THE SLAVE-TRADE QUESTION.
On the 30th of May Mr. Wilberforce, who had been labouring in his vocation session after session, without making any visible progress in the noble cause he had espoused, moved for the appointment of a committee to consider the propriety of introducing a bill for the abolition of the slave-trade, after a time to be limited. Both Pitt and Fox supported the philanthropist, and his motion was carried by a majority of seventy-five against forty-nine. A bill was now brought in for the abolition, and the third reading was carried on the 28th of June, by a majority of sixty-nine voices against thirty-three. Mr. Wilberforce began to have hope that his long labour was about to be rewarded—that the one grand object of his life was now about to be accomplished. But he was doomed to be disappointed. It was rejected in the upper house, on the ground, that having been introduced at so late a period of the session, interested parties would be unable to obtain substantial justice.