"It should appear according to the new French constitution that our religious liberties in England are soon likely to be much inferior to those in France.
"We humbly conceive we have some little claim on the attention of the Government against these vexatious disputes, having made the largest collection of any place of worship in the kingdom on different patriotic calls."
It will be remembered that when the Duke of Wellington was ambassador to Paris in 1814 he took up very warmly the question of the Slave Trade, himself circulating in Paris Wilberforce's letter to his Yorkshire constituents on the subject, which Madam de Staël had translated at the Duke's suggestion, and also undertaking to disperse Wilberforce's pamphlet to Talleyrand. The Duke writes from Paris, December 14, 1814.
The Duke of Wellington to Mr. Wilberforce.
"It is impossible to describe the prejudice of all classes here upon the subject, particularly those of our determined enemies, the principal officers and employés in the public departments. I was in hopes that the King's measures had changed the public opinion in some degree, of which the silence of the public journals appeared an evidence. But I found yesterday that I was much mistaken and that the desire to obtain the gain expected in the trade is surpassed only by that of misrepresenting our views and measures, and depreciating the merit we have in the abolition. I was yesterday told gravely by the Directeur de la Marine that one of our objects in abolishing the Slave Trade was to get recruits to fight our battles in America! and it was hinted that a man might as well be a slave for agricultural labour as a soldier for life, and that the difference was not worth the trouble of discussing it."
The Duke goes on to complain that what was taking place in Paris as to the Slavery question had got into the English newspapers.
The Duke of Wellington to Mr. Wilberforce.
"I am quite convinced that the only mode in which the public opinion upon it here can be brought to the state in which we wish to see it, is to keep the question out of discussion in England by public bodies and by the newspapers, and I must say that it is but fair towards the King of France not to make public in England that which he has not published to his subjects. We shall do good in this question in France only in proportion as we shall anticipate and carry the public opinion with us; and in recommending to avoid discussion at present in order to make some progress in the opinion of France, I may lay claim to the merit of sacrificing the popularity which I should have acquired by having been the instrument to prevail upon the French Government to prevent the renewal of the trade on that part of the coast on which we had effectually abolished it during the war. I see that Mr. Whitbread mentioned the subject at a public meeting in the city, which I hope will be avoided at least till the French Government will have carried into execution all it proposes to do at present.
"Ever, my dear sir, yours most faithfully,
"Wellington."
The Duke of Wellington's letter to General Macaulay is on the same subject: he says that in the case of the Slave Trade he could only be successful in France by being secret. He evidently disapproves of the people "who will have news and newspapers at their breakfasts," and thinks that the great cause had suffered from prematurely published reports.