THE SLAVE-TRADE QUESTION.
Wilberforce seems to have placed his main dependence upon Fox, in the great question of the abolition of the slave-trade; but on the death of that minister, Lord Grenville took up the matter with greater zeal than he had manifested. On the 2d of January he introduced a bill for the total abolition of that inhuman traffic, and this bill was read a first time and printed. Counsel was heard at the bar of the house against it on the 4th of February; and next day, after an elaborate speech, Lord Grenville moved the second reading. He was warmly supported by the Duke of Gloucester, the Earl of Selkirk, Lord King, the Earl of Rosslyn, Lord Northesk, the Bishop of Durham, Lord Holland, the Earl of Suffolk, and Lord Moira; and as warmly opposed by the Duke of Clarence, the Earl of Morton, the Earl of Westmoreland, and Lords Sidmouth, Eldon, Hawkesbury, and St. Vincent. On a division, the bill was read a second time by one hundred against thirty-six; and on the 10th of February it was read a third time, and ordered to be sent to the commons for their concurrence. In the commons the reading was moved by Lord Howick; and so great had been the progress of philanthropic sentiments among British legislators that only sixteen ventured to oppose it; two hundred and eighty-three raised their voices in favour of it. The bill was read a third time on the 16th of March, and on the 18th it was carried back to the lords. Some amendments had been made in the commons, and these were assented to by the lords; and on the 25th the bill received the royal assent by commission. The bill enacted that no vessel should clear out for slaves from any port within the British dominions after the 14th of May, 1807; and that no slave should be landed in the colonies after the 1st of March, 1808. Thus this dark spot in the English annals was wiped out, and a noble example was set to the nations around who still trafficked in human flesh. It has, indeed, been justly observed that “almost all the mild and benignant laws, enacted for the benefit and protection of the negro slave, were of subsequent date to the first agitation of the question by the British parliament; and may, therefore, be fairly presumed to have been suggested by that movement.”
“Quick at the call of virtue, freedom, truth, Weak withering age, and strong aspiring youth, Alike the expanding power of pity felt; The coldest, hardest hearts began to melt; From breast to breast the flame of justice glowed— Wide o’er its banks the Nile of mercy flowed; Through all the isle, the gradual waters swelled, Mammon in vain the encircling flood repelled O’erthrown at length, like Pharaoh and his host, His shipwrecked hopes lay scattered round the coast.”
Through the labours of Wilberforce, Clarkson, and other philanthropists, the slave-trade was therefore abolished: it remained for future philanthropists to emancipate those on whose naked limbs the shackles were fastened. On the day after the abolition bill had been carried, Lord Percy moved to bring in a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the West Indies. This motion was negatived; but it showed that the subject of their entire freedom would one day or other follow that of the abolition of the slave-trade.