My grandfather's autobiography, written about forty years later, comes to an end at this point. It is a curious document, full of the strong religious sentiment by which he came to be distinguished; tracing the finger of Providence in all that happened to him, even in the good results brought out of actions for which he expresses contrition; and yet with an obvious pleasure in recalling the vivid impressions of his early and vigorous youth. I omit parts of what is at times a confession of error. This much I think it only right to say. Although he was guilty of some lapses from strict morality, for which he expresses sincere regret, it is also true that, in spite of his surroundings and the temptations to which a very young man thrown upon the London world of those days was exposed, he not only showed remarkable energy and independence and a strong sense of honour, but was to all appearance entirely free from degrading vices. His mother's influence seems to have impressed upon him a relatively high standard of morality, though he was a man of impetuous and ardent character, turned loose in anything but a pure moral atmosphere.
James Stephen had at this time democratic tendencies. He had sympathised with the rebellious colonists, and he had once covered himself with glory by a speech against slavery delivered in Coachmakers' Hall in presence of Maria and Miss Stent. He had then got up the subject for the occasion. He was now to make practical acquaintance with it. His ship touched at Barbadoes in December 1783; and out of curiosity he attended a trial for murder. Four squalid negroes, their hands tied by cords, were placed at the bar. A planter had been found dead with injuries to his head. A negro girl swore that she had seen them inflicted by the four prisoners. There was no jury, and the witnesses were warned in 'the most alarming terms' to conceal nothing that made against the accused. Stephen, disgusted by the whole scene, was glad to leave the court. He learnt afterwards that the prisoners were convicted upon the unsupported evidence of the girl. The owner of two of them afterwards proved an alibi conclusively, and they were pardoned; but the other two, convicted on precisely the same evidence, were burnt alive.[11] Stephen resolved never to have any connection with slavery. During his stay at St. Christopher's he had free servants, or, if he hired slaves, obtained their manumission. No one who had served him long remained in slavery, except one man, who was so good and faithful a servant that his owner refused to take even the full value when offered by his employer.[12] Other facts strengthened his hatred of the system. In 1786 he was engaged in prosecuting a planter for gross cruelty to two little negroes of 6 and 7 years of age. After long proceedings, the planter was fined 40s.
A lawyer's practice at St. Christopher's was supposed to be profitable. The sugar colonies were flourishing; and Nelson, then captain of the 'Boreas,' was giving proof of his character, and making work for the lawyers by enforcing the provisions of the Navigation Act upon recalcitrant American traders and their customers. Stephen earned enough to be able to visit England in the winter of 1788-9. There he sought the acquaintance of Wilberforce, who was beginning his crusade against the slave trade. Information from a shrewd observer on the spot was, of course, of great value; and, although prudence forbade a public advocacy of the cause, Stephen supplied Wilberforce with facts and continued to correspond with him after returning to St. Christopher's. The outbreak of the great war brought business. During 1793-4 the harbour of St. Christopher's was crowded with American prizes, and Stephen was employed to defend most of them in the courts. His health suffered from the climate, and he now saved enough to return to England at the end of 1794. He then obtained employment in the Prize Appeal Court of the Privy Council, generally known as the 'Cockpit.' He divided the leading business with Dallas until his appointment to a Mastership in Chancery in 1811.
Stephen was now able to avow his anti-slavery principles and soon became one of Wilberforce's most trusted supporters. He was probably second only to Zachary Macaulay, who had also practical experience of the system. Stephen's wife died soon after his return, and was buried at Stoke Newington on December 10, 1796. He was thrown for a time into the deepest dejection. Wilberforce forced himself upon his solitude, and with the consolations of so dear a friend his spirits recovered their elasticity. Four years later the friendship was drawn still closer by Stephen's marriage to the only surviving sister of Wilberforce, widow of the Rev. Dr. Clarke, of Hull. She was a rather eccentric but very vigorous woman. She spent all her income, some 300l. or 400l. a year, on charity, reserving 10l. for her clothes. She was often to be seen parading Clapham in rags and tatters. Thomas Gisborne, a light of the sect, once tore her skirt from top to bottom at his house, Yoxall Lodge, saying 'Now, Mrs. Stephen, you must buy a new dress.' She calmly stitched it together and appeared in it next day. She made her stepchildren read Butler's 'Analogy' before they were seven.[13] But in spite of her oddities and severities, she seems to have been both respected and beloved by her nearest relations.
The marriage probably marked Stephen's final adhesion to the Evangelical party. He maintained till his death the closest and most affectionate alliance with his brother-in-law Wilberforce. The nature of their relations may be inferred from Wilberforce's 'Life and Letters.' Wilberforce owed much of his influence to the singular sweetness of his disposition and the urbanity of his manners. His wide sympathies interested him in many causes, and even his antagonists were not enemies. Stephen, on the other hand, as Mr. Henry Adams says, was a 'high-minded fanatic.' To be interested in any but the great cause was to rouse his suspicions. 'If you,' he once wrote to Wilberforce, 'were Wellington, and I were Masséna, I should beat you by distracting your attention from the main point.' Any courtesies shown by Wilberforce to his opponents or to his old friend Pitt seemed to his ardent coadjutor to be concessions to the evil principle. The Continental war, he held, was a Divine punishment inflicted upon England for maintaining the slave trade; and he expounded this doctrine in various pamphlets, the first of which, 'The Crisis of the Sugar Colonies,' appeared in 1802.
Yet Stephen owes a small niche in history to another cause, upon which he bestowed no little energy. His professional practice had made him familiar with the course of the neutral trade. In October 1805, almost on the day of the battle of Trafalgar, he published a pamphlet called 'War in Disguise.' The point of this, put very briefly, was to denounce a practice by which our operations against France and Spain were impeded. American ships, or ships protected by a fraudulent use of the American flag, sailed from the hostile colonies, ostensibly for an American port, and then made a nominally distinct but really continuous voyage to Europe. Thus the mother countries were still able to draw supplies from the colonies. The remedy suggested in Stephen's pamphlet was to revive the claims made by England in the Seven Years' War which entitled us to suppress the trade altogether. The policy thus suggested was soon embodied in various Orders in Council. The first was made on January 7, 1807, by the Whig Government before they left office and a more stringent order followed in November. The last was drawn by Perceval, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. Perceval was a friend of Wilberforce and sympathised both with his religious views and his hatred of the slave trade. He soon became intimate with Stephen, to whose influence the Orders in Council were generally attributed. Brougham, the chief opponent of the policy, calls 'War in Disguise' 'brilliant and captivating,' and says that its statement of facts was undeniable. I cannot say that I have found it amusing, but it is written with vigour and impressive earnestness. Brougham calls Stephen the 'father of the system'; and, whether the system were right or wrong, it had undoubtedly a great influence upon the course of events. I fear that my grandfather was thus partly responsible for the unfortunate war with the United States; but he clearly meant well. In any case, it was natural that Perceval should desire to make use of his supporter's talents. He found a seat in Parliament for his friend. Stephen was elected member for Tralee on Feb. 25, 1808, and in the Parliament which met in 1812 was returned for East Grimstead.
Stephen thus entered Parliament as an advocate of the Government policy. His revolutionary tendencies had long vanished. He delivered a speech upon the Orders in Council on May 6, 1809, which was reprinted as a pamphlet.[14] He defended the same cause against the agitation led by Brougham in 1812. A Committee of the whole House was granted, and Stephen was cross-examining one of Brougham's witnesses (May 11, 1812), when a shot was heard in the lobby, and Perceval was found to have been murdered by Bellingham. Stephen had just before been in Perceval's company, and it was thought, probably enough, that he would have been an equally welcome victim to the maniac. He was made ill by the shock, but visited the wretched criminal to pray for his salvation.
Stephen, according to Brougham, showed abilities in Parliament which might have given him a leading position as a debater. His defective education, his want of tact, and his fiery temper, prevented him from rising to a conspicuous position. His position as holding a Government seat in order to advocate a particular measure, and the fact that politics in general were to him subsidiary to the one great end of abolishing slavery, would also be against him. Two incidents of his career are characteristic. The benchers of Lincoln's Inn had passed a resolution—'after dinner' it was said by way of apology—that no one should be called to the bar who had written for hire in a newspaper. A petition was presented to the House of Commons upon which Stephen made an effective speech (March 23, 1810). He put the case of a young man struggling against difficulties to obtain admission to a legal career and convicted of having supported himself for a time by reporting. Then he informed the House that this was no imaginary picture, but the case of 'the humble individual who now addresses you.' Immense applause followed; Croker and Sheridan expressed equal enthusiasm for Stephen's manly avowal, and the benchers' representatives hastened to promise that the obnoxious rule should be withdrawn. When the allied sovereigns visited London in 1814 another characteristic incident occurred. They were to see all the sights: the King of Prussia and Field-Marshal Blücher were to be edified by hearing a debate; and the question arose how to make a debate conducted in so august a presence anything but a formality. 'Get Whitbread to speak,' suggested someone, 'and Stephen will be sure to fly at him.' The plan succeeded admirably. Whitbread asked for information about the proposed marriage of the Princess Charlotte to the Prince of Orange. Stephen instantly sprang up and rebuked the inquirer. Whitbread complained of the epithet 'indecent' used by his opponent. The Speaker intervened and had to explain that the epithet was applied to Mr. Whitbread's proposition and not to Mr. Whitbread himself. Stephen, thus sanctioned, took care to repeat the phrase; plenty of fire was introduced into the debate, and Field-Marshal Blücher had the pleasure of seeing a parliamentary battle.[15]
Whitbread was obnoxious to Stephen as a radical and as an opponent of the Orders in Council. Upon another question Stephen was still more sensitive. When the topic of slavery is introduced, the reporters describe him as under obvious agitation, and even mark a sentence with inverted commas to show that they are giving his actual words. The slave-trade had been abolished before he entered Parliament; but Government was occasionally charged with slackness in adopting some of the measures necessary to carry out the law, and their supporters were accused of preserving 'a guilty silence.' Such charges stung Stephen to the quick. 'I would rather,' he exclaimed (June 15, 1810), 'be on friendly terms with a man who had strangled my infant son than support an administration guilty of slackness in suppressing the slave trade.' 'If Lord Castlereagh does not keep to his pledges,' he exclaimed (June 29, 1814, when Romilly spoke of the 'guilty silence'), 'may my God not spare me, if I spare the noble lord and his colleagues!' The Government declined to take up a measure for the registration of slaves which Stephen had prepared, and which was thought to be necessary to prevent evasions of the law. Thereupon he resigned, in spite of all entreaties, accepting the Chiltern Hundreds, April 14, 1815.
Brougham warmly praises his independence, and wishes that those who had spoken slightingly of his eloquence would take to heart his example. Stephen had in 1811 been rewarded for his support of the Orders in Council by a Mastership in Chancery. Romilly observes that the appointment was questionable, because Stephen, though he was fully qualified by his abilities, was not sufficiently versed in the law. His friends said that it was no more than a fair compensation for the diminution of the prize business which resulted from the new regulations. He held the office till 1831, when failing health caused his retirement. He lived for many years at Kensington Gore on the site of the present Lowther Lodge; and there from 1809 to 1821 Wilberforce was his neighbour. His second wife, Wilberforce's sister, died in October 1816. After leaving Parliament, he continued his active crusade against slavery. He published, it is said, four pamphlets in 1815; and in 1824 brought out the first volume of his 'Slavery of the British West India Colonies delineated.' This is an elaborate digest of the slave laws; and it was followed in 1830 by a second volume describing the actual working of the system. From about 1819 Stephen had a small country house at Missenden, Bucks.[16] Here he was occasionally visited by his brother-in-law, and a terrace upon which they used to stroll is still known as 'Wilberforce's Walk.' Stephen had a keen love of country scenery and had inherited from his father a love of long daily walks. I record from tradition one story of his prowess. In the early morning of his seventieth birthday, it is said, he left Missenden on foot, walked twenty-five miles to Hampstead, where he breakfasted with a son-in-law, thence walked to his office in London, and, after doing his day's work, walked out to Kensington Gore in the evening. It was a good performance, and I hope not injurious to his health, nor can I accept the suggestion that the old gentleman may have taken a lift in a pony carriage by which he used to be followed in his walks. He certainly retained his vigour, although he had suffered from some serious illnesses. He was attacked by yellow fever in the West Indies, when his brother William and another doctor implored him to let them bleed him. On his obstinate refusal, they turned their backs in consultation, when he suddenly produced a bottle of port from under his pillow and took it off in two draughts. Next day he left his bed and defended a disregard of professional advice which had been suggested by previous observations. He became a staunch believer in the virtues of port, and though he never exceeded a modest half-bottle, drank it steadily till the last. He was, I am told, and a portrait confirms the impression, a very handsome old man with a beautiful complexion, masses of white hair, and a keen thoughtful face. He died at Bath, October 10, 1832. He was buried at Stoke Newington by the side of his mother. There Wilberforce had promised to be buried by his friend; but for him Westminster Abbey was a fitter resting-place.[17]