On the sixteenth of March, on the motion of Lord Henry Petty, the question was put, that the bill be read a third time. Mr. Hibbert, Captain Herbert, Mr. T.W. Plomer, Mr. Windham, and Lord Castlereagh spoke against the motion. Sir P. Francis, Mr. Lyttleton, Mr. H. Thornton, and Mr. Barham, Sheridan, and Wilberforce supported it. After this the bill was passed without a division[A].

[Footnote A: S. Lushington, esq. M.P. for Yarmouth, gave his voluntary attendance and assistance to the Committee, during all these motions, and J. Bowdler, esquire, was elected a member of it.]

On Wednesday, the eighteenth, Lord Howick, accompanied by Mr. Wilberforce and others, carried the bill to the Lords. Lord Grenville, on receiving it, moved that it should be printed, and that, if this process could be finished by Monday, it should be taken into consideration on that day. The reason of this extraordinary haste was, that His Majesty, displeased with the introduction of the Roman-catholic officers' bill into the Commons, had signified his intention to the members of the existing administration, that they were to be displaced.

The uneasiness, which, a few days before, had sprung up among the friends of the abolition, on the report that this event was probable, began now to show itself throughout the kingdom. Letters were written from various parts, manifesting the greatest fear and anxiety on account of the state of the bill, and desiring answers of consolation. Nor was this state of the mind otherwise than what might have been expected upon such an occasion; for the bill was yet to be printed—Being an amended one, it was to be argued again in the Lords—It was then to receive the royal assent—All these operations implied time; and it was reported that the new ministry[A] was formed; among whom were several, who had shown a hostile disposition to the cause.

[Footnote A: The only circumstance, which afforded comfort at this time, was that the honourable Spencer Perceval and Mr. Canning were included in it, who were warm patrons of this great measure.]

On Monday, the twenty-third, the House of Lords met. Such extraordinary diligence had been used in printing the bill, that it was then ready. Lord Grenville immediately brought it forward. The Earl of Westmoreland and the Marquis of Sligo opposed it. The Duke of Norfolk and the Bishop of Llandaff (Dr. Watson) supported it. The latter said, that this great act of justice would be recorded in heaven. The amendments were severally adopted without a division. But here an omission of three words was discovered, namely, "country, territory, or place," which, if not rectified, might defeat the purposes of the bill. An amendment was immediately proposed and carried. Thus the bill received the last sanction of the Peers. Lord Grenville then congratulated the House on the completion, on its part, of the most glorious measure, that had ever been adopted by any legislative body in the world.

The amendment, now mentioned, occasioned the bill to be sent back to the Commons. On the twenty-fourth, on the motion of Lord Howick, it was immediately taken into consideration there, and agreed to; and it was carried back to the Lords, as approved of, on the same day.

But though the bill had now passed both houses, there was an awful fear throughout the kingdom, lest it should not receive the royal assent before the ministry was dissolved. This event took place the next day; for on Wednesday the twenty-fifth, at half past eleven in the morning; His Majesty's message was delivered to the different members of it, that they were then to wait upon him to deliver up the seals of their offices. It then appeared that a commission for the royal assent to this bill among others had been obtained. This commission was instantly opened by the Lord Chancellor (Erskine), who was accompanied by the Lords Holland and Auckland; and as the clock struck twelve, just when the sun was in its meridian splendour to witness this august Act, this establishment of a Magna Charta for Africa in Britain, and to sanction it by its most vivid and glorious beams, it was completed. The ceremony being over, the seals of the respective offices were delivered up; so that the execution of this commission was the last act of the administration of Lord Grenville; an administration, which, on account of its virtuous exertions in behalf of the oppressed African race, will pass to posterity, living through successive generations, in the love and gratitude of the most virtuous of mankind.

Thus ended one of the most glorious contests, after a continuance for twenty years, of any ever carried on in any age or country. A contest, not of brutal violence, but of reason. A contest between those, who felt deeply for the happiness and the honour of their fellow-creatures, and those, who, through vicious custom and the impulse of avarice, had trampled under-foot the sacred rights of their nature, and had even attempted to efface all title to the divine image from their minds.

Of the immense advantages of this contest I know not how to speak. Indeed, the very agitation of the question, which it involved, has been highly important. Never was the heart of man so expanded. Never were its generous sympathies so generally and so perseveringly excited. These sympathies, thus called into existence, have been useful in the preservation of a national virtue. For any thing we know, they may have contributed greatly to form a counteracting balance against the malignant spirit, generated by our almost incessant wars during this period, so as to have preserved us from barbarism.

It has been useful also in the discrimination of moral character. In private life it has enabled us to distinguish the virtuous from the more vicious part of the community[A]. It has shown the general philanthropist. It has unmasked the vicious in spite of his pretension to virtue. It has afforded us the same knowledge in public life. It has separated the moral statesman from the wicked politician. It has shown us who, in the legislative and executive offices of our country are fit to save, and who to destroy, a nation.

[Footnote A: I have had occasion to know many thousand persons in the course of my travels on this subject; and I can truly say, that the part, which these took on this great question, was always a true criterion of their moral character. Some indeed opposed the abolition, who seemed to be so respectable, that it was difficult to account for their conduct; but it invariably turned out in a course of time, either that they had been influenced by interested motives, or that they were not men of steady moral principle. In the year 1792, when the national enthusiasm was so great, the good were as distinguishable from the bad, according to their disposition to this great cause, as if the divine Being had marked them; or, as a friend of mine the other day observed, as we may suppose the sheep to be from the goats on the day of judgment.]

It has furnished us also with important lessons. It has proved what a creature man is! how devoted he is to his own interest! to what a length of atrocity he can go, unless fortified by religious principle! But as if this part of the prospect would be too afflicting, it has proved to us, on the other hand, what a glorious instrument he may become in the hands of his Maker; and that a little virtue, when properly leavened, is made capable of counteracting the effects of a mass of vice!

With respect to the end obtained by this contest, or the great measure of the abolition of the Slave-trade as it has now passed, I know not how to appreciate its importance. To our own country, indeed, it is invaluable. We have lived, in consequence of it, to see the day, when it has been recorded as a principle in our legislation, that commerce itself shall have its moral boundaries. We have lived to see the day, when we are likely to be delivered from the contagion of the most barbarous opinions. They, who supported this wicked traffic, virtually denied, that man was a moral being. They substituted the law of force for the law of reason. But the great Act now under our consideration, has banished the impious doctrine, and restored the rational creature to his moral rights. Nor is it a matter of less pleasing consideration, that, at this awful crisis, when the constitutions of kingdoms are on the point of dissolution, the stain of the blood of Africa is no longer upon us, or that we have been freed (alas, if it be not too late!) from a load of guilt, which has long hung like a mill-stone about our necks, ready to sink us to perdition.

In tracing the measure still further, or as it will affect other lands, we become only the more sensible of its importance: for can we pass over to Africa; can we pass over to the numerous islands, the receptacles of miserable beings from thence; and can we call to mind the scenes of misery, which have been passing in each of these regions of the earth, without acknowledging, that one of the greatest sources of suffering to the human race has, as far as our own power extends, been done away? Can we pass over to these regions again, and contemplate the multitude of crimes, which the agency necessary for keeping up the barbarous system produced, without acknowledging, that a source of the most monstrous and extensive wickedness has been removed also? But here, indeed, it becomes us peculiarly to rejoice; for though nature shrinks from pain, and compassion is engendered in us when we see it become the portion of others, yet what is physical suffering compared with moral guilt? The misery of the oppressed is, in the first place, not contagious like the crime of the oppressor. Nor is the mischief, which it generates, either so frightful or so pernicious. The body, though under affliction, may retain its shape; and, if it even perish, what is the loss of it but of worthless dust? But when the moral springs of the mind are poisoned, we lose the most excellent part of the constitution of our nature, and the divine image is no longer perceptible in us. Nor are the two evils of similar duration. By a decree of Providence, for which we cannot be too thankful, we are made mortal. Hence the torments of the oppressor are but temporary; whereas the immortal part of us, when once corrupted, may carry its pollutions with it into another world.

But independently of the quantity of physical suffering and the innumerable avenues to vice in more than a quarter of the globe, which this great measure will cut off, there are yet blessings, which we have reason to consider as likely to flow from it. Among these we cannot overlook the great probability, that Africa, now freed from the vicious and barbarous effects of this traffic, may be in a better state to comprehend and receive the sublime truths of the Christian religion. Nor can we overlook the probability, that, a new system of treatment necessarily springing up in our islands, the same bright sun of consolation may visit her children there. But here a new hope rises to our view. Who knows but that emancipation, like a beautiful plant, may, in its due season, rise out of the ashes of the abolition of the Slave-trade, and that, when its own intrinsic value shall be known, the seed of it may be planted in other lands? And looking at the subject in this point of view, we cannot but be struck with the wonderful concurrence of events as previously necessary for this purpose, namely, that two nations, England and America, the mother and the child, should, in the same month of the same year, have abolished this impious traffic; nations, which at this moment have more than a million of subjects within their jurisdiction to partake of the blessing; and one of which, on account of her local situation and increasing power, is likely in time to give, if not law, at least a tone to the manners and customs of the great continent, on which she is situated.

Reader! Thou art now acquainted with the history of this contest! Rejoice in the manner of its termination! And, if thou feelest grateful for the event, retire within thy closet, and pour out thy thanksgivings to the Almighty for this his unspeakable act of mercy to thy oppressed fellow-creatures.



THE END.



TABLE OF CONTENTS.



VOL. I.

CHAP. 1. INTRODUCTION—Estimate of the evil of the Slave-trade—and of the blessing of the Abolition of it—Usefulness of the contemplation of this subject

CHAP. 2. Those, who favoured the cause of the Africans previously to 1787, were so many necessary forerunners in it—Cardinal Ximenes—and others

CHAP. 3. Forerunners continued to 1787—divided now into four classes—First consists of persons in England of various descriptions, Godwyn, Baxter, and others

CHAP. 4. Second, of the Quakers in England, George Fox, and his religious descendants

CHAP. 5. Third, of the Quakers in America—Union of these with individuals of other religious denominations in the same cause

CHAP. 6. Facility of junction between the members of these three different classes

CHAP. 7. Fourth consists of Dr. Peckard—then of the Author—Author wishes to embark in the cause—falls in with several of the members of these classes

CHAP. 8. Fourth class continued—Langton—Baker—and others—Author now embarks in the cause as a business of his life

CHAP. 9. Fourth class continued—Sheldon—Mackworth—and others—Author seeks for further information on the subject—and visits Members of Parliament

CHAP. 10. Fourth class continued—Author enlarges his knowledge—Meeting at Mr. Wilberforce's—Remarkable junction of all the four classes, and a Committee formed out of them, in May 1787, for the Abolition of the Slave-trade

CHAP. 11. History of the preceding classes, and of their junction, shown by means of a map

CHAP. 12. Author endeavours to do away the charge of ostentation in consequence of becoming so conspicuous in this work

CHAP. 13. Proceedings of the Committee—Emancipation declared to be no part of its object—Wrongs of Africa by Mr. Roscoe

CHAP. 14. Author visits Bristol to collect information—Ill usage of seamen in the Slave-trade—Articles of African produce—Massacre at Calebar

CHAP. 15. Mode of procuring and paying seamen in that trade—their mortality in it—Construction and admeasurement of Slave-ships—Difficulty of procuring evidence—Cases of Gardiner and Arnold

CHAP. 16. Author meets with Alexander Falconbridge—visits ill-treated and disabled seamen—takes a mate out of one of the Slave-vessels—and puts another in prison for murder

CHAP. 17. Visits Liverpool—Specimens of African produce—Dock-duties—Iron-instruments used in the traffic—His introduction to Mr. Norris

CHAP. 18. Manner of procuring and paying seamen at Liverpool in the Slave-trade—their treatment and mortality—Murder of Peter Green—Dangerous situation of the Author in consequence of his inquiries

CHAP. 19. Author proceeds to Manchester—delivers a discourse there on the subject of the Slave-trade—revisits Bristol—New and difficult situation—suddenly crosses the Severn at night—returns to London

CHAP. 20. Labours of the Committee during the Author's journey—Mr. Sharp elected chairman—Seal engraved—Letters from different correspondents to the Committee

CHAP. 21. Further labours of the Committee to February 1788—List of new Correspondents

CHAP. 22. Progress of the cause to the middle of May—Petitions to Parliament—Author's interviews with Mr. Pitt and Mr. Grenville—Privy council inquire into the subject—examine Liverpool-delegates—Proceedings of the Committee for the abolition—Motion and debate in the House of Commons—Discussion of the general question postponed to the next session

CHAP. 23. Progress to the middle of July—Bill to diminish the horrors of the Middle Passage—Evidence examined against it—Debates—Bill passed through both Houses—Proceedings of the Committee, and effects of them.



VOL. II.

CHAP. 1. Continuation from June 1758 to July 1739—Author travels in search of fresh evidence—Privy council resume their examinations—prepare their report—Proceedings of the Committee for the abolition—and of the Planters and others—Privy council report laid on the table of the House of Commons—Debate upon it—Twelve propositions—Opponents refuse to argue from the report—Examine new evidence of their own in the House of Commons—Renewal of the Middle Passage-Bill—Death and character of Ramsay

CHAP. 2. Continuation from July 1789 to July 1790—Author travels to Paris to promote the abolition in France—His proceedings there—returns to England—Examination of opponents' evidence resumed in the Commons—Author travels in quest of new evidence on the side of the abolition—This, after great opposition, introduced—Renewal of the Middle Passage-Bill—Section of the Slave-ship—Cowper's Negro's Complaint—Wedgwood's Cameos.

CHAP. 3. Continuation from July 1790 to July 1791—Author travels again—Examinations on the side of the abolition resumed in the Commons—List of those examined—Cruel circumstances of the times—Motion for the abolition of the trade—Debates—Motion lost—Resolutions of the Committee—Sierra Leone Company established

CHAP. 4. Continuation from July 1791 to July 1792—Author travels again—People begin to leave off sugar—Petition Parliament—Motion renewed in the Commons—Debates—Abolition resolved upon, but not to commence till 1796—The Lords determine upon hearing evidence on the resolution—This evidence introduced—Further hearing of it postponed to the next session

CHAP. 5. Continuation from July 1792 to July 1793—Author travels again—Motion to renew the Resolution of the last year in the Commons—Motion lost—New motion to abolish the foreign Slave-trade—Motion lost—Proceedings of the Lords

CHAP. 6. Continuation from July 1793 to July 1794—Author travels again—Motion to abolish the foreign Slave-trade renewed and carried—but lost in the Lords—Further proceedings there—Author, on account of declining health, obliged to retire from the cause

CHAP. 7. Continuation from July 1794 to July 1799—Various motions within this period

CHAP. 8. Continuation from July 1799 to July 18O5—Various motions within this period

CHAP. 9. Continuation from July 1805 to July 1806—Author, restored, joins the Committee again—Death of Mr. Pitt—Foreign Slave-trade abolished—Resolution to take measures for the total abolition of the trade—Address to the King to negotiate with foreign powers for their concurrence in it—Motion to prevent new vessels going into the trade—all these carried through both Houses of Parliament

CHAP. 10. Continuation from July 1806 to July 1807—Death of Mr. Fox—Bill for the total abolition carried in the Lords—Sent from thence to the Commons—amended, and passed there, and sent back to the Lords—receives the royal assent—Reflections on this great event

THE END