Continuation from July 1794 to July 1799—Various motions within this period.
I purpose, though it may seem abrupt after the division which has hitherto been made of the contents of this volume, to throw the events of the next five years into one chapter.
Mr. Wilberforce and the members of the committee, whose constitutions had not suffered like my own, were still left; and they determined to persevere in the promotion of their great object; as long as their health and their faculties permitted them. The former, accordingly, in the month of February 1795, moved in the House of Commons for leave to bring in a bill for the abolition of the Slave-trade. This motion was then necessary, if, according to the resolution of that House, the Slave-trade was to cease in 1796. It was opposed, however, by Sir William Yonge, and unfortunately lost by a majority of seventy-eight to fifty-seven.
In the year 1796 Mr. Wilberforce renewed his efforts in the Commons. He asked leave to bring in a bill for the abolition of the Slave-trade, but in a limited time. The motion was opposed as before; but on a division, there were for it ninety-three, and against it only sixty-seven.
The bill having been brought in, was opposed in its second reading; but it was carried through it by a majority of sixty-four to thirty-one.
In a future stage it was opposed again; but it triumphed by a majority of seventy-six to thirty-one. Mr. Eliott was then put into the chair. Several clauses were adopted; and the first of March 1797 was fixed for the abolition of the trade: but in the next stage of it, after a long speech from Mr. Dundas, it was lost by a majority of seventy-four against seventy.
Mr. Francis, who had made a brilliant speech in the last debate, considering that nothing effectual had been yet done on this great question, and wishing that a practical beginning might be made, brought forward soon afterwards, a motion relative to the improvement of the condition of the slaves in the West Indies. This, after a short debate, was negatived without a division. Mr. William Smith also moved an address to His Majesty, that he would be pleased to give directions to lay before the House copies of the several acts relative to regulations in behalf of the slaves, passed by the different colonial assemblies since the year 1788. This motion was adopted by the House. Thus passed away the session of 1796.
In the year 1797, while Mr. Wilberforce was deliberating upon the best measure for the advancement of the cause, Mr. C. Ellis came forward with a new motion. He began by declaring, that he agreed with the abolitionists as to their object; but he differed with them as to the mode of attaining it. The Slave-trade he condemned as a cruel and pernicious system; but, as it had become an inveterate evil, he feared it could not be done away all at once, without injury to the interests of numerous individuals, and even to the Negros themselves. He concluded by moving an address to His Majesty, humbly requesting, that he would give directions to the governors of the West Indian islands, to recommend it to the colonial assemblies to adopt such measures as might appear to them best calculated to ameliorate the condition of the Negros, and thereby to remove gradually the Slave-trade; and likewise to assure His Majesty of the readiness of this House to concur in any measure to accelerate this desirable object. This motion was seconded by Mr. Barham. It was opposed, however, by Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Pitt, and others; but was at length carried by a majority of ninety-nine to sixty-three.
In the year 1798 Mr. Wilberforce asked leave to renew his former bill, to abolish the Slave-trade within a limited time. He was supported by Mr. Canning, Mr. Hobhouse, Sir Robert Buxton, Mr. Bouverie, and others. Mr. Sewell, Bryan Edwards, Henniker, and C. Ellis, took the opposite side of the question. Mr. Ellis, however, observed, that he had no objection to restricting the Slave-trade to plantations already begun in the colonies; and Mr. Barham professed himself a friend to the abolition, if it could be accomplished in a reasonable way. On a division, there appeared to be for Mr. Wilberforce's motion eighty-three, but against it eighty-seven.
In the year 1799 Mr. Wilberforce, undismayed by these different disappointments, renewed his motion. Colonel M. Wood, Mr. Petrie, and others, among whom were Mr. Windham and Mr. Dundas, opposed it. Mr. Pitt, Fox, W. Smith, Sir William Dolben, Sir R. Milbank, Mr. Hobhouse, and Mr. Canning, supported it. Sir R. Milbank contended, that modifications of a system fundamentally wrong ought not to be tolerated by the legislature of a free nation. Mr. Hobhouse said, that nothing could be so nefarious as this traffic in blood. It was unjust in its principle. It was cruel in its practice. It admitted of no regulation whatever. The abolition of it was called for equally by morality and sound policy. Mr. Canning exposed the folly of Mr. Dundas, who had said, that as Parliament had in the year 1787 left the abolition to the colonial assemblies, it ought not to be taken out of their hands. This great event, he observed, could only be accomplished in two ways; either by these assemblies, or by the Parliament of England. Now the members of the assembly of Jamaica had professed, that they would never abolish the trade. Was it not therefore idle to rely upon them for the accomplishment of it? He then took a very comprehensive view of the arguments, which had been offered in the course of the debate, and was severe upon the planters in the House, who, he said, had brought into familiar use certain expressions, with no other view than to throw a veil over their odious system. Among these was—their right to import labourers. But never was the word "labourers" so prostituted, as when it was used for slaves. Never was the word "right" so prostituted, not even when The Rights of Man were talked of, as when the right to trade in man's blood was asserted by the members of an enlightened assembly. Never was the right of importing these labourers worse defended than when the antiquity of the Slave-trade, and its foundation on antient acts of parliament, were brought forward in its support. We had been cautioned not to lay our unhallowed hands on the antient institution of the Slave-trade; nor to subvert a fabric, raised by the wisdom of our ancestors, and consecrated by a lapse of ages. But on what principles did we usually respect the institutions of antiquity? We respected them when we saw some shadow of departed worth and usefulness; or some memorial of what had been creditable to mankind. But was this the case with the Slave-trade? Had it begun in principles of justice or national honour, which the changes of the world alone had impaired? had it to plead former services and glories in behalf of its present disgrace? In looking at it we saw nothing but crimes and sufferings from the beginning—nothing but what wounded and convulsed our feelings—nothing but what excited indignation and horror. It had not even to plead what could often be said in favour of the most unjustifiable wars. Though conquest had sometimes originated in ambition, and in the worst of motives, yet the conquerors and the conquered were sometimes blended afterwards into one people; so that a system of common interest arose out of former differences. But where was the analogy of the cases? Was it only at the outset that we could trace violence and injustice on the part of the Slave-trade? Were the oppressors and the oppressed so reconciled, that enmities ultimately ceased?—No. Was it reasonable then to urge a prescriptive right, not to the fruits of an antient and forgotten evil, but to a series of new violences; to a chain of fresh enormities; to cruelties continually repeated; and of which every instance inflicted a fresh calamity, and constituted a separate and substantial crime?