Continuation from July 1794 to July 1799.--Various motions within this
period.
I purpose, though it may seem abrupt after the division which has
hitherto been made of the contents of this volume, to throw the events
of the next five years into one chapter.
Mr. Wilberforce and the members of the committee, whose constitutions
had not suffered like my own, were still left; and they determined to
persevere in the promotion of their great object as long as their health
and their faculties permitted them. The former, accordingly, in the
month of February, 1795, moved in the House of Commons for leave to
bring in a bill for the abolition of the Slave Trade. This motion was
then necessary, if, according to the resolution of that House, the Slave
Trade was to cease in 1796. It was opposed, however, by Sir William
Yonge, and unfortunately lost by a majority of seventy-eight to
fifty-seven.
In the year 1796, Mr. Wilberforce renewed his efforts in the Commons. He
asked leave to bring in a bill for the abolition of the Slave Trade, but
in a limited time. The motion was opposed as before; but on a division,
there were for it ninety-three, and against it only sixty-seven.
The bill having been brought in, was opposed in its second reading; but
it was carried through it by a majority of sixty-four to thirty-one.
In a future stage it was opposed again; but it triumphed by a majority
of seventy-six to thirty-one. Mr. Elliott was then put into the chair.
Several clauses were adopted; and the first of March, 1797, was fixed
for the abolition of the Trade: but in the next stage of it, after a
long speech from Mr. Dundas, it was lost by a majority of seventy-four
against seventy.
Mr. Francis, who had made a brilliant speech in the last debate,
considering that nothing effectual had been yet done on this great
question, and wishing that a practical beginning might be made, brought
forward soon afterwards, a motion relative to the improvement of the
condition of the slaves in the West Indies. This, after a short debate,
was negatived without a division. Mr. William Smith also moved an
address to His Majesty, that he would be pleased to give directions to
lay before the House copies of the several acts relative to regulations
in behalf of the slaves, passed by the different colonial assemblies
since the year 1788. This motion was adopted by the House. Thus passed
away the session of 1796.
In the year 1797, while Mr. Wilberforce was deliberating upon the best
measure for the advancement of the cause, Mr. C. Ellis came forward with
a new motion. He began by declaring, that he agreed with the
abolitionists as to their object; but he differed with them as to the
mode of attaining It. The Slave Trade he condemned as a cruel and
pernicious system; but, as it had become an inveterate evil, he feared
it could not be done away all at once, without injury to the interests
of numerous individuals, and even to the Negroes themselves. He
concluded by moving an address to His Majesty, humbly requesting, that
he would give directions to the governors of the West Indian islands, to
recommend it to the colonial assemblies to adopt such measures as might
appear to them best calculated to ameliorate the condition of the
Negroes, and thereby to remove gradually the Slave Trade; and likewise
to assure His Majesty of the readiness of this House to concur in any
measure to accelerate this desirable object; This motion was seconded by
Mr. Barham, It was opposed, however, by Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Pitt, and
others; but was at length carried by a majority of ninety-nine to
sixty-three.
In the year 1798, Mr. Wilberforce asked leave to renew his former bill,
to abolish the Slave Trade within a limited time. He was supported by
Mr. Canning, Mr. Hobhouse, Sir Robert Buxton, Mr. Bouverie, and others.
Messrs. Sewell, Bryan Edwards, Henniker, and C. Ellis, took the opposite
side of the question. Mr. Ellis, however, observed, that he had no
objection to restricting the Slave Trade to plantations already begun in
the colonies; and Mr. Barham professed; himself a friend to the
abolition, if it; could be accomplished in a reasonable way. On a
division, there appeared to be for Mr. Wilberforce's motion
eighty-three, but against it eighty-seven.
In the year 1799 Mr. Wilberforce, undismayed by these different
disappointments, renewed his motion. Colonel M. Wood, Mr. Petrie, and
others, among whom were Mr. Windham and Mr. Dundas, opposed it. Mr.
Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. W. Smith, Sir William Dolben, Sir R. Milbank, Mr.
Hobhouse, and Mr. Canning, supported it. Sir R. Milbank contended, that
modifications of a system, fundamentally wrong, ought not to be
tolerated by the legislature of a free nation, Mr. Hobhouse said, that
nothing could be so nefarious as this traffic in blood. It was unjust in
its principles it was cruel in its practice: it admitted of no
regulation whatever. The abolition of it was called for equally, by
morality and sound policy, Mr. Canning exposed the folly of Mr. Dundas,
who bad said, that as Parliament had, in the year 1787, left the
abolition to the colonial assemblies, it ought not to be taken out of
their hands. This great event, he observed, could only be accomplished
in two ways; either by these assemblies, or by the Parliament of
England. Now the members of the Assembly of Jamaica had professed that
they would never abolish the trade. Was it not, therefore, idle to rely
upon them for the accomplishment of it? He then took a very
comprehensive view of the arguments, which had been offered in the
course of the debate, and was severe upon the planters in the House,
who, he said, had brought into familiar use certain expressions, with no
other view than to throw a veil over their odious system. Among these
was, "their right to import labourers." But never was the word
"labourers" so prostituted, as when it was used for slaves. Never was
the word "right" so prostituted, not even when "the rights of man" were
talked of; as when the right to trade in man's blood was asserted, by
the members of an enlightened assembly. Never was the right of importing
these labourers worse defended than when the antiquity, of the Slave
Trade, and its foundation on the ancient acts of parliament, were
brought forward in its support. We had been cautioned not to lay our
unhallowed hands on the ancient institution of the Slave Trade; nor to
subvert a fabric, raised by the wisdom of our ancestors, and consecrated
by a lapse of ages. But on what principles did we usually respect the
institutions of antiquity? We respected them, when we saw some shadow of
departed worth and usefulness; or some memorial of what had been
creditable to mankind. But was this the case with the Slave Trade? Had
it begun in principles of justice or national honour, which the changes
of the world alone had impaired? Had it to plead former services and
glories in behalf of its present disgrace? In looking at it we saw
nothing but crimes and sufferings from the beginning--nothing but what
wounded and convulsed our feelings--nothing but what excited indignation
and horror. It had not even to plead what could often be said in favour
of the most unjustifiable wars. Though conquest had sometimes originated
in ambition, and in the worst of motives, yet the conquerors and the
conquered were sometimes blended afterwards into one people; so that a
system of common interest arose out of former differences. But where was
the analogy of the eases? Was it only at the outset that we could trace
violence and injustice on the part of the Slave Trade? Were the
oppressors and the oppressed so reconciled, that enmities ultimately
ceased? No. Was it reasonable then to urge a prescriptive right, not to
the fruits of an ancient and forgotten evil, but to a series of new
violences; to a chain of fresh enormities; to cruelties continually
repeated; and of which every instance inflicted a fresh calamity, and
constituted a separate and substantial crime?
The debate being over, the House divided; when it appeared that there
were for Mr. Wilberforce's motion seventy-four, but against it
eighty-two.
The motion for the general abolition of the Slave Trade having been thus
lost again in the Commons, a new motion was made there soon after, by
Mr. Henry Thornton, on the same subject. The prosecution of this
traffic, on certain parts of the coast of Africa, had become so
injurious to the new settlement at Sierra Leone, that not only its
commercial prospects were but its safety endangered. Mr. Thornton,
therefore brought in a bill to confine the Slave Trade within certain
limits. But even this bill, though it had for its object only to free a
portion of the coast from the ravages of this traffic, was opposed by
Mr. Gascoyne, Dent, and others. Petitions also were presented against
it. At length, after two divisions, on the first of which there were
thirty-two votes to twenty-seven, and on the second thirty-eight to
twenty-two, it passed through all its stages.
When it was introduced into the Lords the petitions were renewed against
it. Delay also was interposed to its progress by the examination of
witnesses. It was not till the fifth of July that the matter was brought
to issue. The opponents of the bill, at that time, were the Duke of
Clarence, Lord Westmoreland, Lord Thurlow, and the Lords Douglas and
Hay, the two latter being Earls of Morton and Kinnoul, in Scotland. The
supporters of it were Lord Grenville, who introduced it, Lord
Loughborough, Lord Holland, and Dr. Horsley, Bishop of Rochester: the
latter was peculiarly eloquent. He began his speech, by arraigning the
injustice and impolicy of the trade:--"injustice," he said, "which no
considerations of policy could extenuate; impolicy, equal in degree to
its injustice."
He well knew that the advocates for the Slave Trade had endeavoured to
represent the project for abolition, as a branch of jacobinism; but they
who supported it proceeded upon no visionary motives of equality, or of
the imprescriptible rights of man. They strenuously upheld the
gradations of civil society: but they did, indeed, affirm that these
gradations were, both ways, both as they ascended and as they descended,
limited. There was an existence of power, to which no good king would
aspire; and there was an extreme condition of subjection, to which man
could not be degraded without injustice; and this they would maintain,
was the condition of the African, who was torn away into slavery.
He then explained the limits of that portion of Africa, which the bill
intended to set apart as sacred to peace and liberty. He showed that
this was but one-third of the coast; and, therefore, that two-thirds
were yet left for the diabolical speculations of the slave merchants. He
expressed his surprise that such witnesses, as those against the bill,
should have been introduced at all: he affirmed that their oaths were
falsified by their own log-books; and that, from their own accounts, the
very healthiest of their vessels were little better than pestilential
gaols. Mr. Robert Hume, one of these witnesses, had made a certain
voyage: he had made it in thirty-three days: he had shipped two hundred
and sixty-five slaves, and he had lost twenty-three of them. If he had
gone on losing his slaves, all of whom were under twenty-five years of
age, at this rate, it was obvious, that he would have lost two hundred
and fifty-three of them, if his passage had lasted for a year. Now, in
London only, seventeen would have died of that age, out of one thousand
within the latter period.
After having exposed the other voyages of Mr. Hume in a similar manner,
he entered into a commendation of the views of the Sierra Leone company,
and then defended the character of the Africans in their own country, as
exhibited in the Travels of Mr. Mungo Park. He made a judicious
discrimination with respect to slavery, as it existed among them: he
showed that this slavery was analogous to that of the heroic and
patriarchal ages, and contrasted it with the West Indian in an able
manner.
He adverted, lastly, to what had fallen from the learned counsel, who
had supported the petitions of the slave-merchants. One of them had put
this question to their Lordships, "If the Slave Trade were as wicked as
it had been represented, why was there no prohibition of it in the Holy
Scriptures?" He then entered into a full defence of the Scriptures on
this ground, which he concluded by declaring, that, as St. Paul had
coupled men-stealers with murderers, he had condemned the Slave Trade in
one of its most productive modes, and generally in all its modes. And
here it is worthy of remark, that the word used by the apostle on this
occasion, and which has been translated men-stealers, should have been
rendered slave traders. This was obvious from the scholiast of
Aristophanes, whom he quoted. It was clear, therefore, that the Slave
Trade, if murder was forbidden, had been literally forbidden also.
The learned counsel, too, had admonished their lordships, to beware how
they adopted the visionary projects of fanatics. He did not know in what
direction this shaft was shot; and he cared not. It did not concern him.
With the highest reverence for the religion of the land, with the
firmest conviction of its truth, and with the deepest sense of the
importance Of its doctrines, he was proudly conscious, that the general
shape and fashion of his life bore nothing of the stamp of fanaticism.
But he begged leave, in his turn, to address a word of serious
exhortation to their lordships. He exhorted them to beware how they were
persuaded to bury, under the opprobrious name of fanaticism, the regard
which they owed to the great duties of mercy and justice, for the
neglect of which (if they should neglect them) they would be answerable
at that tribunal, where no prevarication of witnesses could misinform
the judge; and where no subtlety of an advocate, miscalling the names of
things, putting evil for good and good for evil, could mislead his
judgment.
At length the debate ended: when the bill was lost by a majority of
sixty-eight to sixty-one, including personal votes and proxies.
I cannot conclude this chapter without offering a few remarks. And,
first, I may observe, as the substance of the debates has not been given
for the period which it contains, that Mr. Wilberforce, upon whom too
much praise cannot be bestowed for his perseverance from year to year,
amidst the disheartening circumstances which attended his efforts,
brought every new argument to which either the discovery of new light,
or the events of the times, produced. I may observe also, in justice to
the memories of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, that there was no debate within
this period, in which they did not take a part; and in which they did
not irradiate others from the profusion of their own light; and thirdly,
that in consequence of the efforts of the three, conjoined with those of
others, the great cause of the abolition was secretly gaining ground.
Many members who were not connected with the trade, but who had yet
hitherto supported it, were on the point of conversion. Though the
question had oscillated backwards and forwards, so that an ordinary
spectator could have discovered no gleam of hope at these times, nothing
is more certain, than that the powerful eloquence then displayed had
smoothed the resistance to it, had shortened its vibrations, and had
prepared it for a state of rest.
With respect to the West-Indians themselves, some of them began to see
through the mists of prejudice, which had covered them. In the year
1794, when the bill for the abolition of the foreign Slave Trade was
introduced, Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Barham supported it. They called upon
the planters in the House to give way to humanity, where their own
interests could not be affected by their submission. This, indeed, may
be said to have been no mighty thing; but it was a frank confession of
the injustice of the Slave Trade, and the beginning of the change which
followed, both with respect to themselves and others.
With respect to the old friends of the cause, it is with regret I
mention, that it lost the support of Mr. Windham within this period; and
this regret is increased by the consideration, that he went off on the
avowed plea of expediency against moral rectitude; a doctrine, which, at
least upon this subject, he had reprobated for ten years. It was,
however, some consolation, as far as talents were concerned, (for there
can be none for the loss of virtuous feeling,) that Mr. Canning, a new
member, should have so ably supplied his place.
Of the gradual abolitionists, whom we have always considered as the most
dangerous enemies of the cause, Mr. Jenkinson (afterwards Earl of
Liverpool), Mr. Addington (subsequently Lord Sidmouth), and Mr. Dundas
(afterwards Lord Melville), continued their opposition during all this
time. Of the first two I shall say nothing at present; but I cannot pass
over the conduct of the latter. He was the first person, as we have
seen, to propose the gradual abolition of the Slave Trade; and he fixed
a time for its cessation on the 1st of January, 1800. His sincerity on
this occasion was doubted by Mr. Fox at the very outset; for he
immediately rose and said, that "something so mischievous had come out,
something so like a foundation had been laid for preserving, not only
for years to come, but for anything he knew, for ever, this detestable
traffic, that he felt it his duty immediately to deprecate all such
delusions upon the country." Mr. Pitt, who spoke soon afterwards, in
reply to an argument advanced by Mr. Dundas, maintained, that "at
whatever period the House should say that the Slave Trade should
actually cease, this defence would equally be set up; for it would be
just as good an argument in seventy years hence, as it was against the
abolition then." And these remarks Mr. Dundas verified in a singular
manner within this period: for in the year 1796, when his own bill, as
amended in the Commons, was to take place, he was one of the most
strenuous opposers of it; and in the year 1799, when in point of
consistency it devolved upon him to propose it to the House, in order
that the trade might cease on the 1st of January, 1800, (which was the
time of his own original choice, or a time unfettered by parliamentary
amendment,) he was the chief instrument of throwing out Mr.
Wilberforce's bill, which promised even a longer period to its
continuance: so that it is obvious, that there was no time, within his
own limits, when the abolition would have suited him, notwithstanding
his profession, "that he had always been a warm advocate for the
measure."