William Pitt and national revival

by J. Holland Rose

There is, however, abundant proof that Pitt, though a recent recruit to the movement, espoused it with enthusiasm. During the difficult negotiations with France in the autumn of 1787, we find Wilberforce informing Eden, our envoy at Paris, of Pitt’s interest in the endeavour to stop the Slave Trade, a matter which would be greatly facilitated if France would agree to take the same step.[741] On 2nd November Pitt followed up his friend’s letter by another appeal to Eden to induce the French Government “to discontinue the villainous traffic now carried on in Africa.”[742] The following letter, hitherto unpublished, from Pitt to Eden, further shows his hope that Eden, who was soon to take the embassy at Madrid, would be able to influence that Court also:

Downing Street, Dec. 7, 1787.[743]

Mr. Wilberforce has communicated to me your last letter respecting the African business. The more I reflect upon it, the more anxious and impatient I am that the business should be brought as speedily as possible to a point; that, if the real difficulties of it can be overcome, it may not suffer from the prejudices and interested objections which will multiply during the discussion. Of course it cannot yet be ripe for any official communication; and when you transmit the memorandum, which I see you were to draw up, I hope it will be quite secret for the present. If you see any chance of success in France, I hope you will lay your ground as soon as possible with a view to Spain also. I am considering what to do in Holland, but the course of business there makes the secrecy, which is necessary at least for a time, more difficult.

The reply of the French Government in January 1788 was discouraging. Montmorin and his colleagues avowed their sympathy with the cause, but, fearing that it would not succeed in England, refused to commit themselves.[744] The advent of Necker to power in August aroused Pitt’s hopes;[745] but he too temporized, thereby prejudicing the success of the cause in these islands. Spain refused to stir in the matter.

Meanwhile Wilberforce had given notice of a motion on the subject, but a severe illness in February and March 1788 left him in a state of weakness which precluded the least effort. Before leaving for Bath, he begged Pitt to bring forward the motion for him. The Prime Minister consented, says Wilberforce, “with a warmth of principle and friendship that have made me love him better than I ever did before.” Nevertheless he acted with caution. Up to the beginning of the year 1788, at least, he had not brought the matter before the Cabinet, probably because he knew that most of its members would oppose him. In the country also a formidable opposition was arising, and, as usually happens in such cases, enthusiasts clamoured at delay as treason to the cause.[746] Perhaps it was this which led him to request a conference with Sharp. It took place on 21st April, and is thus reported in the Minutes of the Committee:

He [Granville Sharp] had a full opportunity of explaining that the desire of the Committee went to a full abolition of the Slave Trade. Mr. Pitt assured him that his heart was with us, and that he considered himself pledged to Mr. Wilberforce that the cause should not sustain any injury from his indisposition; but at the same time that the subject was of great political importance, and it was requisite to proceed in the business with temper and prudence. He did not apprehend, as the examination before the Privy Council would yet take up some time, that the subject could be fully investigated in the present session of Parliament, but said he would consider whether the forms of the House would admit of any measures that would be obligatory on them to take it up early in the ensuing session.[747]

On 9th May Pitt brought his motion before the House, but pending the conclusion of the official inquiry, he offered no opinion on the subject, for which he was sharply twitted by Fox and Burke. His conduct was far from pleasing to the more ardent spirits. One of them, the venerable Sir William Dolben, member for the University of Oxford, after inspecting a slave-ship in the Thames, determined to lose no time in alleviating the misery of the many living cargoes that crossed the ocean. He therefore brought in a Bill for temporarily regulating the transport of slaves in British ships. In the course of the discussions Pitt declared that, even though the proposed regulations involved the trade in ruin, as was maintained, he would nevertheless vote for them; and if the trade could not be regulated, he would vote for its abolition as “shocking to humanity, abominable to be carried on by any country, and which reflected the greatest dishonour on the British Senate and the British nation.” He further startled the House by proposing that the regulations should become operative from that day—10th June. The hold which he had on members was shown by the division, fifty-six voting for the measure and only five against it. In the Upper House no minister save the Duke of Richmond ventured to defend this unusual enactment; and the Chancellor, Thurlow, spoke strongly against it. Sydney also opposed it, though with moderation (25th June). Pitt’s feelings when he heard of their action are shown in a phrase of his letter to Grenville, dated Cambridge, 29th June, that if the Bill failed he and the opposers would not remain members of the same Cabinet. This declaration does honour to his heart and his judgement. It proves the warmth of his feelings on the subject and his sense of the need of discipline in the Cabinet. Had the measure failed to pass the Lords, a Cabinet crisis of the gravest kind would have arisen. As it was, however, the great efforts put forth by Pitt among his friends sufficed to carry the day against Thurlow by a majority of two. We catch a glimpse of what an average man thought of this incident in the pages of Wraxall. After adverting to the nobility of Pitt’s motives and the strength of Thurlow’s arguments against the retrospective action of the Bill, the chronicler thus passes judgement: “Thurlow argued as a statesman, Pitt acted as a moralist.” We also have the warrant of Wraxall for stating that, not until George III gave his assent to the measure, did Pitt “allow” him to prorogue Parliament.[748]

Ship-owners and slave-owners had, however, been driven only from the first outwork of their citadel, and had time to strengthen their defences before the matter came up again in 1789. After a delay, caused by the King’s malady and by the length of the inquiry into the Slave Trade by a committee of the Privy Council, Wilberforce brought the question before the House on 12th May in one of the ablest and most eloquent speeches of that age. For three and a half hours he held the attention of the House as he recounted the horrors which slave-hunting spread through Africa, and the hell of suffering of the middle passage. He showed how legitimate trade would increase with the growth of confidence between man and man in that Continent, and he asserted that the sympathies of King Louis XVI, Necker, and the French nation would probably lead that country to follow our example in abolishing a traffic degrading to all concerned in it. He then proved from official information concerning the slaves in our West India islands, that wise treatment of them and suppression of vice would ensure a sufficient increase of population to meet the needs of the planters. He concluded by moving twelve resolutions setting forth the facts of the case as detailed in the Report of the Privy Council. This mode of procedure earned general approval. Burke bestowed his blessing on the proposal (for such it was in effect) to abolish so hateful a traffic. Pitt gave the measure his warm approval, but stated that he was prepared to give a hearing to all objections. One such he noticed, namely, that foreign nations would step in and secretly supply our West India islands with slaves. He declared that Great Britain was strong enough to prevent so insidious a device; but he hoped, rather, that other peoples would desire to share in the honour of abolishing the trade; and we might confidently negotiate with them to that end, or wait for the effect which our example would produce. Fox followed in the same strain, and prophesied that France would soon “catch a spark from our fire and run a race with us in promoting the ends of humanity.”[749]

But these unanswerable arguments were of no avail against shippers, slave-owners, and colonial traders. In vain did Wilberforce point out that the prosperity of Liverpool did not depend upon the Slave Trade; for the tonnage of the slave-ships was only one-fifteenth of that of the whole port. Liverpool saw nothing but ruin ahead; and it must be admitted that that class of traffic was then by far the most lucrative to the growing city on the Mersey. It has been computed that in the decade 1783–93, Liverpool slave-ships made 878 “round voyages” (i.e. from Liverpool to the Guinea Coast, thence to the West Indies, and back to the Mersey), carried 303,737 slaves and sold them for £15,186,850.[750] It is not surprising, then, that Clarkson was mobbed when he went there to collect evidence as to the terrible mortality of our seamen engaged in the trade,[751] and was known to be purchasing “mouth-openers,” those ingenious devices by which slavers forced open the mouths of those of their victims who sought release by voluntary starvation. Bristol, though it had only eighteen ships in the trade, was also up in arms; for it depended largely on the refining of sugar and the manufacture of rum. Even the veteran reformer, Alderman Sawbridge, foresaw ruin for his constituency, the City of London, if the trade were further interfered with. Persons of a rhetorical turn depicted in lurid colours the decay of Britain’s mercantile marine, the decline of her wealth, and the miseries of a sugar famine. Others sought to frighten the timid by declaring that, as shippers and planters had embarked large sums of money in the trade in reliance on Parliament, they were entitled to absolutely full compensation for the heavy losses which must result from its abolition or further curtailment.[752] In short, all the menaces, based on assumed legal rights, were set forth with vehemence and pertinacity.

The result was seen in the increasing acrimony of the opponents of abolition in Parliament. They poured scorn on the evidence adduced before the Privy Council in a way which brought from Pitt a sharp retort, but they insisted, and with success, on the hearing of evidence at the bar of the House. These dilatory tactics protracted the discussion until it was necessary to postpone it to the next year.