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

by William Wilberforce

During the continuance of the war, all the Dutch, and some of the French colonies, being in our hands, the supply to such of the French as are still unconquered being stopped, that of the Spanish being much interrupted, and the Portuguese settlements also deriving their supply from the more southern part of the Slave coast, the whole of that vast region which constitutes what may be called the solid substance of the African continent, would be almost entirely exempt from the ravages of the Slave Trade. Nor is this temporary abolition desirable, merely in the view of its affording to that wretched country a short breathing time from her miseries. If the war should be of any duration, we may hope, that the Africans may form new habits, and, having adopted less guilty expedients for obtaining the commodities with which they are supplied by the Europeans, may, in some parts at least of the coast, not resume the traffic in human beings, when the war shall be at an end.

All that could be said concerning the future conduct in this relation, of France, Spain, and Portugal, must be mere speculation. But, let us ask, in regard to those several nations, Where is the capital to be found? Surely whatever might have been alleged formerly concerning the possibility of British capital being transported into foreign countries for this use, it will scarcely now be urged; it will surely at least not be credited, that in the present state of the continent, any British subjects will be mad enough, let their strange and unnatural craving after this trade in flesh and blood be ever so importunate, to trust their capital in the way which this argument supposes, out of the only country in which either person or property can now be deemed secure.

We ought also to observe, that in both the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, the Slaves are far better treated, and the breeding system much more encouraged, than in those of the other European nations. There is in them also far less of the spirit of commercial speculation and enterprize than in our own. Denmark has long since shewn her willingness to abandon the Slave Trade, and private information confirms the supposition which the circumstances of the case suggest, that her not having yet carried into full effect her declared resolution, that the human traffic should cease with the year 1800, may fairly be ascribed to our conduct and example.

The United States of America were absolutely precluded, by a fundamental article of the confederation, from abolishing the Slave Trade before 1808, by any general law operating over the whole of the union. But it was one of the first acts of all, except I believe one, of the individual states of which the union consists, to abolish this traffic; and when a law was lately passed in South Carolina, allowing the importation of Slaves, Congress shewed its sense of the transaction by imposing on the importation of Slaves into South Carolina itself, the highest duty which the constitution permits. The importation of Slaves also into Louisiana was entirely prohibited. All these are strong indications of a disposition in the Government of the United States to abolish the Slave Trade; and they confirm the assurance which has been received from the best informed gentlemen of that country, that in 1808, when Congress will have a clear right to put an end to that traffic, it will not be allowed the respite of an hour.[^[48]]

So far for the Slaves which are exported westward from the coast of Africa. As to the supply which is sent to the countries east of Africa, it has long been comparatively trifling in amount; and by far the larger part of those immense regions which furnish the European exports, are too distant to allow of Slaves being carried out of them eastward to a profit.

But may we not be allowed to assume a higher tone, and to ask, if this practice, though by a strange perversion of words it is called the Slave Trade, ought indisputably to be considered as a most enormous crime, rather than a commerce, is it not clearly our own duty to abstain from it, and to prohibit and to punish the perpetration of it by our own subjects, however it may still prevail in other countries?

It might serve to discover the monstrous tendencies of this argument, to those whose moral principle is so dull and dark as not instinctively to reject it, to consider to what lengths it might fairly carry them: for why might it not equally be alleged as a sufficient plea for performing every other act of profitable wickedness, which we might conceive, though perhaps unjustly, would be performed by others if not by ourselves. Let any one consider what would be the consequences of admitting such a principle into the intercourse of nations.

Is this, then, a principle to which we will give our solemn sanction, unless we mean fairly to avow that we have one set of religious and moral principles for Africa, and another for the rest of the world?

Apply the principle to private life, and consider what would be its consequences. But there happily the law of the land would soon interfere to check its application. And here, indeed, from first to last, is our misfortune in this whole business of the Slave Trade; that the practices, for the abolition of which we are contending, are such, as by the laws of every civilized community are punishable with death; but, unhappily, there is no tribunal (no earthly tribunal) to which the criminals are amenable. And is this a time above all others, and are the present circumstances of nations precisely those in which such a principle of conduct becomes the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain? Or, if the reproach which has been cast against us be really true, and we are only to be moved by an appeal to our self-interest, is this a time when it is politic or even safe to avow such a principle, and to inculcate such a lesson?

But how, it was indignantly asked, could this enormous evil be ever eradicated, if every nation were thus prudentially to wait till the concurrence of all other nations should be obtained? Let it also be remembered that, on the one hand, no nation has plunged so deeply into this guilt as Great Britain; on the other, that none could be so likely to be looked up to as an example, if she should be the first decidedly to renounce it.