House to consider, whether, if it related to their own children, any one of them would vote for it.

Mr. Windham had hitherto felt a reluctance to speaking, not from the abstruseness, but from the simplicity, of the subject; but he could not longer be silent, when he observed those arguments of policy creeping again out of their lurking-places, which had fled before eloquence and truth. The House had clearly given up the policy of the question. They had been determined by the justice of it. Why were they then to be troubled again with arguments of this nature? These, if admitted, would go to the subversion of all public as well as private morality. Nations were as much bound as individuals to a system of morals, though a breach in the former could not be so easily punished. In private life morality took pretty good care of itself. It was a kind of retail article, in which the returns were speedy. If a man broke open his neighbour's house, he would feel the consequences. There was an ally of virtue, who rendered it the interest of individuals to be moral, and he was called the executioner. But as such punishment did not always await us in our national concerns, we should substitute honour as the guardian of our national conduct. He hoped the West-Indians would consider the character of the mother-country, and the obligations to national as well as individual justice. He hoped also they would consider the sufferings, which they occasioned both in Africa, in the passage, and in the West-Indies. In the passage indeed no one was capable of describing them. The section of the slave-ship, however, made up the deficiency of language, and did away all necessity of argument, on this subject. Disease there had to struggle with the new affliction of chains and punishment. At one view were the irksomeness of a gaol, and the miseries of an hospital; so that the holds of these vessels put him in mind of the regions of the damned. The trade, he said, ought immediately to be abolished. On a comparison of the probable consequences of the abolition of it, he saw on one side only doubtful contingencies, but on the other shame and disgrace.

Sir James Johnstone contended for the immediate abolition of the trade. He had introduced the plough into his own plantation in the West Indies, and he found the land produced more sugar than when cultivated in the ordinary way by slaves. Even for the sake of the planters, he hoped the abolition would not be long delayed.

Mr. Dundas replied: after which a division took place. The number of votes in favour of the original motion were one hundred and fifty-eight, and for the amendment one hundred and nine.

On the 27th of April the House resumed the subject. Mr. Dundas moved, as before, that the Slave-trade should cease in the year 1800; upon which Lord Mornington moved, that the year 1795 should be substituted for the latter period.

In the course of the debate, which followed, Mr. Hubbard said, that he had voted against the abolition, when the year 1793 was proposed; but he thought that, if it were not to take place till 1795, sufficient time would be allowed the planters. He would support this amendment; and he congratulated the House on the prospect of the final triumph of truth, humanity, and justice.

Mr. Addington preferred the year 1796 to the year 1795.

Mr. Alderman Watson considered the abolition in 1796 to be as destructive as if it were immediate.

A division having taken place, the number of votes in favour of the original motion were one hundred and sixty-one, and in favour of Lord Mornington's amendment for the year 1795, one hundred and twenty-one. Sir Edward Knatchbull, however, seeing that there was a disposition in the House to bring the matter to a conclusion, and that a middle line would be preferred, moved that the year 1796 should be substituted for the year 1800. Upon this the House divided again; when there appeared for the original motion only one hundred and thirty-two, but for the amendment one hundred and fifty-one.

The gradual abolition having been now finally agreed upon for the year 1796, a committee was named, which carried the resolution to the Lords.

On the eighth of May, the Lords were summoned to consider it. Lord Stormont, after having spoken for some time, moved, that they should hear evidence upon it. Lord Grenville opposed the motion on account of the delay, which would arise from an examination of the witnesses by the House at large: but he moved that such witnesses should be examined by a committee of the House. Upon this a debate ensued, and afterwards a division; when the original motion was carried by sixty-three against thirty-six.

On the 15th of May the Lords met again. Evidence was then ordered to be summoned in behalf of those interested in the continuance of the trade. At length it was introduced; but on the fifth of June, when only seven persons had been examined, a motion was made and carried, that the farther examinations should be postponed to the next session.



CHAPTER V.

Continuation from July 1792 to July 1793—Author travels round the kingdom again—Motion to renew the resolution of the last year in the Commons—Motion lost—New Motion in the Commons to abolish the foreign Slave-trade—Motion lost—Proceedings of the Lords.

The resolution adopted by the Commons, that the trade should cease in 1796, was a matter of great joy to many; and several, in consequence of it, returned to the use of sugar. The committee, however, for the abolition did not view it in the same favourable light. They considered it as a political manoeuvre to frustrate the accomplishment of the object. But the circumstance, which gave them the most concern, was the resolution of the Lords to hear evidence. It was impossible now to say, when the trade would cease. The witnesses in behalf of the merchants and planters had obtained possession of the ground; and they might keep it, if they chose, even till the year 1800, to throw light upon a measure which was to be adopted in 1796. The committee found too, that they had again the laborious task before them of finding out new persons to give testimony in behalf of their cause; for some of their former witnesses were dead, and others were out of the kingdom; and unless they replaced these, there would be no probability of making out that strong case in the Lords, which they had established in the Commons. It devolved therefore upon me once more to travel for this purpose: but as I was then in too weak a state to bear as much fatigue as formerly, Dr. Dickson relieved me, by taking one part of the tour, namely, that to Scotland, upon himself.

These journeys we performed with considerable success; during which the committee elected Mr. Joseph Townsend of Baltimore, in Maryland, an honorary and corresponding member.

Parliament having met, Mr. Wilberforce, in February 1793, moved, that the House resolve itself into a committee of the whole House on Thursday next, to consider of the circumstances of the Slave-trade. This motion was opposed by Sir William Yonge, who moved, that this day six months should be substituted for Thursday next. A debate ensued: of this, however, as well as of several which followed, I shall give no account; as it would be tedious to the reader to hear a repetition of the same arguments. Suffice it to say, that the motion was lost by a majority of sixty-one to fifty-three.

This sudden refusal of the House of Commons to renew their own vote of the former year gave great uneasiness to the friends of the cause. Mr. Wilberforce, however, resolved, that the session should not pass without an attempt to promote it in another form; and accordingly, on the fourteenth of May, he moved for leave to bring in a bill to abolish that part of the Slave-trade, by which the British merchants supplied foreigners with slaves. This motion was opposed like the former; but was carried by a majority of seven. The bill was then brought in; and it passed its first and second reading with little opposition; but on the fifth of June, notwithstanding the eloquence of Mr. Pitt and of Mr. Fox, and the very able speeches of Mr. Francis, Mr. Courtenay, and others, it was lost by a majority of thirty-one to twenty-nine.

In the interval between these motions the question experienced in the Lords considerable opposition. The Duke of Clarence moved that the House should not proceed in the consideration of the Slave-trade till after the Easter recess. The Earl of Abingdon was still more hostile afterwards. He deprecated the new philosophy. It was as full of mischief as the Box of Pandora. The doctrine of the abolition of the Slave-trade was a species of it; and he concluded by moving, that all further consideration of the subject be postponed. To the epithet, then bestowed upon the abolition of it by this nobleman, the Duke of Clarence added those of fanatics and hypocrites! among whom he included Mr. Wilberforce by name. All the other Lords, however, who were present, manifested such a dislike to the sentiments of the Earl of Abingdon, that he withdrew this motion.

After this the hearing of evidence on the resolution of the House of Commons was resumed; and seven persons were examined before the close of the session.



CHAPTER VI.

Continuation from July 1793 to July 1794—Author travels round the kingdom again—Motion to abolish the foreign Slave-trade renewed in the Commons—and carried—but lost in the Lords—further proceedings there—Author, on account of his declining health, obliged to retire from the cause.

The committee for the abolition could not view the proceedings of both Houses of Parliament on this subject during the year 1793, without being alarmed for the fate of their question. The only two sources of hope, which they could discover, were in the disposition then manifested by the peers as to the conduct of the Earl of Abingdon, and in their determination to proceed in the hearing of evidence. The latter circumstance indeed was the more favourable, as the resolution, upon which the witnesses were to be examined, had not been renewed by the Commons. These considerations, however, afforded no solid ground for the mind to rest upon. They only broke in upon it, like faint gleams of sunshine, for a moment, and then were gone. In this situation the committee could only console themselves by the reflection, that they had done their duty. In looking, however, to their future services, one thing, and only one, seemed practicable; and this was necessary; namely, to complete the new body of evidence, which they had endeavoured to form in the preceding year. The determination to do this rendered another journey on my part indispensable; and I undertook it, broken down us my constitution then was, beginning it in September 1793, and completing it in February 1794.

Mr. Wilberforce, in this interval, had digested his plan of operations; and accordingly, early in the session of 1794, he asked leave to renew his former bill, to abolish that part of the trade, by means of which British merchants supplied foreigners with slaves. This request was opposed by Sir William Yonge; but it was granted, on a division of the House, by a majority of sixty-three to forty votes.

When the bill was brought in, it was opposed by the same member; upon which the House divided; and there appeared for Sir William Yonge's amendment thirty-eight votes, but against it fifty-six.

On a motion for the recommitment of the bill, Lord Sheffield divided the House, against whose motion there was a majority of forty-two. And, on the third reading of it, it was opposed again; but it was at length carried.

The speakers against the bill were; Sir William Yonge, Lord Sheffield, Colonel Tarleton, Alderman Newnham, and Mr. Payne, Este, Lechmere, Cawthorne, Jenkinson, and Dent. Those who spoke in favour of it were; Mr. Pitt, Fox, William Smith, Whitbread, Francis, Burdon, Vaughan, Barham, and Serjeants Watson and Adair.

While the foreign Slave-bill was thus passing its stages in the Commons, Dr. Horsley, bishop of Rochester, who saw no end to the examinations, while the witnesses were to be examined at the bar of the House of Lords, moved, that they should be taken in future before a committee above-stairs. Dr. Porteus, bishop of London, and the Lords Guildford, Stanhope, and Grenville, supported this motion. But the Lord Chancellor Thurlow, aided by the Duke of Clarence, and by the Lords Mansfield, Hay, Abingdon, and others, negatived it by a majority of twenty-eight.

At length the bill itself was ushered into the House of Lords. On reading it a second time, it was opposed by the Duke of Clarence, Lord Abingdon, and others. Lord Grenville and the Bishop of Rochester declined supporting it. They alleged, as a reason, that they conceived the introduction of it to have been improper pending the inquiry on the general subject of the Slave-trade. This declaration brought up the Lords Stanhope and Lauderdale, who charged them with inconsistency as professed friends of the cause. At length the bill was lost. During these discussions the examination of the witnesses was resumed by the Lords; but only two of them were heard in this session[A].

[Footnote A: After this the examinations wholly dropped in the House of Lords.]

After this decision the question was in a desperate state; for if the Commons would not renew their own resolution, and the Lords would not abolish the foreign part of the Slave-trade, What hope was there, of success? It was obvious too, that in the former House, Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas voted against each other. In the latter, the Lord Chancellor Thurlow opposed every motion in favour of the cause. The committee therefore were reduced to this;—either they must exert themselves without hope, or they must wait till some change should take place in their favour. As far as I myself was concerned, all exertion was then over. The nervous system was almost shattered to pieces. Both my memory and my hearing failed me. Sudden dizziness seized my head. A confused singing in the ears followed me, wherever I went. On going to bed the very stairs seemed to dance up and down under me, so that, misplacing my foot, I sometimes fell. Talking too, if it continued but half an hour, exhausted me, so that profuse perspirations followed; and the same effect was produced even by an active exertion of the mind for the like time. These disorders had been brought on by degrees in consequence of the severe labours necessarily attached to the promotion of the cause. For seven years I had a correspondence to maintain with four hundred persons with my own hand. I had some book or other annually to write in behalf of the cause. In this time I had travelled more than thirty-five thousand miles in search of evidence, and a great part of these journeys in the night. All this time my mind had been on the stretch. It had been bent too to this one subject; for I had not even leisure to attend to my own concerns. The various instances of barbarity, which had come successively to my knowledge within this period, had vexed, harassed, and afflicted it. The wound, which these had produced, was rendered still deeper by those cruel disappointments before related, which arose from the reiterated refusal of persons to give their testimony, after I had travelled hundreds of miles in quest of them. But the severest stroke was that inflicted by the persecution, begun and pursued by persons interested in the continuance of the trade, of such witnesses as had been examined against them; and whom, on account of their dependent situation in life, it was most easy to oppress. As I had been the means of bringing these forward on these occasions, they naturally came to me, when thus persecuted, as the author of their miseries and their ruin. From their supplications and wants it would have been ungenerous and ungrateful to have fled[A]. These different circumstances, by acting together, had at length brought me into the situation just mentioned; and I was therefore obliged, though very reluctantly, to be borne out of the field, where I had placed the great honour and glory of my life.

[Footnote A: The late Mr. Whitbread, to whom one day in deep affliction on this account I related accidentally a circumstance of this kind, generously undertook, in order to make my mind easy upon the subject, to make good all injuries, which should in future arise to individuals from such persecution; and he repaired these, at different times, at a considerable expense. I feel it a duty to divulge this circumstance, out of respect to the memory of one of the best of men, and of one, whom, if the history of his life were written, it would appear to have been an extraordinary honour to the country to have produced.]



CHAPTER VII.

Continuation from July 1794 to July 1799—Various motions within this period.

I purpose, though it may seem abrupt after the division which has hitherto been made of the contents of this volume, to throw the events of the next five years into one chapter.

Mr. Wilberforce and the members of the committee, whose constitutions had not suffered like my own, were still left; and they determined to persevere in the promotion of their great object; as long as their health and their faculties permitted them. The former, accordingly, in the month of February 1795, moved in the House of Commons for leave to bring in a bill for the abolition of the Slave-trade. This motion was then necessary, if, according to the resolution of that House, the Slave-trade was to cease in 1796. It was opposed, however, by Sir William Yonge, and unfortunately lost by a majority of seventy-eight to fifty-seven.

In the year 1796 Mr. Wilberforce renewed his efforts in the Commons. He asked leave to bring in a bill for the abolition of the Slave-trade, but in a limited time. The motion was opposed as before; but on a division, there were for it ninety-three, and against it only sixty-seven.

The bill having been brought in, was opposed in its second reading; but it was carried through it by a majority of sixty-four to thirty-one.

In a future stage it was opposed again; but it triumphed by a majority of seventy-six to thirty-one. Mr. Eliott was then put into the chair. Several clauses were adopted; and the first of March 1797 was fixed for the abolition of the trade: but in the next stage of it, after a long speech from Mr. Dundas, it was lost by a majority of seventy-four against seventy.

Mr. Francis, who had made a brilliant speech in the last debate, considering that nothing effectual had been yet done on this great question, and wishing that a practical beginning might be made, brought forward soon afterwards, a motion relative to the improvement of the condition of the slaves in the West Indies. This, after a short debate, was negatived without a division. Mr. William Smith also moved an address to His Majesty, that he would be pleased to give directions to lay before the House copies of the several acts relative to regulations in behalf of the slaves, passed by the different colonial assemblies since the year 1788. This motion was adopted by the House. Thus passed away the session of 1796.

In the year 1797, while Mr. Wilberforce was deliberating upon the best measure for the advancement of the cause, Mr. C. Ellis came forward with a new motion. He began by declaring, that he agreed with the abolitionists as to their object; but he differed with them as to the mode of attaining it. The Slave-trade he condemned as a cruel and pernicious system; but, as it had become an inveterate evil, he feared it could not be done away all at once, without injury to the interests of numerous individuals, and even to the Negros themselves. He concluded by moving an address to His Majesty, humbly requesting, that he would give directions to the governors of the West Indian islands, to recommend it to the colonial assemblies to adopt such measures as might appear to them best calculated to ameliorate the condition of the Negros, and thereby to remove gradually the Slave-trade; and likewise to assure His Majesty of the readiness of this House to concur in any measure to accelerate this desirable object. This motion was seconded by Mr. Barham. It was opposed, however, by Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Pitt, and others; but was at length carried by a majority of ninety-nine to sixty-three.

In the year 1798 Mr. Wilberforce asked leave to renew his former bill, to abolish the Slave-trade within a limited time. He was supported by Mr. Canning, Mr. Hobhouse, Sir Robert Buxton, Mr. Bouverie, and others. Mr. Sewell, Bryan Edwards, Henniker, and C. Ellis, took the opposite side of the question. Mr. Ellis, however, observed, that he had no objection to restricting the Slave-trade to plantations already begun in the colonies; and Mr. Barham professed himself a friend to the abolition, if it could be accomplished in a reasonable way. On a division, there appeared to be for Mr. Wilberforce's motion eighty-three, but against it eighty-seven.

In the year 1799 Mr. Wilberforce, undismayed by these different disappointments, renewed his motion. Colonel M. Wood, Mr. Petrie, and others, among whom were Mr. Windham and Mr. Dundas, opposed it. Mr. Pitt, Fox, W. Smith, Sir William Dolben, Sir R. Milbank, Mr. Hobhouse, and Mr. Canning, supported it. Sir R. Milbank contended, that modifications of a system fundamentally wrong ought not to be tolerated by the legislature of a free nation. Mr. Hobhouse said, that nothing could be so nefarious as this traffic in blood. It was unjust in its principle. It was cruel in its practice. It admitted of no regulation whatever. The abolition of it was called for equally by morality and sound policy. Mr. Canning exposed the folly of Mr. Dundas, who had said, that as Parliament had in the year 1787 left the abolition to the colonial assemblies, it ought not to be taken out of their hands. This great event, he observed, could only be accomplished in two ways; either by these assemblies, or by the Parliament of England. Now the members of the assembly of Jamaica had professed, that they would never abolish the trade. Was it not therefore idle to rely upon them for the accomplishment of it? He then took a very comprehensive view of the arguments, which had been offered in the course of the debate, and was severe upon the planters in the House, who, he said, had brought into familiar use certain expressions, with no other view than to throw a veil over their odious system. Among these was—their right to import labourers. But never was the word "labourers" so prostituted, as when it was used for slaves. Never was the word "right" so prostituted, not even when The Rights of Man were talked of, as when the right to trade in man's blood was asserted by the members of an enlightened assembly. Never was the right of importing these labourers worse defended than when the antiquity of the Slave-trade, and its foundation on antient acts of parliament, were brought forward in its support. We had been cautioned not to lay our unhallowed hands on the antient institution of the Slave-trade; nor to subvert a fabric, raised by the wisdom of our ancestors, and consecrated by a lapse of ages. But on what principles did we usually respect the institutions of antiquity? We respected them when we saw some shadow of departed worth and usefulness; or some memorial of what had been creditable to mankind. But was this the case with the Slave-trade? Had it begun in principles of justice or national honour, which the changes of the world alone had impaired? had it to plead former services and glories in behalf of its present disgrace? In looking at it we saw nothing but crimes and sufferings from the beginning—nothing but what wounded and convulsed our feelings—nothing but what excited indignation and horror. It had not even to plead what could often be said in favour of the most unjustifiable wars. Though conquest had sometimes originated in ambition, and in the worst of motives, yet the conquerors and the conquered were sometimes blended afterwards into one people; so that a system of common interest arose out of former differences. But where was the analogy of the cases? Was it only at the outset that we could trace violence and injustice on the part of the Slave-trade? Were the oppressors and the oppressed so reconciled, that enmities ultimately ceased?—No. Was it reasonable then to urge a prescriptive right, not to the fruits of an antient and forgotten evil, but to a series of new violences; to a chain of fresh enormities; to cruelties continually repeated; and of which every instance inflicted a fresh calamity, and constituted a separate and substantial crime?

The debate being over, the House divided; when it appeared that there were for Mr. Wilberforce's motion seventy-four, but against it eighty-two.

The motion for the general abolition of the Slave-trade having been thus lost again in the Commons, a new motion was made there soon after, by Mr. Henry Thornton, on the same subject. The prosecution of this traffic on certain parts of the coast of Africa had become so injurious to the new settlement at Sierra Leone, that not only its commercial prospects were impeded, but its safety endangered. Mr. Thornton therefore brought in a bill to confine the Slave-trade within certain limits. But even this bill, though it had for its object only to free a portion of the coast from the ravages of this traffic, was opposed by Mr. Gascoyne, Dent, and others. Petitions also were presented against it. At length, after two divisions, on the first of which there were thirty-two votes to twenty-seven, and on the second thirty-eight to twenty-two, it passed through all its stages.

When it was introduced into the Lords the petitions were renewed against it. Delay also was interposed to its progress by the examination of witnesses. It was not till the fifth of July that the matter was brought to issue. The opponents of the bill at that time were, the Duke of Clarence, Lord Westmoreland, Lord Thurlow, and the Lords Douglas and Hay, the two latter being Earls of Morton and Kinnoul in Scotland. The supporters of it were Lord Grenville, who introduced it; Lord Loughborough; Holland; and Dr. Horsley, bishop of Rochester. The latter was peculiarly eloquent. He began his speech by arraigning the injustice and impolicy of the trade: injustice, he said, which no considerations of policy could extenuate; impolicy, equal in degree to its injustice.

He well knew that the advocates for the Slave-trade had endeavoured to represent the project for abolition as a branch of jacobinism; but they, who supported it, proceeded upon no visionary motives of equality or of the imprescriptible rights of man. They strenuously upheld the gradations of civil society: but they did indeed affirm that these gradations were, both ways, both as they ascended and as they descended, limited. There was an existence of power, to which no good king would aspire; and there was an extreme condition of subjection, to which man could not be degraded without injustice; and this they would maintain was the condition of the African, who was torn away into slavery.

He then explained the limits of that portion of Africa, which the bill intended to set apart as sacred to peace and liberty. He showed that this was but one-third of the coast; and therefore that two-thirds were yet left for the diabolical speculations of the slave-merchants. He expressed his surprise that such witnesses as those against the bill should have been introduced at all. He affirmed that their oaths were falsified by their own log-books; and that from their own accounts the very healthiest of their vessels were little better than pestilential gaols. Mr. Robert Hume, one of these witnesses, had made a certain voyage. He had made it in thirty-three days. He had shipped two hundred and sixty-five slaves, and he had lost twenty-three of them. If he had gone on losing his slaves, all of whom were under twenty-five years of age, at this rate, it was obvious, that he would have lost two hundred and fifty-three of them, if his passage had lasted for a year. Now in London only seventeen would have died, of that age, out of one thousand within the latter period.

After having exposed the other voyages of Mr. Hume in a similar manner, he entered into a commendation of the views of the Sierra Leone company; and then defended the character of the Africans in their own country, as exhibited in the Travels of Mr. Mungo Park. He made a judicious discrimination with respect to slavery, as it existed among them. He showed that this slavery was analogous to that of the heroic and patriarchal ages; and contrasted it with the West Indian in an able manner.

He adverted, lastly, to what had fallen from the learned counsel, who had supported the petitions of the slave-merchants. One of them had put this question to their lordships, "if the Slave-trade were as wicked as it had been represented, why was there no prohibition of it in the holy scriptures?" He then entered into a full defence of the scriptures on this ground, which he concluded by declaring that, as St. Paul had coupled men-stealers with murderers, he had condemned the Slave-trade in one of its most productive modes, and generally in all its modes:—and here it was worthy of remark, that the word used by the apostle on this occasion, and which had been translated men-stealers, should have been rendered slave-traders. This was obvious from the Scholiast of Aristophanes, whom he quoted. It was clear therefore that the Slave-trade, if murder was forbidden, had been literally forbidden also.

The learned counsel too had admonished their lordships, to beware how they adopted the visionary projects of fanatics. He did not know in what direction this shaft was shot; and he cared not. It did not concern him. With the highest reverence for the religion of the land, with the firmest conviction of its truth, and with the deepest sense of the importance of its doctrines, he was proudly conscious, that the general shape and fashion of his life bore nothing of the stamp of fanaticism. But he begged leave, in his turn, to address a word of serious exhortation to their lordships. He exhorted them to beware, how they were persuaded to bury, under the opprobrious name of fanaticism, the regard which they owed to the great duties of mercy and justice, for the neglect of which (if they should neglect them) they would be answerable at that tribunal, where no prevarication of witnesses could misinform the judge; and where no subtlety of an advocate, miscalling the names of things, putting evil for good and good for evil, could mislead his judgement.

At length the debate ended: when the bill was lost by a majority of sixty-eight to sixty-one, including personal votes and proxies.

I cannot conclude this chapter without offering a few remarks. And, first, I may observe, as the substance of the debates has not been given for the period which it contains, that Mr. Wilberforce, upon whom too much praise cannot be bestowed for his perseverance from year to year, amidst the disheartening circumstances which attended his efforts, brought every new argument to bear, which either the discovery of new light or the events of the times produced. I may observe also, in justice to the memories of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, that there was no debate within this period, in which they did not take a part; and in which they did not irradiate others from the profusion of their own light: and, thirdly, that in consequence of the efforts of the three, conjoined with those of others, the great cause of the abolition was secretly gaining ground. Many members who were not connected with the trade, but who had yet hitherto supported it, were on the point of conversion. Though the question had oscillated backwards and forwards, so that an ordinary spectator could have discovered no gleam of hope at these times, nothing is more certain, than that the powerful eloquence then displayed had smoothed the resistance to it; had shortened its vibrations; and had prepared it for a state of rest.

With respect to the West Indians themselves, some of them began to see through the mists of prejudice, which had covered them. In the year 1794, when the bill for the abolition of the foreign Slave-trade was introduced, Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Barham supported it. They called upon the planters in the House to give way to humanity, where their own interests could not be affected by their submission. This indeed may be said to have been no mighty thing; but it was a frank confession of the injustice of the Slave-trade, and the beginning of the change which followed, both with respect to themselves and others.

With respect to the old friends of the cause, it is with regret I mention, that it lost the support of Mr. Windham within this period; and this regret is increased by the consideration, that he went off on the avowed plea of expediency against moral rectitude; a doctrine, which, at least upon this subject, he had reprobated for ten years. It was, however, some consolation, as far as talents were concerned, (for there can be none for the loss of virtuous feeling,) that Mr. Canning, a new member, should have so ably supplied his place.

Of the gradual abolitionists, whom we have always considered as the most dangerous enemies of the cause, Mr. Jenkinson (now Lord Hawkesbury), Mr. Addington (now Lord Sidmouth), and Mr. Dundas (now Lord Melville), continued their opposition during all this time. Of the first two I shall say nothing at present; but I cannot pass over the conduct of the latter. He was the first person, as we have seen, to propose the gradual abolition of the Slave-trade; and he fixed the time for its cessation on the first of January 1800. His sincerity on this occasion was doubted by Mr. Fox at the very outset; for he immediately rose and said, that "something so mischievous had come out, something so like a foundation had been laid for preserving, not only for years to come, but for any thing he knew for ever, this detestable traffic, that he felt it his duty immediately to deprecate all such delusions upon the country." Mr. Pitt, who spoke soon afterwards, in reply to an argument advanced by Mr. Dundas, maintained, that "at whatever period the House should say that the Slave-trade should actually cease, this defence would equally be set up; for it would be just as good an argument in seventy years hence, as it was against the abolition then." And these remarks Mr. Dundas verified in a singular manner within this period: for in the year 1796, when his own bill, as amended in the Commons, was to take place, he was one of the most strenuous opposers of it; and in the year 1799, when in point of consistency it devolved upon him to propose it to the House, in order that the trade might cease on the first of January 1800, (which was the time of his own original choice, or a time unfettered by parliamentary amendment,) he was the chief instrument of throwing out Mr. Wilberforce's bill, which promised even a longer period to its continuance: so that it is obvious, that there was no time, within his own limits, when the abolition would have suited him, notwithstanding his profession, "that he had always been a warm advocate for the measure."



CHAPTER VIII.

Continuation from July 1799 to July 1805—Various motions within this period.

The question had now been brought forward in almost every possible way, and yet had been eventually lost. The total and immediate abolition had been attempted; and then the gradual. The gradual again had been tried for the year 1793, then for 1795, and then for 1796, at which period it was decreed, but never allowed to be executed. An abolition of a part of the trade, as it related to the supply of foreigners with slaves, was the next measure proposed; and when this failed, the abolition of another part of it, as it related to the making of a certain portion of the coast of Africa sacred to liberty, was attempted; but this failed also. Mr. Wilberforce therefore thought it prudent, not to press the abolition as a mere annual measure, but to allow members time to digest the eloquence, which had been bestowed upon it for the last five years, and to wait till some new circumstances should favour its introduction. Accordingly he allowed the years 1800, 1801, 1802, and 1803 to pass over without any further parliamentary notice than the moving for certain papers; during which he took an opportunity of assuring the House, that he had not grown cool in the cause, but that he would agitate it in a future session.