THE HISTORY OF THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE ABOLITION
OF THE SLAVE-TRADE, BY THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT
BY THOMAS CLARKSON, M.A.
1839
[Illustration: Thomas Clarkson]
* * * * *
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM, LORD GRENVILLE,
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES, EARL GREY,
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE FRANCIS, EARL MOIRA,
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE GEORGE JOHN, EARL SPENCER,
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HENRY RICHARD, LORD HOLLAND,
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS, LORD ERSKINE,
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EDWARD, LORD ELLENBOROUGH,
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD HENRY PETTY,
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS GRENVILLE,
* * * * *
NINE OUT OF TWELVE OF HIS MAJESTY'S LATE CABINET MINISTERS,
TO WHOSE WISE AND VIRTUOUS ADMINISTRATION BELONGS
THE UNPARALLELED AND ETERNAL GLORY
OF THE ANNIHILATION,
AS FAR AS THEIR POWER EXTENDED,
OF ONE OF THE GREATEST SOURCES OF CRIMES AND SUFFERINGS,
EVER RECORDED IN THE ANNALS OF MANKIND;
AND TO THE MEMORIES OF
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM PITT,
AND OF
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES JAMES FOX,
UNDER WHOSE FOSTERING INFLUENCE
THE GREAT WORK WAS BEGUN AND PROMOTED;
THIS HISTORY
OF
THE RISE, PROGRESS, AND ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE
TRADE,
IS RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED.
* * * * *
CONTENTS
PREFATORY REMARKS ON THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY
CHAPTER I 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
CHAPTER II Those, who favoured the cause of the Africans
previously to 1787, were so many necessary forerunners in
it.--Cardinal Ximenes; and others
CHAPTER III Forerunners continued to 1787; divided now into four
classes.--First consists of persons in England of various
descriptions, Godwyn, Baxter, and others
CHAPTER IV Second, of the Quakers in England, George Fox, and
his religious descendants
CHAPTER V Third, of the Quakers in America.--Union of these with
individuals of other religious denominations in the same cause
CHAPTER VI Facility of junction between the members of these
three different classes
CHAPTER VII 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
CHAPTER VIII Fourth class continued; Langton, Baker, and
others.--Author now embarks in the cause as a business of his
life
CHAPTER IX Fourth class continued; Sheldon, Mackworth, and
others.--Author seeks for further information on the subject;
and visits Members of Parliament
CHAPTER X 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.
CHAPTER XI History of the preceding classes, and of their
junction, shown by means of a map.
CHAPTER XII Author endeavours to do away the charge of
ostentation in consequence of becoming so conspicuous in this
work.
CHAPTER XIII Proceedings of the Committee; Emancipation declared
to be no part of its object.--Wrongs of Africa by Mr. Roscoe.
CHAPTER XIV Author visits Bristol to collect
information.--Ill-usage of seamen in the Slave Trade.--Articles
of African produce.--Massacre at Calabar.
CHAPTER XV 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.
CHAPTER XVI 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.
CHAPTER XVII Visits Liverpool.--Specimens of African
produce.--Dock duties.--Iron instruments used in the
traffic.--His introduction to Mr. Norris.
CHAPTER XVIII 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.
CHAPTER XIX Author proceeds to Manchester; delivers a discourse
there on the subject of the Slave Trade.--Revisits Bristol; new
and difficult situation there; suddenly crosses the Severn at
night.--Returns to London.
CHAPTER XX Labours of the Committee during the Author's
journey.--Mr. Sharp elected chairman.--Seal engraved.--Letters
from different correspondents to the Committee.
CHAPTER XXI Further labours of the Committee to February,
1788.--List of new Correspondents.
CHAPTER XXII 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.
CHAPTER XXIII 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.
CHAPTER XXIV Continuation from June, 1788, to July,
1789.--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.
CHAPTER XXV 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_.--Wedgewood's Cameos.
CHAPTER XXVI 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.
CHAPTER XXVII 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
CHAPTER XXVIII 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.--Proceeding of the
Lords
CHAPTER XXIX 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
CHAPTER XXX Continuation from July, 1794, to July,
1799.--Various motions within this period
CHAPTER XXXI Continuation from July, 1799, to July,
1805.--Various motions within this period
CHAPTER XXXII 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
CHAPTER XXXIII 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
Map
Plan and Sections of a Slave Ship
* * * * *
PREFATORY REMARKS
TO
THE PRESENT EDITION.
* * * * *
The invaluable services rendered by Thomas Clarkson to the great
question of the Slave Trade in all its branches, have been universally
acknowledged both at home and abroad, and have gained him a high place
among the greatest benefactors of mankind. The History of the Abolition
which this volume contains, affords some means of appreciating the
extent of his sacrifices and his labours in this cause. But after these,
with the unwearied exertions of William Wilberforce, had conducted its
friends to their final triumph, in 1807, they did not then rest from
their labours. There remained four most important objects, to which the
anxious attention of all Abolitionists was now directed.
_First_,--The law had been passed, forced upon the Planters, the
Traders, and the Parliament, by the voice of the people; and there was a
necessity for keeping a watchful eye over its execution.
_Secondly_,--The statute, however rigorously it might be enforced, left,
of course, the whole amount of the Foreign Slave traffic untouched, and
it was infinitely to be desired that means should be adopted for
extending our Abolition to other nations.
_Thirdly_,--Some compensation was due to Africa, for the countless
miseries which our criminal conduct had for ages inflicted upon her, and
strict justice, to say nothing of common humanity and Christian charity,
demanded that every means should be used for aiding in the progress of
her civilization, and effacing as far as possible the dreadful marks
which had been left upon her by our crimes.
_Lastly,_--Many of those whom we had transported by fraud and violence
from their native country, and still more of the descendants of others
who had fallen a sacrifice to our cruelties, and perished in the course
of nature, slaves in a foreign land, remained to suffer the dreadful
evils of West India bondage. It seemed to follow, that the earliest
opportunity consistent with their own condition, should be taken to free
those unhappy beings, the victims of our sordid cruelty; and all the
more to be pitied, as we were all the more to be blamed, because one
result of our transgression was the having placed them in so unnatural a
position, that their enemies might seem to be furnished with an argument
more plausible than sound, drawn from the Negro's supposed unfitness for
immediate emancipation.
In order to promote these four great objects, a society was formed in
May 1807, called the African Institution, and although, at first, its
labours were chiefly directed to the portion of the subject relating to
Africa, by degrees, as the extinction of the British Slave Trade was
accomplished, its care was chiefly bestowed on West India matters, which
were more within the power of this country than the slave traffic, still
carried on by foreign nations. But it is necessary in the first place,
to recite the measures by which our own share in that enormous crime was
surrendered, and the stigma partially obliterated, which it had brought
upon our national character, Thomas Clarkson bore a forward and
important part in all these useful and virtuous proceedings. His health
was now, by rest among the Lakes of Westmoreland for several years,
comparatively restored and his mind once more bent itself to the
accomplishment of the grand object; of his life, we may he permitted
reverently to suggest, the end of his existence.
Mr. Stephen and others, at first, deemed the certainty of the Act passed
in March 1807, being evaded under the stimulus, and the insurance
against capture afforded by the enormous profits of the traffic, so
clear, that they expected the law to become, almost from the time of its
being enacted, a dead letter. There soon appeared the strongest reasons
to concur in this opinion, the result of long and close observation in
the Islands where Mr. Stephen had passed part of his life. The
slave-dealers knew the risk of penalty and forfeiture which they ran;
but they also knew that if one voyage in three or four was successful,
they were abundantly remunerated for all their losses; and, therefore,
they were no more restrained by the Abolition Act, than by any moderate
increase of the cost or the risk attending their wicked adventures. This
was sure, to be the case, as long as the law only treated slavetrading
as a contraband commerce, subjecting those who drove it to nothing but
pecuniary penalties. But it was equally evident that the same persons
who made these calculations of profit and risk, while they only could
lose the ship or the money by a seizure, would hesitate before they
encountered the hazard of being tried as for a crime. And, surely, if
ever these was an act which deserved to be declared felony, and dealt
with as such, it was this of slave-trading. Accordingly, in 1810, Mr.
Brougham, then a member of the House of Commons, in moving an address to
the crown, (which was unanimously agreed to,) for more vigorous measures
against the traffic, both British and Foreign, gave notice of the Bill,
which he next year carried through Parliament, and which declared the
traffic to be a felony, punishable with transportation. Some years
afterwards it was by another Act made capital, under the name of Piracy,
but this has since been repealed. Several convictions have taken place
under the former Act, (of 1811,) and there cannot be the least doubt
that the law has proved effectual, and that the Slave Trade has long
ceased to exist as far as the British dominions are concerned.
That foreign states continue shamefully to carry it on, is no less
certain. There are yearly transported to Cuba and Brazil, above 100,000
unhappy beings, by the two weakest nations in Europe, and these two most
entirely subject to the influence and even direct control of England.
The inevitable consequence is, that more misery is now inflicted on
Africa by the criminals, gently called Slave-traders, of these two
guilty nations, than if there were no treaties for the abolition of the
traffic. The number required is always carried over, and hence, as many
perish by a miserable death in escaping from the cruisers, as reach
their destination. The recitals of horror which have been made to
Parliament and the country on this dreadful subject, are enough to
curdle the blood in the veins and heart of any one endued with the
common feelings of humanity. The whole system of prevention, or rather
of capture, after the crime has been committed, seems framed with a view
to exasperate the evils of the infernal traffic, to scourge Africa with
more intolerable torments, and to make human blood be spilt like water.
Our cruisers, are excited to an active discharge of their duty, by the
benefit of sharing in the price fetched when the captured ship is
condemned and sold; but this is a small sum, indeed, compared with the
rich reward of head-money held out, being so much for every slave taken
on board. It is thus made the direct interest of these cruisers, that
the vessels should have their human cargoes on board, rather than be
prevented from shipping them. True, this vile policy may prove less
mischievous where no treaty exists, giving a right to seize when there
are no slaves in the vessel, because here a slave ship is suffered to
pass, how clear soever her destination might be; yet, even here, the
inducement to send in boats, and seize as soon as a slave or two may be
on board, is removed, and the cruiser is told, "only let all these
wretched beings be torn from their country, and safely lodged in the
vessel's hold, and your reward is great and sure." Then, whenever there
is an outfit clause, that is a power to seize vessels fitted for the
traffic, this mischievous plan tends directly to make the cruiser let
the slaver make ready and put to sea, or it has no tendency or meaning
at all. Accordingly, the course is for the cruiser to stand out to sea,
and not allow herself to be seen in the offing--the crime is
consummated--the slaves are stowed away--the pirate--captain weighs
anchor--the pirate-vessel freighted with victims, and manned by
criminals fares forth--the cruiser, the British cruiser, gives
chace--and then begin those scenes of horror, surpassing all that the
poet ever conceived, whose theme was the torments of the damned and the
wickedness of the fiends. Casks are filled with the slave, and in these
they are stowed away; or to lighten the vessel, they are flung overboard
by the score; sometimes they are flung overboard in casks, that the
chasing ship may be detained by endeavours to pick them up; the dying
and the dead strew the deck; women giving birth to the fruit of the
womb, amidst the corpses of their husbands and their children; and
other, yet worse and nameless atrocities, fill up the terrible picture,
of impotent justice and triumphant guilt. But the guilt is not all
Spanish and Portuguese. The English Government can enforce its demands
on the puny cabinets of Madrid and Lisbon, scarce conscious of a
substantive existence, in all that concerns our petty interests:
wherever justice and mercy to mankind demand our interference, there our
voice sinks within us, and no sound is uttered. That any treaty without
an outfit clause should be suffered to exist between powers so situated,
is an outrage upon all justice, all reason, all common sense. But one
thing is certain, that unless we are to go further, we have gone too
far, and must in mercy to hapless Africa retrace our steps. Unless we
really put the traffic down with a strong hand, and instantly, we must
instantly repeal the treaties that pretended to abolish it, for these
exacerbate the evil a hundred fold, and are ineffectual to any one
purpose but putting money into the pockets of our men of war. The fact
is as unquestionable, as it is appalling, that all our anxious
endeavours to extinguish the Foreign Slave Trade, have ended in making
it incomparably worse than it was before we pretended to put it down;
that owing to our efforts, there are thrice the number of slaves yearly
torn from Africa; and that wholly because of our efforts, two thirds of
these are murdered on the high seas and in the holds of the pirate
vessels.
It is said, that when these scenes were described to an indignant nation
last session of Parliament, the actual effects of this bad system were
denied, though its tendency could not be disputed.
It was averred that "no British seaman could be capable of neglecting
his duty for the sake of increasing the gains of the station." But
nothing could be more absurd than this. Can the direct and inevitable
tendency of the head-money system be doubted? Are cruisers the only men
over whom motives have no influence? Then why offer a reward at all?
When they want no stimulus to perform their duty, why tell them that if
the ship is empty, they get a hundred pounds: if laden, five thousand?
They know the rules of arithmetic;--they understand the force of
numbers. But, in truth, there is not an individual on all the coast of
Africa who will be misled by such appeals, or suffer all this to divert
them from their purpose of denouncing the system. There are persons high
in rank among the best servants of the crown, who know the facts from
their own observations, and who are ready to bear witness to the truth,
in spite of all the attempts that have been made to silence them.
The other great object of the African Institution regarded the West
Indies. The preparation of the negroes for that freedom which was their
absolute right, and could only be withheld for an hour, on the ground of
their not being prepared for it, and therefore being better without it,
was the first thing to be accomplished. Here the friends of the
abolition, all but Mr. Stephen, suffered a great disappointment. He
alone had uniformly-foretold that the hopes held out, as it seemed very
reasonably, of better treatment resulting from the stoppage of the
supply of hands, were fallacious. All else had supposed that interest
might operate on men whom principle had failed to sway; that they whom
no feelings of compassion for their fellow-creatures could move to do
their duty, might be touched by a feeling of their own advantage, when
interest coincided with duty. The Slave-mart is now closed, it was said;
surely the stock on hand will be saved by all means, and not wasted when
it can no longer be replaced. The argument was purposely rested on the
low ground of regarding human beings as cattle, or even as inanimate
chattels, and it was conceived that human life would be regarded of as
much value as the wear and tear of beasts, of furniture, or of tools.
Hence it was expected that a better system of treatment would follow,
from the law which closed the African market, and warned every planter
that his stock must be spared by better treatment, and kept up by
breeding, since it no longer could be, as it hitherto had been,
maintained by new supplies.
Two considerations were, in these arguments, kept out of view, both of a
practical nature, and both known to Mr. Stephen,--the cultivation of the
Islands by agents having wholly different interests from their masters,
and the gambling spirit of trading and culture which long habit had
implanted in the West Indian nature. The comforts of the slave depended
infinitely more upon the agent on the spot, than the owner generally
resident in the mother country; and though the interest of the latter
might lead to the saving of negro life, and care for negro comforts, the
agent had no such motives to influence his conduct; besides, it was with
the eyes of this agent that the planter must see, and he gave no
credence to any accounts but his. Now the consequence of cruelty is to
make men at war with its objects. No one but a most irritable person
feels angry with his beast, and even the anger of such a person is of a
moment's duration. But towards an inanimate chattel even the most
irritable of sane men can feel nothing like rage. Why? Because in the
one case there is little, in the other no conflict or resistance at all.
It is otherwise with a slave; he is human, and can disobey--can even
resist. This feeling always rankles in his oppressor's bosom, and makes
the tyrannical superior hate, and the more oppress his slave. The agent
on the spot feels thus, and thus acts; nor can the voice of the owner at
a distance be heard, even if interest, clearly proved, were to prompt
another course. But the chief cause of the evil is the spirit of
speculation, and it affects and rules resident owners even more than
absentees. Let sugar rise in price, and all cold calculations of
ultimate loss to the gang are lost in the vehement thirst of great
present gain. All, or nearly all, planters are in distressed
circumstances. They look to the next few years as their time; and if the
sun shines they must make hay. They are in the mine, toiling for a
season, with every desire to escape and realize something to spend
elsewhere. Therefore they make haste to be rich, and care little, should
the speculation answer and much sugar bring in great gain, what becomes
of the gang ten years hence. Add to all this, that any interference of
the local legislatures to discourage sordid or cruel management, to
clothe the slaves with rights, to prepare them for freedom by better
education, to pave the way for emancipation by restraining the master's
power, to create an intermediate State of transition from slavery to
freedom by partial liberty, as by attaching them to the soil, and
placing them in the preparatory state through which our ancestors in
Europe passed from bondage in gross to entire independence--all such
measures were in the absolute discretion; not of the planters, but of
the resident agents, one of the worst communities in the world, who had
little interest in preparing for an event which they deprecated, and
whose feelings of party, as well as individually, were all ranged on the
oppressor's side. All this Mr. Stephen, enlightened by experience, and
wise by long reflection, clearly and alone foresaw; all this vision of
the future was too surely realized by the event. No improvement of
treatment took place; no additional liberality in the supplies was
shown; no abstinence in the exaction of labour appeared; no interference
of the Colonial Legislature to check misconduct was witnessed; far less
was the least disposition perceived to give any rights to the slaves,
any security against oppression, any title independent of his Master,
any intermediate state or condition which might prepare him for freedom.
It is enough to say, that a measure which every man, except Mr. Stephen,
had regarded as the natural, almost the necessary effect of the
abolition--attaching the slaves to the soil--was not so much as
propounded, far less adopted; it may be even said, was never mentioned
in any one local assembly of any of our numerous colonies, during the
thirty years which elapsed between the abolition and the emancipation!
This is unquestionable, and it is decisive.
As soon as it began to be perceived that such was likely to be the
result of the abolition in regard to the emancipation, Mr. Stephen's
authority with his coadjutors, always high, rose in proportion to the
confirmations which the event had lent his predictions; and his zealous
endeavours and unwearied labours for the subversion of the accursed
system became both more extensive and more effectual. If, however,
strict justice requires the tribute which we have paid to this eminent
person's distinguished services, justice also renders it imperative on
the historian of the Abolition in all its branches, to record an error
into which he fell. Having originally maintained that the traffic would
survive the Act of 1807, in which he was right, that Act only imposing
pecuniary penalties, he persisted in the same opinion after the Act of
1811 had made slave-trading a felony; and long after it had been
effectually put down in the British dominions, he continued to maintain
that it was carried on nearly as much as ever, reasoning upon
calculations drawn from the island returns. Hence he insisted upon a
general Registry Act, as essential to prevent the continuance of an
importation which had little or no real existence. The importance of
such a measure was undeniable, with a view to secure the good treatment
of the negroes in the islands; but the extinction of the Slave Trade had
long before been effectually accomplished.
In the efforts to obtain Negro Emancipation, all the Abolitionists were
now prepared to join. The conduct of the Colonial Assemblies having long
shown the fallacy of those expectations which had been entertained of
the good work being done in the islands as soon as the supply of new
hands should be stopped by the Abolition, there remained no longer any
doubt whatever, that the mother country alone could abate a nuisance
hateful in the sight of God and man. Constant opportunities were
therefore offered to agitate this great question, which was taken up by
the enlightened, the humane, and the religious, all over the empire.
The magnitude of the subject was indeed worthy of all the interest it
excited. The destiny of nearly a million of human beings--nay, the
question whether they should be treated as men with rational souls, or
as the beasts which perish--should enjoy the liberty to which all God's
creatures are entitled, as of right, or be harassed, oppressed,
tormented, and stinted, both as regarded bodily food, and spiritual
instruction--whether the colonies should be peopled with tyrants and
barbarians, or inhabited by civilized and improving christian
communities--was one calculated to put in action all the best principles
of our nature, and to move all the noblest feelings of the human heart.
Thomas Clarkson, as far as his means extended, aided this great
excitement. He renewed his committees of correspondence all over the
country; aided by the Society of Friends, his early and steady
coadjutors in this pious work, he recommenced the epistolary intercourse
with the provinces, held for so many hopeless years on the Slave Trade,
but now made far more promising by the victory which had been obtained,
and by the unanimity with which all Abolitionists now were resolved to
procure emancipation. He also recommenced his journeys through the
different parts of the island, and visited in succession part of
Scotland, almost all England, and the whole of Wales, encouraging and
interesting the friends of humanity wherever he went, and forming local
societies and committees for furthering the common object.
But it was, after all, in Parliament that the battle must be fought; and
Mr. Buxton, of whose invaluable services in the House of Commons the
cause has lately been deprived, repeatedly, with the support of Messrs.
Wilberforce, William Smith, Brougham, Lushington, and others, urged the
necessity of interference upon the representatives of a people unanimous
in demanding it; and he repeatedly urged it in vain. The Government
always leaned towards the planter, and the most flimsy excuses were
constantly given for preferring to the effectual measures propounded by
the Abolitionists, the most flimsy of expedients, useless for any one
purpose, save that of making pretences and gaining time.
At length came the great case of the missionary Smith's persecution,
trial, and untimely death, when all the forms of judicature had been
prostituted, all the rules of law broken, all the principles of justice
outraged, by men assuming to sit in judgment as a court of criminal
jurisprudence; and though assisted by legal functionaries, exhibiting
such a spectacle of daring violation of the most received and best known
canons of procedure, as no civilized community ever before were called
upon to endure. This subject was immediately brought before Parliament
by Mr. Brougham, and his motion of censure, which might have been an
impeachment of the governor and the court of Demerara, was powerfully
supported by Mr. Wilberforce, the amiable, eloquent, and venerable
leader of the party, Mr. Denman, Mr. Williams, and Dr. Lushington, but
rejected by a majority of the Commons, whom Mr. Canning led, in a speech
little worthy of his former exertions against the Slave Trade, and far
from being creditable either to his judgment or to his principles. Yet
this memorable debate was of singular service to the cause. The great
speeches delivered were spread through all parts of the country; the
nakedness of the horrid system was exposed; the corruptions as well as
cruelty of slavery were laid bare; the determination of colonies to
protect its worst abuses was demonstrated; necessity of the
mother-country interfering with a strong hand was declared; and even the
loss of the motion showed the people of England how much their own
exertions were still required if they would see slavery extirpated, by
proving that upon them alone the fate of the execrable system hung.
The effects of this great debate cannot be over estimated. The case of
the missionary became the universal topic; The name of the martyred
Smith, the general rallying cry. The superior interest excited by
individual sufferings to any general misery inflicted upon masses of the
people, or any evil, however gigantic, which operates over a large
space, and in a course of time, has always been observed. The remark was
peculiarly applicable in this instance. Although all reflecting men had,
for many long years, been well aware of the evils pervading our colonial
system, and though the iniquity and perverseness of West Indian
judicatures had long been the topic of universal comment, yet this
single case of a persecuted individual falling a victim to those gross
perversions of law and justice which are familiar to the colonial
people, produced an impression far more general and more deep than all
that had ever been written or declaimed against system of West India
slavery; and looking back on the consummation of all our hopes in 1833
and 1838, we at once revert from this auspicious era to that ever
memorable occasion as having laid the solid foundation of our ultimate
triumph.
In this important day, which has thus by its effects proved decisive of
the Emancipation question, Mr. Stephen bore no part. He had long ceased
to adorn and enlighten the House of Commons. His retirement was the
result of honest differences of opinion respecting West India slavery
with his political friends, then in the plenitude of their power. Those
differences caused him to take the noble part, so rarely acted by
politicians, of withdrawing from Parliament rather than lend his great
support to men with whom he differed upon a question admitting no
compromise; and he devoted his exertions in private life to the
furtherance of the cause ever nearest his heart, the publication of his
able and elaborate work on the Colonial Slave Laws was the fruit of his
leisure; and had he never lent any other aid to the Emancipation, this
would alone have placed him high among its most able and effective
supporters. In all the consultations which were held before Mr.
Brougham's motion in 1824, he bore an active and useful part. In pushing
the advantages gained by the debate he was unwearied and successful.
Unhappily it pleased Providence that he should not receive here below
the final reward of his long and valued labours; for he was called to
his final repose some months before the Emancipation Bill passed into a
law.
There remains little to add, except that this measure, which was carried
with little opposition in 1833, owed its success in Parliament to the
ample bribe of twenty millions, by which the acquiescence of the West
Indians was purchased. The measure had hardly come into operation, when
all men perceived that the intermediate state of apprenticeship was
anything rather than a preparation for freedom, and anything rather than
a mitigation of slavery. It is due to some able and distinguished
friends of the negro race to state, that they all along were averse to
this plan of a transition state. Lord Howick, then in the Colonial
Office as Under-Secretary, went so far as to leave the department, from
his dislike of this part of the measure. Mr. Buxton and others protested
against it. Even its friends intimated that they wished the period of
apprenticeship to end in 1838 instead of 1840; but there was a general
belief of the preparatory step being necessary,--a belief apparently
founded on experience of the negro character, and indeed of the vicious
tendency of all slavery, to extinguish the power of voluntary labour, as
well as to make the sudden change to freedom unsafe for the peace of the
community. The fact soon dispersed these opinions. Antigua in a minute
emancipated all her slaves to the number of thirty thousand and upwards.
Not a complaint was ever heard of idleness or indolence; and, far from
any breach of the peace being induced by the sudden change in the
condition of the people, the Christmas of 1833 was the first, for the
last twenty years, that martial law was not proclaimed, in order to
preserve the public peace. Similar evidence from Jamaica and other
islands, proving the industrious and peaceable habits of the
apprentices, showed that there was nothing peculiar in the circumstances
of Antigua.
An important occurrence is now to be recorded as having exercised a
powerful influence upon the question of immediate emancipation. Joseph
Sturge, of Birmingham, a member of the Society of Friends, stricken with
a sense of the injustice perpetrated against the African race, repaired
to the West Indies, in order that he might examine, with his own eyes,
the real state of the question between the two classes. He was
accompanied by John Scoble and Thomas Harvey; and these able, excellent,
and zealous men returned in a few months with such ample evidence of the
effects produced by apprenticeship, and the fitness of the negroes for
liberty, that the attention of the community was soon awakened to the
subject, even more strenuously than it ever before had been; and the
walls of Parliament were soon made once more to ring with the sufferings
of the slave, only emancipated in name, and the injustice of withholding
from him any longer the freedom which was his indefeasible right, as
soon as he was shown capable of enjoying it beneficially for himself and
safely for the rest of the community.
In these transactions, both in Jamaica, where he is one of the largest
planters, and in Parliament, where he is one of the most respected
members, the Marquess of Sligo bore an eminent and an honourable part.
His praise has been justly sounded by all who have supported the cause
of negro freedom, and his conduct was by all admitted to be as much
marked by the disinterested virtue of a good citizen and amiable man, as
it was by the sagacity and ability of an enlightened statesman. Both as
governor of Jamaica, as the owner of slaves whom he voluntarily
liberated, and as a peer of Parliament, his patriotism, his humanity,
and his talents, shone conspicuously through this severe and glorious
struggle. While such was the conduct of those eminent philanthropists,
some difference of opinion prevailed among the other and older leaders
of the cause, chiefly grounded upon doubts whether the arrangement made
by Parliament in 1833, might not be regarded as a compact with the
planters which it would be unjust to violate by terminating their right
to the labour of the apprentices at a period earlier than the one fixed
in the Emancipation Act. A little consideration of the question at issue
soon dispelled those doubts, and removed every obstacle to united
exertion, by restoring entire unanimity of opinion. The slaves, it was
triumphantly affirmed, were no party to the compact. But moreover, the
whole arrangement of the apprenticeship was intended as a benefit to
them, by giving them the preparation thought to be required before they
could, safely for themselves, be admitted to unrestricted freedom,--not
as a benefit to the planters, whose acquiescence was purchased with the
grant of twenty millions. Experience having shown that no preparation at
all was required, it was preposterous to continue the restraint upon
natural liberty an hour longer, as regarded the negroes,--the only party
whom we had any right to consider in the question; and as for the
planters there was the grossest absurdity in further regarding any
interests or any claims of theirs. The arrangement of 1833, as far as
regards the transition or intermediate state, had been made under an
error in fact, an error propagated by the representations of the
masters. That error was now at an end, and an immediate alteration of
the provisions to which it had given rise was thus a matter of strict
justice;--not to mention that the planters had failed to perform their
part of the contract. The Colonial Assemblies had, except in Antigua,
done nothing for the slave in return for the large sum bestowed upon the
West India body. So that in any view there was an end of all pretext for
the further delay of right and justice.
The ground now taken by the whole Abolitionists; therefore, both in and
out of Parliament was, that the two years which remained of the
indentured apprenticeship must immediately be cut off, and freedom given
to the slaves in August, 1838, instead of 1840; The peace of the West
Indian community, and the real interests of the planters, were affirmed
to be as much concerned in this change as the rights of the negroes
themselves. Far from preparing them for becoming peaceable subjects and
contented members of society at the end of their apprenticeship, those
two years of compulsory labour would, it was justly observed, be a
period of heart-burning and discontent between master and servant, which
must, in the mean while, be dangerous to the peace of society, and must
leave, at the end of the time, a feeling of mutual ill-will and
distrust. The question could no longer be kept from the cognizance of
the negro people. Indeed, their most anxious expectations were already
pointed towards immediate liberty, and their strongest feelings were
roused to obtain it.
Of these sentiments the whole community partook; meetings were
everywhere held; petitions crowded the tables of Parliament; the press
poured forth innumerable tracts which were eagerly received; the pulpit
lent its aid to this holy cause; and discussions upon petitions and upon
incidental motions shook the walls of Parliament, while they stimulated
the zeal of the people. The Government adopted an unfortunate course,
which contributed greatly to weaken their hold on the confidence and
affections of the country; they resisted all the motions that were made
on behalf of the slaves, and appeared to regard only the interests of
the master, turning a deaf ear to the arguments of right and of justice.
It was found, during the course of these debates, that a new Slave Trade
had sprung up in the East Indies, with the sanction of an English Order
in Council. Under pretence that hands were wanted to cultivate their
estates, the Demerara planters had obtained permission to import what
they termed, with a delicacy borrowed from the vocabulary of the African
Slave Trade, "labourers" from Asia and from Africa east of the Cape, and
to make them Indentured Apprentices for a term of years. No restrictions
whatever were imposed by this unheard-of Order. No tonnage was required
in proportion to the numbers shipped, no amount of provision, no medical
assistance; no precautions were taken, or so much as thought of, to
prevent kidnapping and fraud, nay, to prevent main force being used in
any part of Eastern Africa, or of all Asia, in carrying on board the
victims of West Indian avarice; in short, a worse Slave Trade than the
African was established, and all the dominions of the East India
Company, with all the African and Asiatic coasts, as yet independent,
were given over to its ravages. This was repeatedly denounced by Lord
Brougham in the House of Lords; and although his motion for rescinding
the order was supported by Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Ellenborough, and Lord
Wharncliffe, the influence of the Government and the planters prevailed,
and the House rejected it. A bill was afterwards brought in to check the
enormities complained of; but no remedy at all effectual is as yet
applied. The official documents, however, proved that already men had
been inveigled on board, by the agents of the Mauritius planters, in
different parts of the East, and that the mortality on that
comparatively short voyage exceeded even the dreadful waste of life
which had characterized, and impressed with marks of horrid atrocity,
the accursed Middle Passage.
This subject, as might well be expected, once more roused the energies
of Thomas Clarkson: he addressed an able and convincing letter to Lord
Brougham, his old friend and coadjutor in the sacred cause; and it was
printed and universally circulated. The subject still remains unsettled:
and the labours of the enlightened philanthropist cannot now be directed
to one more important, or more urgent.
Meanwhile, in the spring of 1838, the question of Immediate Emancipation
was agitated throughout the country. The Government proved hostile.
Immense meetings were held at Exeter Hall, which were attended by many
members of Parliament, over which Lord Brougham presided. Among others
who were present and bore a distinguished part, were certain
representatives of Ireland who promised their strenuous support. It is a
painful duty to add, that their fellow-members from Ireland did not, on
this great occasion, follow their good example; for eleven only of
those, on whose votes reliance had been placed, opposed the Government,
while no less than twenty-seven gave them support.
The question was rejected by the House of Lords, when brought forward by
Lord Brougham; but in spite of the efforts of the Government; the
defalcation of the Irish, of a still greater proportion of the Scotch
representatives, two hundred and seventeen members of the House of
Commons voted for Immediate Abolition, out of four hundred and
eighty-nine who were present on the occasion. A second effort in the
same session placed Ministers in a minority; but they immediately gave
notice, they should strenuously oppose any attempt to carry into
practical effect this decision of the House; and in this determination
they were supported by a majority on a third division.
The word, however, had gone forth all over England, that the _Slave
should be free_. It had not only pervaded Europe, it had reached
America; and the West Indians at length perceived that they could no
longer resist the voice of the British people, when it spoke the accents
of humanity and of justice. The slaves would have met the dawn of the
first of August,--the day which all the motions in Parliament and all
the prayers of the petitions had fixed,--with perfect quiet, but with a
resolute determination to do no work. The peace would not have been
broken, but no more would a clod have been turned after that appointed
sun had risen. A handful of whites surrounded by myriads of
negroes,--now substantially free, and free without a blow,--must have
been overwhelmed in an hour after sunrise on that day, had they
resisted. The Colonial Legislatures, therefore, _now_ listened to the
voice of reason, and they, one after another, emancipated their slaves.
The first of August saw not a bondsman, under whatever appellation, in
any part of the Western Sea which owns the British rule.
The Mauritius, however, still held out, and on the Mauritius the hand of
the Imperial Parliament must and will be laid, to enforce mercy and
justice on those to whom mercy and justice have so long called aloud in
vain. In truth, if the case for instant emancipation was strong
everywhere, it was in no quarter half so strong as in the Mauritius; and
the distribution of the grant by Parliament to this Colony was the most
unjustifiable, and even incomprehensible. For, elsewhere, there existed
at least a title to the slave, over whom an unjust and unchristian law
recognised the right of property. But in the Mauritius there was not,
nor is there now, one negro to whom a good title is clearly provable.
The atrocious conduct of Governors and other functionaries, in conniving
at the Slave Trade of Eastern Africa, had filled that Colony with
thousands of negroes, every one of whom was carried there by the
commission of felony, long after Slave Trading had been declared a
capital crime by the law of the land, as by the law of nature it always
was. Sir George Murray, when Colonial Secretary of State, had admitted,
that at least thirty thousand of the negroes in the settlement were
nominally slaves, but in reality free, having been carried thither
contrary to law. He understated it by twenty thousand or more: yet on
all these negroes, in respect of property, were two millions and more
claimed: for all these the compensation money was given and taken, which
Parliament had lavishly bestowed. How then was it possible to doubt,
that every slave in the Mauritius should receive his freedom, when the
only ground alleged for not singling out and liberating this fifty
thousand, was the inability to distinguish them from the rest? If ten
men are tried for an offence, and it is clear that five are innocent,
though you cannot distinguish them from their companions, what jury will
hesitate in acquitting the whole, on the ordinary principle of its being
better five guilty should escape than five guiltless suffer? The same is
still the state of the case in that most criminal settlement, which,
having far surpassed all others in the enormity of its guilt, is now the
only one where no attempt has been made to evince repentance by
amendment of conduct. But the Government which has the power of
compelling justice will share the crime which they refuse to prevent,
and the Legislature must compel the Government, if their guilty
reluctance shall continue, or it will take that guilt upon itself[A].
[Footnote A: It is truly gratifying to state, that the late Secretary
for the Colonies, Lord Glenelg, has, since this was written, given the
most satisfactory assurances of orders having been sent over for
immediate emancipation, in case the former instructions to the Governor
of Mauritius should have failed, to make the Colonists themselves adopt
the measure. Lord Glenelg's conduct on this occasion is most creditable
to him.]
The latest act of Thomas Clarkson's life has been one which, or rather
the occasion for which, it is truly painful to contemplate; but this too
must be recorded, or the present historical sketch would be incomplete.
He whose days had all been spent in acts of kindness and of justice to
others, was at last forced to exert his powers, supposed, by some, and
erroneously supposed, to be enfeebled by age, in obtaining redress for
his own wrongs. He whose thoughts had all been devoted to the service of
his fellow-creatures, was now obliged to think of himself. A life spent
in works of genuine philanthropy, alike standing aloof from party, and
retiring with genuine humility from the public gaze, might have well
hoped to escape that detraction, which is the lot of those who assume
the leading stations among their contemporaries, and mingle in the
contentious scenes of worldly affairs. Or, at least, it might have been
expected that his traducers would only be found among the oppressors of
the New World, or the slave-traders of the Old. This felicity has not
been his lot; and the evening of his days has been overcast by an
assault upon his character, proceeding from the quarter of all others
the most unexpected and the most strange.
The sons of his old and dear friend William Wilberforce,--whose
incomparable merits he had ever been the first to acknowledge, whom he
loved as a brother, and revered as the great leader of the cause to
which his whole life had been devoted,--in publishing a Life of their
illustrious parent, thought fit to charge Thomas Clarkson with having
suppressed his services while he exaggerated his own; and not content
with bringing a charge utterly groundless, (as it was instantly proved,)
they deemed it worthy of their subject and of their name, to drag forth
into the light of day a private correspondence of a delicate nature,
with the purpose of proving that their father and others had assisted
him with money, and that he had been pressing in his demands of a
subscription. Two extracts of Letters of his were printed by these
reverend gentlemen, upon which a statement was afterwards grounded in
the _Edinburgh Review_ of their book, that the subscription was raised
to remunerate him for his services in the Abolition. They further
asserted, that their father was in the field before him, and that it was
under their father's direction that he, and the Abolition Committee of
1786, acted. In the whole history of controversy, we venture to affirm,
there never was an instance of so triumphant a refutation as that by
which these slanderous aspersions were instantly refuted, and their
authors and their accomplices reduced to a silence as prudent as
discreditable.
The venerable philanthropist took up his pen, worn down in the cause of
humanity and of justice. _First_, he showed, by incontrovertible
evidence, the utter falsehood of the charge, that he had underrated the
merits of others and exalted his own. These proofs were the references
to his volumes themselves, which it really seemed as if the two reverend
authors had never even looked into. He then proved to demonstration that
he had taken the field earlier than William Wilberforce. This was shown,
first, by known dates, matter of history; next, by letters from the
friends of both parties, as Archdeacon Corbet and William Smith; but,
lastly, by the words of William Wilberforce himself, as well privately
as at public meetings, asserting that he (William Wilberforce) came into
the field after his valued friend. But a striking fact may be cited, as
a sample at once of the course pursued by the assailants, and the
completeness of the defence. The reverend authors in proof of their
unqualified assertion, that Thomas Clarkson and the Committee acted from
the first under William Wilberforce's directions, refer to "MS. Minutes
of the Committee" for their authority. But the friend who so ably
superintended the publication of Thomas Clarkson's defence, and who
added to that tract an appendix of singular merit and great interest
(H.C. Robinson), showed that the parts referred to by the reverend
authors, in proof of their assertion, completely disproved it; and that
six months after the Committee had been working, William Wilberforce
applied to them for any information of which they might be possessed on
the subject of the Slave Trade.
But the publication of the letters and the colour given to the
transaction were far worse. The preservation of that correspondence, at
all, by the sons, could only be justified by the belief of its being
accidentally kept by the father, but, of course, never intended to be
made public; least of all without the usual precaution of asking the
writer's leave, and giving him the opportunity of explaining it. The
biographers printed it without any kind of communication with him, and
he saw it for the first time in print.
Then, the attempt was made to represent this pure, and valuable, and
disinterested man as a mendicant philanthropist, who, for his exertions
in the cause of justice, stooped to the humiliating attitude of
collecting a remuneration from his friends. The words of William
Wilberforce, and other Abolition leaders, prove that he had expended a
very considerable portion of his own small patrimony in the cause, and
that the subscription was to pay a debt,--a just and lawful debt; not to
confer a bounty, or reward, or remuneration for services performed. It
is also proved, that after being reimbursed to the amount of the sum
contributed, or rather levied on those for whom the poorest of their
body had advanced his own money, he remained out of pocket far more than
others had ever given, after their share of the repayment was credited
to them, in this debtor and creditor account.
But this is not all: Mr. Wilberforce himself, then a man of ample
fortune, and Member for Yorkshire, had in 1807, published a pamphlet in
the cause. The Minutes of the Committee for 6th June, 1811, contained an
entry of an order to pay 83_l_. out of the subscription funds to Mr.
Cadell, being Mr. Wilberforce's share of the loss sustained by that
publication. There had been no mention at all of this in his life, by
these reverend authors, who scrupled not to print the garbled letters,
with the manifest design of lowering the character of their father's
friend, by ranking him among venal stipendiary pretenders to
philanthropy, and jobbing mendicant patriots.
Wherefore, it may be asked, was this matter at all dragged forth to
light, except to effect that unworthy purpose, and to give pain to a man
as eminently as deservedly respected and beloved? The false pretext is,
the vindication of their father's memory.--But it had never been
attacked. They affect to suppose such an attack, that they may have a
pretext for inflicting a wound in a fictitious and almost a fraudulent
defence.--But if it had been ever so rudely attacked, the letters are no
defence. For the only possible pretence of attack was the notion of
Thomas Clarkson having assumed the priority, and these letters can have
no earthly relation to that point. Whether Wilberforce, or Clarkson, or
neither of them, first began the abolition struggle, is a question as
utterly wide of the subscription as any one private matter in the life
of either party can be of any one public transaction in which both were
engaged.
The indignation of mankind was awakened by this disgraceful proceeding,
and it was in vain that the friends of the Wilberforces urged, as some
extenuation of their offence, the zeal which they naturally cherished
for the memory of their parent. Men of reflection felt that no
well-regulated mind can ever engage in slandering one person for the
purpose of elevating another. Men of ordinary discernment perceived that
the assaults on Clarkson's reputation had no possible tendency to raise
Wilberforce's reputation. Men of observation saw at once that there
lurked behind the wish to praise the one party, a desire to wound the
other; and gave them far less credit for over-anxiety to gratify their
filial affections than eagerness to indulge their hostile feelings. It
was plain, too, that they sought this gratification at the hazard of
bringing a stain upon the memory of their father; for what could be more
natural than the suspicion that they had obtained from him the materials
out of which their web of detraction was woven? And what more
discreditable to the author of the affectionate and familiar letters of
Wilberforce to Clarkson than their discrepancy with the charges now
urged against him? It is due to the memory of this venerable man, now
gone to his rest, to say that no one who knew him, ever so slightly,
could believe in the possibility of his holding one language to his
friend and another to his children: far less of his bequeathing to them
anything like materials for the attack upon one to whom he professed the
most warm and steady attachment. But if such be the conclusion of all
who knew the man, assuredly in arriving at it they have derived no help
from the lights afforded by his family.
The vindication of Thomas Clarkson has been triumphant; the punishment
of his traducers has been exemplary. His character stands higher than
ever; his name is lofty and it is unsullied; they have a character to
retrieve,--a name which they have tarnished since it descended upon
them, they have to restore by their own future deserts.
The astonishment of the world was at its pitch when the champion of
Abolition, the steady ally of Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharpe, the
_Edinburgh Review_, was seen attempting to rescue these parties, and
taking part against the injured man, the patriarch of a cause defended
by that celebrated Journal during a brilliant period of much above
thirty years. The boldness displayed in its pages on this occasion was
excessive. As if feeling that the weak and indefensible part in the
assault was the publishing of the letters, it had the confidence to
affirm, that this proceeding was called for in justice to Wilberforce's
memory. So daring an attempt upon the integrity of facts has not often
been witnessed. What! The publication of these letters, which had no
possible connexion with Wilberforce's character, (a character, indeed,
that no one had assailed,) letters which were absolutely foreign even to
the question of priority in the abolition cause,--the publication of
these necessary to the defence of Wilberforce? Then, upon what ground
necessary? How had he been attacked? Where was he to be defended? But,
if attacked, how did the letters aid,--how connect themselves
with,--how, in any manner of way, bear upon the defence, or any defence,
or any portion of Wilberforce's character and life? They showed him to
have contributed towards the payment of a debt he had contracted to
Clarkson. But who had ever charged him with refusing to pay his debts?
With his merits as to the Abolition, (if that be what is meant by his
character,)--merits which it was a mere fabrication to pretend that
Clarkson had ever been slow to acknowledge,--those letters had
absolutely no possible connexion; and whoever, on this score, affects to
defend this publication, is capable of vindicating the printing any
private letter upon the most delicate subject, by any man who writes the
history of any other affair, or who writes on any subject from which the
correspondence is wholly foreign. It is proper to add, that the editors
of this Journal have most properly published a retractation of the
charges made, in their ignorance of the whole facts of the case.
The acute and sagacious editor of T. Clarkson's vindication, has given
his reasons for suspecting that this criticism, in the _Edinburgh
Review_, must have proceeded from some party directly concerned in the
publication of Wilberforce's life. We enter into no discussion of the
circumstantial evidence adduced in favour of this supposition. The
editors of the Journal are the parties to whom we look; and as they,
after being to all appearance misled by some partial writer, have made
the best reparation for an involuntary error, by doing justice to the
injured party, we can have no further remark to make upon the subject.
But it is impossible to close these pages without mentioning the
extraordinary merit of this latest, and, in all likelihood, this last
production of Clarkson's pen. It is indeed a most able performance, and
has been admired by some of the ablest controversial writers of the age,
as a model of excellence in controversial writing. Plain, vigorous,
convincing, perfectly calm and temperate, devoid of all acrimony, barely
saying enough to repel unjust aggression without one word of
retaliation, never losing sight for a moment of its purely defensive
object, and accordingly, from the singleness of purpose with which that
object is pursued, attaining it with the most triumphant success,--no
wonder that the public judgment has been loudly and universally
pronounced in its favour, that its adversaries have been reduced to
absolute silence, that its author's name has been exalted even higher
than before it stood. But the wonder is to see such unimpaired vigour at
four-score years of age, after a life of unwearied labour, latterly
clouded by domestic calamity, and a spirit as young as ever in zeal for
justice, tempered only by the mellowness which the kindly heart spreads
over the fruits of the manly understanding.
There wanted no testimonials of esteem from his country to consummate
the venerable philanthropist's renown; yet these too have been added.
Various meetings have addressed their gratulations to him. Of these the
great corporation of London claims the first regard, and after
presenting him with the freedom of the city, they have ordered to be
erected in their hall, as a memorial of his extraordinary virtue, a
likeness of the mortal form of Thomas Clarkson.
* * * * *
HISTORY OF THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
No subject more pleasing than that of the removal of evils.--Evils
have existed almost from the beginning of the world; but there is a
power in our nature to counteract them--this power increased by
Christianity.--Of the evils removed by Christianity one of the
greatest is the Slave Trade.--The joy we ought to feel on its
abolition from a contemplation of the nature of it; and of the extent
of it; and of the difficulty of subduing it.--Usefulness also of the
contemplation of this subject.
I scarcely know of any subject, the contemplation of which is more
pleasing, than that of the correction or of the removal of any of the
acknowledged evils of life; for while we rejoice to think that the
sufferings of our fellow-creatures have been thus, in any instance,
relieved, we must rejoice equally to think, that our own moral condition
must have been necessarily improved by the change.
That evils, both physical and moral, have existed long upon earth there
can be no doubt. One of the sacred writers, to whom we more immediately
appeal for the early history of mankind, informs us that the state of
our first parents was a state of innocence and happiness; but that, soon
after their creation, sin and misery entered into the world. The poets
in their fables, most of which, however extravagant they may seem, had
their origin in truth, speak the same language. Some of these represent
the first condition of man by the figure of the golden, and his
subsequent degeneracy and subjection to suffering by that of the silver,
and afterwards of the iron age. Others tell us that the first female was
made of clay; that she was called Pandora, because every necessary gift,
qualification, or endowment, was given to her by the gods, but that she
received from Jupiter, at the same time, a box from which, when opened,
a multitude of disorders sprung, and that these spread themselves
immediately afterwards among all of the human race. Thus it appears,
whatever authorities we consult, that those which may be termed the
evils of life existed in the earliest times. And what does subsequent
history, combined with our own experience, tell us, but that these have
been continued, or that they have come down in different degrees through
successive generations of men, in all the known countries of the
universe, to the present day?
But though the inequality visible in the different conditions of life,
and the passions interwoven into our nature, (both which have been
allotted to us for wise purposes, and without which we could not easily
afford a proof of the existence of that, which is denominated virtue,)
have a tendency to produce vice and wretchedness among us, yet we see,
in this our constitution, what may operate partially as preventives and
corrective of them. If there be a radical propensity in our nature to do
that which is wrong, there is, on the other hand, a counteracting power
within it, or an impulse by means of the action of the divine Spirit
upon our minds, which urges us to do that which is right. If the voice
of temptation, clothed in musical and seducing accents, charms us one
way, the voice of holiness, speaking to us from within, in a solemn and
powerful manner, commands us another. Does one man obtain a victory over
his corrupt affections? an immediate perception of pleasure, like the
feeling of a reward divinely conferred upon him, is noticed. Does
another fall prostrate beneath their power? a painful feeling, and such
as pronounces to him the sentence of reproof and punishment is found to
follow. If one, by suffering his heart to become hardened, oppresses a
fellow-creature, the tear of sympathy starts up in the eye of another,
and the latter instantly feels a desire, involuntarily generated, of
flying to his relief. Thus impulses, feelings, and dispositions have
been implanted in our nature, for the purpose of preventing and
rectifying the evils of life. And as these have operated, so as to
stimulate some men to lessen them by the exercise of an amiable charity,
so they have operated to stimulate others in various other ways to the
same end. Hence the philosopher has left moral precepts behind him in
favour of benevolence, and the legislator has endeavoured to prevent
barbarous practices by the introduction of laws.
In consequence then of these impulses and feelings, by which the pure
power in our nature is thus made to act as a check upon the evil part of
it, and in consequence of the influence which philosophy and legislative
wisdom have had in their respective provinces, there has been always, in
all times and countries, a counteracting energy, which has opposed
itself, more or less, to the crimes and miseries of mankind. But it
seems to have been reserved for Christianity to increase this energy,
and to give it the widest possible domain. It was reserved for her,
under the same divine influence, to give the best views of the nature
and of the present and future condition of man; to afford the best moral
precepts, to communicate the most benign stimulus to the heart, to
produce the most blameless conduct, and thus to cut off many of the
causes of wretchedness, and to heal it wherever it was found. At her
command, wherever she has been duly acknowledged, many of the evils of
life have already fled. The prisoner of war is no longer led into the
amphitheatre to become a gladiator, and to imbrue his hands in the blood
of his fellow-captive for the sport of a thoughtless multitude. The
stern priest, cruel through fanaticism and custom, no longer leads his
fellow-creature to the altar to sacrifice him to fictitious gods. The
venerable martyr, courageous through faith and the sanctity of his life,
is no longer hurried to the flames. The haggard witch, poring over her
incantations by moon-light, no longer scatters her superstitious poison
among her miserable neighbours, nor suffers for her crime.
But in whatever way Christianity may have operated towards the increase
of this energy, or towards a diminution of human misery, it has operated
in none more powerfully than by the new views and consequent duties,
which it introduced on the subject of charity, or practical benevolence
and love. Men in ancient times looked upon their talents, of whatever
description, as, their own, which they might use, or cease to use at
their discretion. But the Author of our religion was the first who
taught that, however in a legal point of view, the talent of individuals
might belong exclusively to themselves, so that no other person had a
right to demand the use of it by force, yet in the Christian
dispensation they were but the stewards of it for good; that so much was
expected from this stewardship, that it was difficult for those who were
intrusted with it to enter into his spiritual kingdom; that these had no
right to conceal their talent in a napkin, but that they were bound to
dispense a portion of it to the relief of their fellow-creatures; and
that, in proportion to the magnitude of it, they were accountable for
the extensiveness of its use. He was the first who pronounced the
misapplication of it to be a crime, and to be a crime of no ordinary
dimensions. He was the first who broke down the boundary between Jew and
Gentile, and, therefore, the first who pointed out to men the
inhabitants of other countries, for the exercise of their philanthropy
and love. Hence a distinction is to be made both in the principle and
practice of charity, as existing in ancient or in modern times. Though
the old philosophers, historians, and poets, frequently inculcated
benevolence, we have no reason to conclude from any facts they have left
us, that persons in their days did anything more than occasionally
relieve an unfortunate object, who might present himself before them, or
that, however they might deplore the existence of public evils among
them, they joined in associations for their suppression, or that they
carried their charity, as bodies of men, into other kingdoms. To
Christianity alone we are indebted for the new and sublime spectacle, of
seeing men going beyond the bounds of individual usefulness to each
other; of seeing them associate for the extirpation of private and
public misery; and of seeing them carry their charity, as a united
brotherhood, into distant lands. And in this wider field of benevolence
it would be unjust not to confess, that no country has shone with more
true lustre than our own, there being scarcely any case of acknowledged
affliction, for which some of her Christian children have not united in
an attempt to provide relief.
Among the evils corrected or subdued, either by the general influence of
Christianity on the minds of men, or by particular associations of
Christians, the African[A]. Slave Trade appears to me to have occupied
the foremost place. The abolition of it, therefore, of which it has
devolved upon me to write the history, should be accounted as one of the
greatest blessings, and as such should be one of the most copious
sources of our joy: indeed, I know of no evil, the removal of which
should excite in us a higher degree of pleasure. For, in considerations
of this kind, are we not usually influenced by circumstances? Are not
our feelings usually affected according to the situation, or the
magnitude, or the importance of these? Are they not more or less
elevated, as the evil under our contemplation has been more or less
productive of misery, or more or less productive of guilt? Are they not
more or less elevated again, as we have found it more or less
considerable in extent? Our sensations will undoubtedly be in proportion
to such circumstances, or our joy to the appreciation or mensuration of
the evil which has been removed.
[Footnote A: Slavery had been before annihilated by Christianity; I mean
in the West of Europe, at the close of the twelfth century]
To value the blessing of the abolition as we ought, or to appreciate the
joy and gratitude which we ought to feel concerning it, we must enter a
little into the circumstances of the trade. Our statement, however, of
these needs not be long: a few pages will do all that is necessary! A
glance only into such a subject as this will be sufficient to affect the
heart,--to arouse our indignation and our pity,--and to teach us the
importance of the victory obtained.
The first subject for consideration, towards enabling us to make the
estimate in question, will be that of the nature of the evil belonging
to the Slave Trade. This may be seen by examining it in three points of
view. First, as it has been proved to arise on the Continent of Africa,
in the course of reducing the inhabitants of it to slavery. Secondly, in
the course of conveying them from thence to the lands or colonies of
other nations. And, thirdly, in continuing them there as slaves.
To see it, as it has been shown, to arise in the first case, let us
suppose ourselves on the Continent just mentioned. Well then, We are
landed,--We are already upon our travels,--We have just passed through
one forest,--We are now come to a more open place, which indicates an
approach to habitation. And what object is that which first obtrudes
itself upon our sight? Who is that wretched woman whom we discover under
that noble tree, wringing her hands, and beating her breast, as if in
the agonies of despair? Three days has she been there, at intervals, to
look and to watch; and this is the fourth morning, and no tidings of her
children yet. Beneath its spreading boughs they were accustomed to play:
but, alas! the savage man-stealer interrupted their playful mirth, and
has taken them for ever from her sight.
But let us leave the cries of this unfortunate woman, and hasten into
another district. And what do we first see here? Who is he that just now
started across the narrow pathway, as if afraid of a human face? What is
that sudden rustling among the leaves? Why are those persons flying from
our approach, and hiding themselves in yon darkest thicket? Behold, as
we get into the plain, a deserted village! The rice-field has been just
trodden down around it; an aged man,--venerable by his silver
beard,--lies wounded and dying near the threshold of his hut. War,
suddenly instigated by avarice, has just visited the dwellings which we
see. The old have been butchered, because unfit for slavery, and the
young have been carried off, except such as have fallen in the conflict,
or have escaped among the woods behind us.
But let us hasten from this cruel scene, which gives rise to so many
melancholy reflections. Let us cross yon distant river, and enter into
some new domain. But are we relieved even here from afflicting
spectacles? Look at that immense crowd which appears to be gathered in a
ring. See the accused innocent in the middle! The ordeal of poisonous
water has been administered to him, as a test of his innocence or his
guilt: he begins to be sick and pale. Alas! yon mournful shriek of his
relatives confirms that the loss of his freedom is now sealed.
And whither shall we go now? the night is approaching fast. Let us find
some friendly hut, where sleep may make us forget for a while the
sorrows of the day. Behold a hospitable native ready to receive us at
his door! let us avail ourselves of his kindness. And now let its give
ourselves to repose. But why, when our eyelids are but just closed, do
we find ourselves thus suddenly awakened? What is the meaning of the
noise around us, of the trampling of people's feet, of the rustling of
the bow, the quiver, and the lance? Let us rise up and inquire. Behold!
the inhabitants are all alarmed! a wakeful woman has shown them yon
distant column of smoke and blaze. The neighbouring village is on fire:
the prince, unfaithful to the sacred duty of the protection of his
subjects, has surrounded them. He is now burning their habitations, and
seizing, as saleable booty, the fugitives from the flames.
Such then are some of the scenes that have been passing in Africa, in
consequence, of the existence of the Slave Trade; or such is the nature
of the evil, as it has shown itself in the first of the cases we have
noticed. Let us now estimate it as it has been proved to exist in the
second; or let us examine the state of the unhappy Africans reduced to
slavery in this manner, while on board the vessels, which are to convey
them across the ocean to other lands. And here I must observe at once,
that, as far as this part of the evil is concerned, I am at a loss to
describe it. Where shall I find words to express properly their sorrow,
as arising from the reflection of being parted for ever from their
friends, their relatives, and their country? Where shall I find language
to paint, in appropriate colours, the horror of mind brought on by
thoughts of their future unknown destination, of which they can augur
nothing but misery from all that they have yet seen? How shall I make
known their situation, while labouring, under painful disease, or while
struggling in the suffocating holds of their prisons, like animals
enclosed in an exhausted receiver? How shall I describe their feelings
as exposed to all the personal indignities, which lawless appetite or
brutal passion may suggest? How shall I exhibit their sufferings as
determining to refuse sustenance and die, or as resolving to break their
chains, and, disdaining to live as slaves, to punish their oppressors?
How shall I give an idea of their agony when under various punishments
and tortures for their reputed crimes? Indeed, every part of this
subject defies my powers, and I must, therefore, satisfy myself and the
reader with a general representation, or in the words of a celebrated
member of Parliament, that "Never was so much human suffering condensed
in so small a space."
I come now to the evil, as it has been proved to arise in the third
case; or to consider the situation of the unhappy victims of the trade,
when their painful voyages are over, or after they have been landed upon
their destined shores. And here we are to view them, first under the
degrading light of cattle: we are to see them examined, handled,
selected, separated, and sold. Alas! relatives are separated from
relatives, as if, like cattle, they had no rational intellect, no power
of feeling the nearness of relationship, nor sense of the duties
belonging to the ties of life! We are next to see them labouring; and
this for the benefit of those to whom they are under no obligation, by
any law either natural or divine, to obey. We are to see them, if
refusing the commands of their purchasers, however weary, or feeble, or
indisposed, subject to corporal punishments, and if forcibly resisting
them to death: we are to see them in a state of general degradation and
misery. The knowledge which their oppressors have of their own crime, in
having violated the rights of nature, and of the disposition of the
injured to seek all opportunities of revenge, produces a fear which
dictates to them the necessity of a system of treatment, by which they
shall keep up a wide distinction between the two, and by which the noble
feelings of the latter shall be kept down, and their spirits broken. We
are to see them again subject to individual persecution, as anger, or
malice, or any bad passion may suggest: hence the whip, the chain, the
iron-collar! hence the various modes of private torture, of which so
many accounts have been truly given. Nor can such horrible cruelties be
discovered so as to be made punishable, while the testimony of any
number of the oppressed is invalid against the oppressors, however they
may be offences against the laws. And, lastly, we are to see their
innocent offspring, against whose personal liberty the shadow of an
argument cannot be advanced, inheriting all the miseries of their
parents' lot.
The evil then, as far as it has been hitherto viewed, presents to us, in
its three several departments, a measure of human suffering not to be
equalled--not to be calculated--not to be described. But would that we
could consider this part of the subject as dismissed! would that in each
of the departments now examined there was no counterpart left us to
contemplate! But this cannot be; for if there be persons who suffer
unjustly there must be others who oppress: and if there be those who
oppress, there must be to the suffering, which has been occasioned, a
corresponding portion of immorality or guilt.
We are obliged then to view the counterpart of the evil in question,
before we can make a proper estimate of the nature of it. And, in
examining this part of it, we shall find that we have a no less
frightful picture to behold than in the former cases; or that, while the
miseries endured by the unfortunate Africans excite our pity on the one
hand, the vices, which are connected with them, provoke our indignation
and abhorrence on the other. The Slave Trade, in this point of view,
must strike us as an immense mass of evil on account of the criminality
attached to it, as displayed in the various branches of it, which have
already been examined. For, to take the counterpart of the evil in the
first of these, can we say that no moral turpitude is to be placed to
the account of those, who, living on the continent of Africa, give birth
to the enormities, which take place in consequence of the prosecution of
this trade? Is not that man made morally worse, who is induced to become
a tiger to his species, or who, instigated by avarice, lies in wait in
the thicket to get possession of his fellow-man? Is no injustice
manifest in the land, where the prince, unfaithful to his duty, seizes
his innocent subjects, and sells them for slaves? Are no moral evils
produced among those communities, which make war upon other communities
for the sake of plunder, and without any previous provocation or
offence? Does no crime attach to those, who accuse others falsely, or
who multiply and divide crimes for the sake of the profit of the
punishment, and who for the same reason continue the use of barbarous
and absurd ordeals as a test of innocence or guilt?
In the second of these branches, the counterpart of the evil is to be
seen in the conduct of those who purchase the miserable natives in their
own country, and convey them to distant lands. And here questions,
similar to the former, may be asked. Do they experience no corruption of
their nature, or become chargeable with no violation of right, who, when
they go with their ships to this continent, know the enormities which
their visits there will occasion, who buy their fellow-creature man, and
this, knowing the way in which he comes into their hands, and who chain,
and imprison, and scourge him? Do the moral feelings of those persons
escape without injury, whose hearts are hardened? And can the hearts of
those be otherwise than hardened, who are familiar with the tears and
groans of innocent strangers forcibly torn away from every thing that is
dear to them in life, who are accustomed to see them on board their
vessels in a state of suffocation and in the agonies of despair, and who
are themselves in the habit of the cruel use of arbitrary power?
The counterpart of the evil in its third branch is to be seen in the
conduct of those, who, when these miserable people have been landed,
purchase and carry them to their respective homes. And let us see
whether a mass of wickedness is not generated also in the present case.
Can those have nothing to answer for, who separate the faithful ties
which nature and religion have created? Can their feelings be otherwise
than corrupted, who consider their fellow-creatures as brutes, or treat
those as cattle, who may become the temples of the Holy Spirit, and in
whom the Divinity disdains not himself to dwell? Is there no injustice
in forcing men to labour without wages? Is there no breach of duty, when
we are commanded to clothe the naked, and feed the hungry, and visit the
sick and in prison, in exposing them to want, in torturing them by cruel
punishment, and in grinding them down by hard labour, so as to shorten
their days? Is there no crime in adopting a system, which keeps down all
the noble faculties of their souls, and which positively debases and
corrupts their nature? Is there no crime in perpetuating these evils
among their innocent offspring? And finally, besides all these crimes,
is there not naturally in the familiar sight of the exercise, but more
especially in the exercise itself, of uncontrolled power, that which
vitiates the internal man? In seeing misery stalk daily over the land,
do not all become insensibly hardened? By giving birth to that misery
themselves, do they not become abandoned? In what state of society are
the corrupt appetites so easily, so quickly, and so frequently indulged,
and where else, by means of frequent indulgence, do these experience
such a monstrous growth? Where else is the temper subject to such
frequent irritation, or passion to such little control? Yes--if the
unhappy slave is in an unfortunate situation, so is the tyrant who holds
him. Action and reaction are equal to each other, as well in the moral
as in the natural world. You cannot exercise an improper dominion over a
fellow-creature, but by a wise ordering of Providence you must
necessarily injure yourself.
Having now considered the nature of the evil of the Slave Trade in its
three separate departments of suffering, and in its corresponding
counterparts of guilt, I shall make a few observations on the extent of
it.
On this subject it must strike us, that the misery and the crimes
included in the evil, as it has been found in Africa, were not like
common maladies, which make a short or periodical visit and then are
gone, but that they were continued daily. Nor were they like diseases,
which from local causes attack a village or a town, and by the skill of
the physician, under the blessing of Providence, are removed; but they
affected a whole continent. The trade with all its horrors began at the
river Senegal, and continued, winding with the coast, through its
several geographical divisions to Cape Negro; a distance of more than
three thousand miles. In various lines or paths formed at right angles
from the shore, and passing into the heart of the country, slaves were
procured and brought down. The distance, which many of them travelled,
was immense. Those, who have been in Africa, have assured us, that they
came as far as from the sources of their largest rivers, which we know
to be many hundred miles inland, and the natives have told us, in their
way of computation, that they came a journey of many moons.
It must strike us again, that the misery and the crimes, included in the
evil, as it has been shown in the transportation, had no ordinary
bounds. They were not to be seen in the crossing of a river, but of an
ocean. They did not begin in the morning and end at night, but were
continued for many weeks, and sometimes by casualties for a quarter of
the year. They were not limited to the precincts of a solitary ship, but
were spread among many vessels; and these were so constantly passing,
that the ocean itself never ceased to be a witness of their existence.
And it must strike us, finally, that the misery and crimes, included in
the evil as it has been found in foreign lands, were not confined within
the shores of a little island. Most of the islands of a continent, and
many of these of considerable population and extent, were filled with
them. And the continent itself, to which these geographically belong,
was widely polluted by their domain. Hence, if we were to take the vast
extent of space occupied by these crimes and sufferings from the heart
of Africa to its shores, and that which they filled on the continent of
America and the islands adjacent, and were to join the crimes and
sufferings in one to those in the other, by the crimes and sufferings
which took place in the track of the vessels successively crossing the
Atlantic, we should behold a vast belt as it were of physical and moral
evil, reaching through land and ocean to the length of nearly half the
circle of the globe.
The next view which I shall take of this evil will be as it relates to
the difficulty of subduing it.
This difficulty may be supposed to have been more than ordinarily great.
Many evils of a public nature, which existed in former times, were the
offspring of ignorance and superstition, and they were subdued of course
by the progress of light and knowledge. But the evil in question began
in avarice. It was nursed also by worldly interest. It did not therefore
so easily yield to the usual correctives of disorders in the world. We
may observe also, that the interest by which it was thus supported, was
not that of a few individuals, nor of one body, but of many bodies of
men. It was interwoven again into the system of the commerce and of the
revenue of nations. Hence the merchant--the planter--the mortgagee--the
manufacturer--the politician--the legislator--the
cabinet-minister--lifted up their voices against the annihilation of it.
For these reasons, the Slave Trade may be considered like the fabulous
hydra, to have a hundred heads, every one of which it was necessary to
cut off before it could be subdued. And as none but Hercules was fitted
to conquer the one, so nothing less than extraordinary prudence,
courage, labour, and patience, could overcome the other. To protection
in this manner by his hundred interests, it was owing, that the monster
stalked in security for so long a time. He stalked too in the open day,
committing his mighty depredations. And when good men, whose duty it was
to mark him as the object of their destruction, began to assail him, he
did not fly, but gnashed his teeth at them, growling savagely at the
same time, and putting himself into a posture of defiance.
We see then, in whatever light we consider the Slave Trade, whether we
examine into the nature of it, or whether we look into the extent of it,
or whether we estimate the difficulty of subduing it, we must conclude
that no evil more monstrous has ever existed upon earth. But if so, then
we have proved the truth of the position, that the abolition of it ought
to be accounted by us as one of the greatest blessings, and that it
ought to be one of the most copious sources of our joy. Indeed, I do not
know, how we can sufficiently express what we ought to feel upon this
occasion. It becomes us, as individuals, to rejoice. It becomes us, as a
nation, to rejoice. It becomes us even to perpetuate our joy to our
posterity. I do not mean, however, by anniversaries, which are to be
celebrated by the ringing of bells and convivial meetings, but by
handing down this great event so impressively to our children, as to
raise in them, if not continual, yet frequently renewed thanksgivings,
to the great Creator of the universe, for the manifestation of this his
favour, in having disposed our legislators to take away such a portion
of suffering from our fellow-creatures, and such a load of guilt from
our native land.
And as the contemplation of the removal of this monstrous evil should
excite in us the most pleasing and grateful sensations, so the perusal
of the history of it should afford us lessons, which it must be useful
to us to know or to be reminded of. For it cannot be otherwise than
useful to us to know the means which have been used, and the different
persons who have moved in so great a cause. It cannot be otherwise than
useful to us to be impressively reminded of the simple axiom which the
perusal of this history will particularly suggest to us, that "the
greatest works must have a beginning;" because the fostering of such an
idea in our minds cannot but encourage us to undertake the removal of
evils, however vast they may appear in their size, or however difficult
to overcome. It cannot, again, be otherwise than useful to us to be
assured, (and this history will assure us of it,) that in any work,
which is a work of righteousness, however small the beginning may be, or
however small the progress may be that we may make in it, we ought never
to despair; for that, whatever checks and discouragements we may meet
with, "no virtuous effort is ever ultimately lost." And finally, it
cannot be otherwise than useful to us, to form the opinion, which the
contemplation of this subject must always produce, namely, that many of
the evils which are still left among us, may, by an union of wise and
virtuous individuals, be greatly alleviated, if not entirely done away;
for if the great evil of the Slave Trade, so deeply entrenched by its
hundred interests, has fallen prostrate before the efforts of those who
attacked it, what evil of a less magnitude shall not be more easily
subdued? O may reflections of this sort always enliven us, always
encourage us, always stimulate us to our duty! May we never cease to
believe, that many of the miseries of life are still to be remedied, or
to rejoice that we may be permitted, if we will only make ourselves
worthy by our endeavours, to heal them! May we encourage for this
purpose every generous sympathy that arises in our hearts, as the
offspring of the Divine influence for our good, convinced that we are
not born for ourselves alone, and that the Divinity never so fully
dwells in us, as when we do his will, and that we never do his will more
agreeably, as far as it has been revealed to us, than when we employ our
time in works of charity towards the rest of our fellow-creatures!