A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade / Addressed to the freeholders and other inhabitants of Yorkshire

by William Wilberforce

Here, undoubtedly, lies the main stress of the case, so far as policy is concerned. On the determination of this question must obviously rest all the assertions which have been so industriously circulated, and all the apprehensions which have so generally prevailed, that the immediate abolition would prove ruinous to our West Indian Colonies. Even in 1792, much less in the present day, scarcely any man will deny, that if the stock of Slaves can be kept up, the abolition will, in various ways, be highly beneficial to the islands.

Proof that Slave Trade not needed for maintaining the present stock of Slaves.

It was proved then, first, That the abuses and the obstructions to the natural increase, which too generally prevail, were sufficient to account for a rapidly decreasing population, and even to lead us to expect it.

Secondly, That the decrease, which really was considerable a century ago, had been gradually diminishing; till at length there was good reason to believe it had entirely ceased, and that the population fully maintains itself.

Thirdly, That, therefore, if the great and numerous abuses which now prevail should be materially mitigated, we might confidently anticipate a great and rapid increase in future.

These three propositions being made out, it follows of course, that the only substantial objection to the abolition, on the grounds of policy, is completely done away. |Proof of existing abuses unfavourable to increase.| To the proof, therefore, of these propositions respectively, let me beg your most serious attention. And now, in establishing the first of them, it becomes my duty to point out the various abuses of the colonial system, so far as they have any natural tendency to keep down the population below its proper level. I am well aware that I am here about to tread on very tender ground. I know that it is imputed to the Abolitionists, that they have endeavoured to excite an unjust clamour against the Colonists by tales of cruelty, which, if not utterly false, or, at least, grossly exaggerated, were, however, individual and rare instances. They have been represented as the rule, it is said, not as the exception, and as fixing a general stigma on all colonial proprietors.

That on a subject naturally calculated to call forth powerfully the feelings of every humane mind, zeal may have carried some of our advocates too far, and made them not sufficiently discriminate between particular cases of ill-treatment, and the general system of management, I will not deny. Yet I might, perhaps, retort the accusation, and object, in my turn, that our opponents have not in general acknowledged even the particular cases of cruelty, and joined with us in reprobating them; but that the facts themselves have been denied, as if it were really the common cause of the Colonists, in which all were to stand or fall together.

Yet, surely, any one who considers how great, even in men of rank and education, have ever been the abuses of absolute power; who recollects, besides, that in the West Indies, Slaves of inferior value are of very low price, and consequently, that any man who possesses a horse in this country might possess a Slave in that, would be sure that individual instances of cruelty must frequently occur. Let any one who should be inclined to pause on this position, consider how that noble animal, the horse, is too often treated in the face of day, in the very streets of the capital of this civilized country. But for myself I can truly declare, that I cannot be justly charged with having insisted on particular cases of West Indian cruelty. On the contrary, I have uniformly abstained from whatever could provoke or irritate the Colonists, as far as was possibly consistent with justice to the cause. I have sometimes even doubted whether the cause may not have suffered from my abstinence.

But, in justice to my own character, let me declare, that I have observed this line of conduct, not merely from interested motives, that our opponents might not be heated into still stronger opposition, but from feelings of a more generous nature. I have borne in mind, that the present generation of West Indian proprietors are not the first settlers of the colonies, or the first maintainers of the Slave Trade; excepting, however, the formers of the new settlements, which, alas! have been made to a prodigious extent within the last sixteen years. The older proprietors inherited their estates as we in Britain inherited ours; and must we not expect them to be naturally tinctured with the prejudices arising out of their circumstances and situations, since it is almost as difficult to be exempted from the operation of these in the moral world, as for natural productions not to possess the peculiar qualities and flavour of their climate and soil.

But, speaking generally, for the absentees I feel above all other proprietors; many of them born and educated in the mother country, and therefore possessing all the principles, sympathies, and feelings which belong to our state of society. They are most of them ignorant of the real state of things in the colonies; they naturally give credit to the accounts which they receive from their agents and correspondents. They often, I doubt not, in some cases I know, they send over orders to their managers to treat their Slaves with the utmost humanity and liberality. There are among them, men who consider the Slaves whom they inherit, as a family of unfortunate men, with whose protection and comfort Providence has charged them, and whose well-being they are therefore bound, by the highest obligations, to promote.