Other events also seemed to tell against the philanthropists. The connection of some of them with the Radical clubs, and their use of addresses and petitions to overbear the opposition in Parliament clearly made a bad impression on Pitt. After issuing the royal proclamation against seditious writings in May 1792 he showed his disapproval of their methods; and during the subsequent negotiations for a union with the moderate Whigs, in order to form a truly national administration, he confessed to Loughborough that he must make some concession to the Whig Houses on the question of abolition.[770] This is the first clear sign of his intention to shelve the measure until the return of more settled times.

They were not to come for wellnigh a decade. The declaration of war by the French Republic on 1st February 1793 turned men’s minds away from philanthropy to destruction. The results were soon visible. A measure proposed by Wilberforce, to prohibit the supply to foreigners of slaves in British ships, failed to pass the Commons, despite the able speeches of Pitt, Fox, and Francis in its favour (5th June 1793). In the Lords meanwhile the Duke of Clarence (the future William IV) spoke against the original proposal with great bitterness, denouncing the abolitionists as fanatics and hypocrites, and expressly naming Wilberforce among them. This insolence was far from meeting with the chastisement that it deserved; but his words were taken as a sign that the royal family was pledged to the support of the odious traffic.

It may be well to notice here a remarkable effort of the chief abolitionists, and to add a few words about the men themselves. Early in the year 1791 some of them sought to show that under favourable conditions negroes were capable of self-government. Accordingly they formed a Sierra Leone Committee for the purpose of settling liberated slaves on that part of the coast of West Africa. In the Pitt Papers is a letter of 18th April 1791, from the first overseer, Falconbridge, to Granville Sharp, which the latter forwarded to Pitt, giving a heartrending account of the state of the thirty-six men and twenty women who formed the settlement. Fevers and ulcers were rife. Outrages by white men had made the tribes defiant, and a native chief hard by was far from friendly. Falconbridge adds: “That lump of deformity, the Slave Trade, has so debauched the minds of the natives that they are lost to every principle of honor and honesty. The scenes of iniquity and murder I daily hear of, occasioned by this damnable traffic, make my nature revolt.” He had named the bay and village Granville Bay and Town; but, as the latter was already overgrown with bushes, he was planting another at Fora Bay. He concludes—“For God’s sake send me a ship of force (warship).”[771] Such were the feeble beginnings of a colony of which Zachary Macaulay was to be the first Governor.

Here, as in other parts of this philanthropic movement, Pitt displayed little or no initiative. To the cause of abolition he gave the support of his eloquence and his influence in Parliament; but he gave no decided lead in these and cognate efforts, a fact which somewhat detracts from his greatness as a statesman in this formative period. The merit of starting the movement and of utilizing new openings belongs to the Quakers, to Granville Sharp, Clarkson, Wilberforce and his friends. The member for Yorkshire had grouped around him at his abode, Broomfield, Clapham Common, or at his town house in Palace Yard, Westminster, a number of zealous workers, among whom Henry Thornton, James Stephen (his brother-in-law), Thomas Babington, and Zachary Macaulay were prominent. His chief correspondents were Dr. Milner (Dean of Carlisle), Lord Muncaster, Sir Charles Middleton, Rev. John Newton, and Hannah More. With these and other members of the Abolitionist Society he was in constant touch; and their zeal for social reform and for the evangelical creed (which led to his Clapham circle being styled the “Clapham Sect”) led to great results. In the religious sphere Wilberforce and his friends were largely instrumental in founding the Church Missionary Society (1798) and the Bible Society (1803). Their efforts on behalf of the poor and the mitigation of the barbarous penal code (a matter ever associated with the name of Romilly) were also to bear good fruit.

For the present all their efforts against the Slave Trade seemed to be in vain. It was pressed on feverishly in the year 1792. Between 5th January and 4th May of that year there sailed from London 8 slave ships, from Bristol 11, from Liverpool 39. The total tonnage was 11,195 tons. Another official return among the Pitt Papers (No. 310) gives the following numbers of slaves taken in British ships from West Africa to the West Indies in the years 1789 to 1795 (the figures for 1790 are wanting):

YEAR.SLAVES TAKEN.DIED ON THE VOYAGE.
178911,0141,053
179115,1081,397
179226,9712,468
179311,720  869
179414,611  394
1795 7,157  224
Total86,5816,405

These figures suggest a reason for the falling off of interest in the question after 1792. The trade seemed to be falling off; and the mortality at sea declined as the cargo was less closely packed. This, however, was but a poor argument for not abolishing a trade which was inherently cruel and might revive with the return of peace. In 1794 the Commons seemed friendly to abolition. Pitt, Fox, Whitbread, and other friends of the cause pleaded successfully on behalf of Wilberforce’s Bill of the previous year. Once more, however, the influence of the Duke of Clarence, Thurlow, and Lord Abingdon availed to defeat the proposal. Grenville also voted against it as being premature. The Lords proceeded to illustrate the sincerity of their desire for further information on the topic by shelving the whole inquiry.

A sense of despair now began to creep over many friends of the movement. If abolitionist motions could only just pass the Commons, to be at once rejected by the Lords, what hope was there for the slaves? Their cause was further overclouded by the sharp disagreement of Wilberforce and Pitt respecting the war with France. As we shall see in a later chapter, Pitt and the majority of his supporters, together with the Old Whigs, believed that the war must go on until a solid peace could be obtained. Wilberforce and many of the abolitionists thought otherwise. During the latter part of the year 1794 and the first weeks of 1795 the two friends were scarcely on speaking terms; but even during that sad time Pitt wrote to Wilberforce (26th December 1794): “Nothing has happened to add either to my hopes or fears respecting the Slave Question with a view to the issue of it in the next session, but I think the turn things take in France may be favourable to the ultimate abolition.” Pitt spoke powerfully against Dundas’s amendment in favour of gradual abolition at some time after the conclusion of the war; but these procrastinating tactics carried the day by 78 to 61 (26th February 1795).

In the following year matters at first seemed more hopeful. Twice did Pitt and Wilberforce beat the supporters of the trade by fair majorities; but on the third reading of the Abolition Bill it was lost by four votes. Wilberforce noted indignantly that enough of its supporters were at the Opera to have turned the scale. The same apathy characterized the session of 1797, when the mutinies in the fleet and the sharp financial crisis told heavily against a measure certain to entail some losses in shipping and colonial circles. At this time Pitt seems to have lost heart in the matter. This appeared in his attitude towards a plausible but insidious proposal, that the Governors of Colonies should be directed to recommend the local Assemblies to adopt measures which would improve the lot of the negroes and thus prepare the way for the abolition of the Slave Trade. Than this nothing could be more futile; for the Governors and Assemblies were known to desire the continuance of the trade. Yet Pitt urged Wilberforce to accept the motion if it were modified; but, on Wilberforce refusing, he “stood stiffly by him.” They were beaten by a majority of thirty-six—a proof that the House wished to postpone abolition to the distant future.[772]

The negotiations for peace with France, which went on at Lille during the summer of that year, offered an opportunity for including a mutual guarantee of the two Powers that they would abolish the Slave Trade. Pitt seems to have disapproved of introducing this question into the discussions, either from a fear of complicating them, or from a belief that it would be treated better after the conclusion of peace.[773] His reluctance was misconstrued by Wilberforce, who sent him the following letter: