the Bachelor’s Prize Essay, the question, Is it allowable to enslave men
without their consent? Thomas Clarkson, who had gained the prize in the
preceding year, again became a candidate. Conceiving that the thesis,
though couched in general terms, had an especial reference to the
African Slave Trade, he went to London to make inquiries on the subject.
Investigation brought under his view a mass of cruelties and
abominations, which engrossed his thoughts and shocked his imagination.
By night and day they haunted him; and he has described in lively
colours the intense pain which this composition, undertaken solely in
the spirit of honourable rivalry, inflicted on him. He gained the prize,
but found it impossible to discard the subject from his thoughts. In the
succeeding autumn, after great struggles of mind, he resolved to give up
his plan for entering the Church, and devoted time, health and substance
(to use his own words) to “seeing these calamities to an end.” In
sketching the progress of this great measure, the name of Wilberforce
alone will be presented to view; and it is our duty therefore, in the
first place, to make honourable mention of him who roused Wilberforce in
the cause, and whose athletic vigour and indomitable perseverance
surmounted danger, difficulties, fatigues, and discouragements, which
few men could have endured, in the first great object of collecting
evidence of the cruelties habitually perpetrated in the Slave Trade.
In the first stage of his proceedings, Mr. Clarkson, in the course of
his application to members of Parliament, called on Mr. Wilberforce, who
stated, that “the subject had often employed his thoughts, and was near
his heart.” He inquired into the authorities for the statements laid
before him, and became, not only convinced of, but impressed with, the
paramount duty of abolishing so hateful a traffic. Occasional meetings
of those who were alike interested were held at his house; and in May,
1787, a committee was formed, of which Wilberforce became the
Parliamentary leader. Early in 1788 he gave notice of his intention to
bring the subject before the House: but owing to his severe
indisposition that task was ultimately undertaken by Mr. Pitt, who moved
and carried a resolution, pledging the House in the ensuing session to
enter on the consideration of the subject. Accordingly, May 12, 1789,
Mr. Wilberforce moved a series of resolutions, founded on a report of
the Privy Council, exposing the iniquity and cruelty of the traffic in
slaves, the mortality which it occasioned among white as well as black
men, and the neglect of health and morals by which the natural increase
of the race in our West India islands was checked; and concluding with a
declaration, that if the causes were removed by which that increase was
checked, no considerable inconvenience would result from discontinuing
the importation of African slaves. Burke, Pitt, and Fox supported the
resolutions. Mr. Wilberforce’s speech was distinguished by eloquence and
earnestness, and by its unanswerable appeals to the first principles of
justice and religion. The consideration of the subject was ultimately
adjourned to the following session. In that, and in two subsequent
sessions, the motions were renewed, and the effect of pressing such a
subject upon the attention of the country was to open the eyes of many
who would willingly have kept them closed, yet could not deny the
existence of the evils so forced on their view. In 1792 Mr.
Wilberforce’s motion for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was met by a
proposal to insert in it the word “gradually;” and in pursuance of the
same policy, Mr. Dundas introduced a bill to provide for its
discontinuance in 1800. The date was altered to 1796, and in that state
the bill passed the Commons, but was stopped in the Upper House by a
proposal to hear evidence upon it. Mr. Wilberforce annually renewed his
efforts, and brought every new argument to bear upon the question, which
new discoveries, or the events of the times, produced. In 1799 the
friends of the measure resolved on letting it repose for a while, and
for five years Mr. Wilberforce contented himself with moving for certain
papers; but he took an opportunity of assuring the House that he had not
grown cool in the cause, and that he would renew the discussion in a
future session. On the 30th of May, 1804, he once more moved for leave
to bring in his bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in a speech
of great eloquence and effect. He took the opportunity of making a
powerful appeal to the Irish members, before whom, in consequence of the
Union, this question was now for the first time brought, and the greater
part of whom supported it. The division showed a majority of 124 to 49
in his favour; and the bill was carried through the Commons, but was
again postponed in the House of Lords. In 1805 he renewed his motion,
but on this occasion it was lost in the Commons by over-security among
the friends of the measure. But when Mr. Fox and Lord Grenville took
office in 1806, the Abolition was brought forward by the ministers, most
of whom supported it, though it was not made a government question in
consequence of several members of the cabinet opposing it. The Attorney
General (Sir A. Pigott) brought in a bill which was passed into a law,
prohibiting the Slave Trade in the conquered colonies, and excluding
British subjects from engaging in the foreign Slave Trade; and Mr. Fox,
at Mr. Wilberforce’s special request, introduced a resolution pledging
the House to take the earliest measures for effectually abolishing the
whole Slave Trade: this resolution was carried by a majority of 114 to
15; and January 2, 1807, Lord Grenville brought forward a bill for the
Abolition of the Slave Trade, in the House of Lords, which passed safely
through both Houses of Parliament. As however the King was believed to
be unfriendly to the measure, some alarm was felt by its friends, lest
its fate might still be affected by the dismissal of the ministers,
which had been determined upon. Those fears were groundless; for though
they received orders to deliver up the seals of their offices on the
25th of March, the royal assent was given by commission by the Lord
Chancellor Erskine on the same day; and thus the last act of the
administration was to conclude a contest, maintained by prejudice and
interest during twenty years, for the support of what Mr. Pitt
denominated “the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted the human
race.”
Among other testimonies to Mr. Wilberforce’s merits, we are not inclined
to omit that of Sir James Mackintosh, who in his journal, May 23, 1808,
speaks thus of Wilberforce on the “Abolition.” This refers to a pamphlet
on the Slave Trade which Mr. Wilberforce had published in 1806. “Almost
as much enchanted by Mr. Wilberforce’s book as by his conduct. He is the
very model of a reformer. Ardent without turbulence, mild without
timidity or coolness, neither yielding to difficulties, nor disturbed or
exasperated by them; patient and meek, yet intrepid; persisting for
twenty years through good report and evil report; just and charitable
even to his most malignant enemies; unwearied in every experiment to
disarm the prejudices of his more rational and disinterested opponents,
and supporting the zeal, without dangerously exciting the passions, of
his adherents.”
The rest of Mr. Wilberforce’s parliamentary conduct was consistent with
his behaviour on this question. In debates chiefly political he rarely
took a forward part: but where religion and morals were directly
concerned, points on which few cared to interfere, and where a leader
was wanted, he never shrunk from the advocacy of his opinions. He was a
supporter of Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform; he
condemned the encouragement of gambling, in the shape of lotteries
established by Government; he insisted on the cruelty of employing boys
of tender age as chimney sweepers; he attempted to procure a legislative
enactment against duelling, after the hostile meeting between Pitt and
Tierney; and on the renewal of the East India Company’s charter in 1816,
he gave his zealous support to the propagation of Christianity in
Hindostan, in opposition to those who, as has been more recently done in
the West Indies, represented the employment of missionaries to be
inconsistent with the preservation of our empire. It is encouraging to
observe, that with the exception of the one levelled against duelling,
all these measures, however violently opposed and unfairly censured,
have been carried in a more or less perfect form.
As an author, Mr. Wilberforce’s claim to notice is chiefly derived from
his treatise entitled A Practical View of the prevailing religious
system of professing Christians in the higher and middle classes in this
country, contrasted with Real Christianity. The object of it was to show
that the standard of life generally adopted by those classes, not only
fell short of, but was inconsistent with, the doctrines of the Gospel.
It has justly been applauded as a work of no common courage, not from
the asperity of its censures, for it breathes throughout a spirit of
gentleness and love, but on the joint consideration of the unpopularity
of the subject and the writer’s position. The Bishop of Calcutta, in his
introductory essay, justly observes, that “the author in attempting it
risked every thing dear to a public man and a politician, as
such—consideration, weight, ambition, reputation.” And Scott, the
divine, one of the most fearless and ardent of men, viewed the matter in
the same light, for he wrote, “Taken in all its probable effects, I do
sincerely think such a stand for vital Christianity has not been made in
my memory. He has come out beyond my expectations.” Of a work so
generally known we shall not describe the tendency more at large. It is
said to have gone through about twenty editions in Britain, since the
publication in 1797, and more in America; and to have been translated
into most European languages.
In the discharge of his parliamentary duties Mr. Wilberforce was
punctual and active beyond his apparent strength: and those who further
recollect his diligent attendance on a vast variety of public meetings
and committees connected with religious and charitable purposes, will
wonder how a frame naturally weak should so long have endured the wear
of such exertion. In 1788, when his illness was a matter of deep concern
to the Abolitionists, Dr. Warren said that he had not stamina to last a
fortnight. No doubt his bodily powers were greatly aided by the placid
and happy frame of mind which he habitually enjoyed: but it is important
to relate his own opinion, as delivered by an ear-witness, on the
physical benefits which he derived from a strict abstinence from
temporal affairs on Sundays. “I have often heard him assert that he
never could have sustained the labour and stretch of mind required in
his early political life, if it had not been for the rest of his
Sabbath: and that he could name several of his contemporaries in the
vortex of political cares, whose minds had actually given way under the
stress of intellectual labour, so as to bring on a premature death, or
the still more dreadful catastrophe of insanity and suicide, who,
humanly speaking, might have been preserved in health, if they would but
conscientiously have observed the Sabbath.” (Venn’s Sermon.)
In 1797 Mr. Wilberforce married Miss Spooner, daughter of an eminent
banker at Birmingham. Four sons survive him. He died, after a gradual
decline, July 29, 1833, in Cadogan Place. He directed that his funeral
should be conducted without the smallest pomp; but his orders were
disregarded in compliance with a requisition addressed to his relatives
by many of the most distinguished men of all parties, and couched in the
following terms:—“We, the undersigned Members of both Houses of
Parliament, being anxious, upon public grounds, to show our respect for
the memory of the late William Wilberforce, and being also satisfied
that public honours can never be more fitly bestowed than upon such
benefactors of mankind, earnestly request that he may be buried in
Westminster Abbey, and that we, and others who may agree with us in
these sentiments, may have permission to attend his funeral.” The
attendance of both Houses was numerous. Mr. Wilberforce was interred
within a few yards of his great contemporaries Pitt, Fox, and Canning.
Among the other honours paid to his memory may be mentioned the York
meeting, held October 3, 1833, at which it was resolved to erect a
public memorial in testimony of the high estimation in which Mr.
Wilberforce’s character and services were held by men of all parties:
and further, “that it is advisable (if the sum raised be adequate) to
found a benevolent institution, of a useful description, in this
country, and to put up a tablet to the memory of Mr. Wilberforce; but
should the subscriptions be insufficient to accomplish such an object,
that they should be applied to the erection of a monument.” An asylum
for the indigent blind has in consequence been founded. At Hull a
monument has likewise been erected to his memory by public subscription;
and a statue by Joseph is about to be placed in Westminster Abbey, also
by subscription, the surplus of the fund thus raised being reserved for
founding an institution congenial to his principles, as soon as it shall
be sufficient for the purpose.
No fitting life of Mr. Wilberforce has yet appeared. A short memoir,
from the pen of a friend, appeared in the Christian Advocate, August 5,
1833; which we believe may be relied on for accuracy, and which seems to
form the basis of other memoirs in the periodical publications. The
funeral sermons of Messrs. Brown, Scott, and Venn contain some
interesting anecdotes, which are told on good authority.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._
BLACK.
_From a Print by Ja^s. Heath, after a Picture by Raeburn._
Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.
_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]
[Illustration]
DR BLACK.
Joseph Black was born in 1728, near Bourdeaux in France, where his
father, a native of Ireland, but of Scottish extraction, who was engaged
in the wine trade, then resided. In 1740 young Black was sent home to
receive the rudiments of education at a grammar-school in Belfast.
Thence he went, in 1746, to Glasgow, and having chosen the profession of
medicine, proceeded in that university with the preliminary studies.
At that period, Dr. Cullen had just entered on the then untrodden paths
of philosophical chemistry in his lectures, at which Black was an
assiduous attendant. He soon formed an intimacy with his instructor,
with whom he associated himself in the toils of the laboratory. It was
here that he laid the foundation of his future attainments and
discoveries, in an accurate and practical knowledge of the science as
far as it then reached, and above all in the cultivation of habits of
precise and cautious inductive investigation.
In 1750 he removed to Edinburgh to complete his medical course; and it
was in connexion with the important inquiries belonging to that
department that he made his first discoveries in chemistry.
His first object of research was one which possessed high medical as
well as chemical interest:—the nature and properties of magnesia. This
substance had hitherto been confounded with lime: Dr. Black first showed
it to be characterized by peculiar properties which demonstrate its
distinct nature as a separate species of earth. The second point of his
investigation was the difference between mild and caustic alkalis,
between limestone and quick-lime, common and calcined magnesia, &c. The
whole of this subject was at that period involved in complete obscurity.
Dr. Black showed by simple and decisive experiments the real condition
of these substances, and indicated the general law by which they are
governed, viz.:—that the difference consists merely in the combination
of the simple earth or alkali with a peculiar air, which is driven off
by heat, and which was called _fixed air_ by him, and _carbonic acid
gas_ by later chemists. He did not however prosecute the inquiry into
the nature and properties of this gas. This discovery supplied the
foundation on which all subsequent researches and theories have been
built. He gave an account of these investigations in an inaugural
dissertation, composed as an exercise on taking his Doctor’s degree, and
in a paper entitled Experiments on Magnesia Alba, &c., first published
in the Edinburgh Physical and Literary Essays in 1755.
It was almost immediately after the publication of these researches that
Dr. Cullen was elected Professor of Chemistry at Edinburgh. The
reputation which Dr. Black had now acquired pointed him out as the
proper person to succeed to the vacant chair at Glasgow, to which he was
accordingly appointed in 1756. His department included chemistry and
medicine; and he also practised as a physician. His lectures soon became
highly popular from the clearness of his style and method, and the
beauty and simplicity of his experimental illustrations. He did not
however prosecute his inquiries, in that particular department of
chemistry, in which he had already had so much success. But in another
branch of science his power of original research was signally displayed.
The relations of bodies to heat, especially in connexion with the
changes of state they undergo, was a subject which had hitherto excited
hardly any notice; and though some effects were such as might have been
supposed obvious, still no one had as yet reasoned on them, or
understood their nature.
It is a characteristic of great genius to find important matter of
reflection in objects which the vulgar pass by as too common to excite
notice, and Dr. Black having remarked some very common facts with regard
to heat, was conducted to those great discoveries on which his celebrity
rests:—that of _latent heat_, and that of _specific heat_; which last
term is, in fact, only another mode of expressing the same principle.
This great truth, the foundation of all our determinate ideas of the
causes of those diversities of physical condition which the same mass of
matter is capable of assuming, seems to have suggested itself to the
mind of the discoverer about the year 1757.
After the invention of the thermometer, it had been among the earliest
facts observed that changes in the state of bodies, such as boiling,
freezing, melting, &c., take place always at certain fixed temperatures
as indicated by the thermometer; and at a different degree of the scale,
for each different substance. And several of these remarkable points
came by custom to be marked upon the thermometric scale.
When however it was said that water always boiled at 212° of Fahrenheit,
or froze at 32°, &c., it was not meant that the mass would boil or
freeze the instant the thermometer reached that point. It was supposed
that a certain increase or diminution of temperature (as the case might
be) was necessary for the production of the effect beyond that precise
point; though that point marked, as it were, the commencement of the
process. The views generally entertained on this subject were however so
vague, that it is difficult to make out precisely what was imagined to
take place; but it seems to have been supposed, that a very slight
accession or loss of heat was sufficient completely to accomplish the
change.
Such were the notions which prevailed on the subject prior to the
commencement of Dr. Black’s researches. No one advanced, or seemed to
have any desire to advance, a step nearer to the truth: yet the whole
was a mere question of fact, and a fact of the most obvious nature. In
this we cannot fail to observe one of those instructive instances, which
the history of science often brings before us, of the unaccountable
blindness, even of inquiring minds, to truths constantly before their
eyes, or, if perceived, to the importance of their being thoroughly
examined. A very little consideration ought to have shown any observer,
that the gain or loss of heat in the cases in question is by no means
slight or trifling in amount: yet no one thought of this till Dr. Black
pointed it out; and no one reasoned upon it, or perceived its bearing,
till that philosopher showed the curious inference to be drawn from it.
The case was simply this:—Two equal vessels, one full of water just at
the freezing temperature, the other of actual ice, are brought into a
warm room. In a short time the water acquires the temperature of the
room. Exactly the same quantity of heat has been communicated to the
vessel of ice; yet, at the end of the same time, it is found to retain
precisely the same temperature as at first. A considerable part of it
indeed has been melted, but it may take several hours more to melt the
whole. Until that change is completed, the temperature does not vary a
single degree. As soon as all the ice is liquefied, and not before, the
temperature of the mass begins to rise, and proceeds to increase, from
this time, as rapidly as that of the water in the other vessel did
before, until it acquires the temperature of the room.
What then, Dr. Black enquired, becomes of the heat which has been all
along given to the vessel of ice? Heat has been communicated to it as
well as to the other vessel; yet it has not been employed in raising the
temperature, but in some way has been expended in converting the ice
into water. It is but this simple fact otherwise stated, when we say
that the heat so imparted has _disappeared_ as heat of temperature; but
may it not have been destroyed or annihilated? To reply to this question
we have only to consider that the same vessel of water, cooled nearly to
the freezing point, and then exposed to a much greater degree of cold,
must, by the same rule, continue parting with its excess of temperature
above that of the colder bodies around it. Yet a thermometer immersed in
it continues invariably at 32° till the whole has become ice; it then
will sink to the lower temperature, but not before. Thus there must be
within it a continued supply of _heat_ in order to keep it up to 32° all
the time.
Is not this a sufficient answer to the question just proposed? Adopt any
theory you please respecting the nature of heat: suppose a material
substance, or conceive an effect, or quality, or a series of vibrations;
in any case, what is apparently lost in the former case is regained in
the latter. Without sacrifice of accuracy we may affirm, in any sense,
that the heat which had disappeared in the process of thawing has
re-appeared in the process of congealing. Moreover, the most exact
thermometric observations showed the _amount_ in the two cases to be the
same. Thus, without reference to any particular theory of the nature of
heat, Dr. Black was justified in asserting that a certain portion of
heat becomes _latent_ in the water; and that it owes its fluid state to
this latent heat.
We have here referred only to one class of these phenomena; to one
particular application of the general law. Similar results take place
when water boils: the boiler receives as much heat from the fire during
the time requisite to raise it to 212° as it does during the next equal
portion of time; but its temperature (in an open vessel) will not rise
beyond that point. Here then again a quantity of heat has disappeared;
but the water is converted into vapour. Collect the vapour in a cold
receiver; it produces a high degree of heat, and is re-condensed into
the form of water.
The heat then, whatever it be, Dr. Black inferred, is latent in the
steam. It is not destroyed; it disappears as temperature, but under
other circumstances it can be made to re-appear: it is therefore merely
concealed, or dormant for the time; and no term can be so proper to
describe its condition as _latent heat_.
Analogous facts are presented by all other bodies which have been
subjected to examination. Whenever a change of state from the aëriform
to the liquid, or from the solid to the liquid takes place, a
corresponding evolution or absorption of heat accompanies it. Every
research of experimenters on this subject, since Dr. Black, has
contributed fresh instances confirming the universality of this great
law of nature.
A solid body then requires a certain portion of heat to be thrown into
it, in order to melt, or convert it into a liquid: and the liquid again
requires a similar supply to evaporate it into steam, or convert it into
an elastic fluid state; and this portion of heat produces no influence
on the temperature of the body. The reverse is true of the reverse
processes. The quantity of heat so absorbed or given out is different in
different bodies.