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

by William Wilberforce

But does not this very argument, grounded on the probable conduct of other nations, apply a thousand times more strongly in a contrary direction? How much more reasonably might other nations point to us, and say, Why should we abolish the Slave Trade, when Great Britain has not abolished? Great Britain, free, just, and honourable as she is, deeply also involved as she is in this commerce above all other nations, not only has not abolished, but has refused to abolish! (This was the language of a great man, many years ago). Alas! it may now be added, and after even at length resolving to abolish, has receded from her resolution!

A long and scrutinizing inquiry has taken place, the subject has been thoroughly canvassed. Her Senate has deliberated again and again; and what is the result? She has gravely and solemnly determined to sanction the Slave Trade. Her Legislature therefore is doubtless convinced that it has been falsely charged with injustice, cruelty, and impolicy. What need then have we to look any further? Why should we examine or deliberate? What more satisfactory proofs could our own investigation bring forth, of the justice and policy of the Slave Trade?

Thus, then, it would appear, on a more impartial view, that, instead of being justified in our continuing to prosecute the Slave Trade, by the probability that other nations would still carry it on, we with but too much colour of reason may be charged with being, if not the authors, yet at least the confirmers of their disposition to persevere in it; and to our account may at last appear to be in a great measure imputable the entire mass of the guilt of this enormous wickedness. We cannot, it is to be feared, now undo all the evil which our misconduct has occasioned; but, as we have long been foremost in the crime, let us, however tardily, endeavour to be at length exemplary in our repentance.

Slave Trade supported on grounds of justice.

Of all the sources whence arguments could be drawn in support of the Slave Trade, that of justice would perhaps least have been anticipated by those who have seen how from first to last it sets at nought the rights and happiness of our fellow creatures. The argument was put, however, with some plausibility, so as on a very superficial view to appear to have a faint colour of equity. It was argued, that we had encouraged the West Indians to engage in colonial speculations; that these speculations could not be carried on without supplies from time to time of African labourers; that therefore, to prohibit the importation of Negroes, was to ensure the failure of those very speculations into which we had encouraged the West Indians to embark.

It was a sufficient reply, that if the West Indians would but reform the glaring abuses of their system of management, abuses to which not only every humane but every just mind must be anxious to put an end; importations of Slaves from Africa would be rendered perfectly unnecessary, by the natural increase of their domestic stock; while from the stopping of these importations, various and highly important advantages would follow, to the West Indians themselves as well as to the empire at large. But supposing the case to have been otherwise, and that the West Indians might be likely to suffer in their property from our abolition of the Slave Trade; the inference suggested by justice, I say not by self-interest, but by justice, would be, that the West Indians should be compensated out of the treasury of the mother country, or rather, that the loss should fall in equal shares on all the several parties. But for justice to be supposed to inculcate, that because (from our being ignorant, it is to be hoped, of the real nature and effects of the Slave Trade) we had been accustomed to ravage the unprotected shores of Africa, and bring away by force a number of innocent men, women, and children, to carry them in the hold of a Slave ship in fetters, across the Atlantic, and consign the survivors and their descendants for ever to a state of hopeless and most degraded bondage;—to argue, that, because for two centuries we had pursued this course of wickedness and cruelty, or because, which is not fact, we had even engaged to continue it—that we are bound by the obligation of duty to admit the equity of such a prescription, or to fulfil such an engagement, is certainly a most extraordinary lesson for justice to be supposed to inculcate.

Supposing us to be the debtors of the West Indians, what right have we, as was so well urged by my excellent friend, Mr. Gisborne, to pay British debts with the flesh and blood of Africans? The absurdity of this argument, not to mention its profane usurpation of the sacred name of justice, is too manifest to require any further comment.

But it may be proper in this place to say a few words concerning compensation. It was stated by the great minister to whom I have so often had occasion to allude, than whom no one was more intimately conversant with the commercial system of this country, that it had been our general practice to make from time to time such regulations in the different branches of our commerce, as considerations of policy or finance might require; and excepting cases in which the circumstances had been peculiar, it had not been usual to grant compensation to those who might suffer from the change. The abolition of the Slave Trade ought therefore to be regarded as one of the contingencies which are foreseen and understood in general, though not in the particular form and instance in which they may happen; one of those accidents to which persons who engage in commercial or any other speculations render themselves liable, relying only on the wisdom and justice of the legislature, that, in administering its important trust of watching over the general welfare of the community, it will, as far as possible, consult also the advantage of every particular class, and not lightly sacrifice any individual interests.

The truth of this doctrine was completely established by the great man above referred to, who contended, founding his arguments on general reasoning, and confirming them by a reference to particular statutes, that Parliament had at no time given any pledge that the Slave Trade should be continued, or that the losses incurred in consequence of its suppression, had any losses been likely to take place, should be made good by the public.

Still as it might seem hard, if not absolutely unjust, that one set of men should be the sufferers, when the crime, though committed chiefly for their benefit, was one in which others had participated with them, it was declared by the chancellor of the exchequer, that one class of persons, those alone who might otherwise with reason complain of hard measure, if not of unjust treatment, should receive compensation on any fair case of injury being made out to the satisfaction of impartial commissioners. This was the class of persons who had bought lots of uncultivated land of Government, in the ceded or any other islands. It might be presumed, that they had engaged in the speculation, with expectations of being able to bring them into cultivation by imported Africans; and therefore if they had performed their share of the conditions of the purchase, they were entitled to require the state to perform its share also, or to pay them an equivalent.