HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



85 



CHAP. VI. 



Parliawfnfary Proceedings conti/nied. — Dclafes in the House of Commons oit 

 the Abolition of the Slave Trade — Bill brought in by a considerable Mo' 

 joritu.— Additional Force Bill brought in In/ the Minister, — Debate thereon. 

 — Petition against the Lord Advocate of Scotland — presented and ordered 

 to lie on the Table. — Debate on the second Reading of the Slave T'ade 

 Bill — on the second Reading of the Additional Force Bill, — and on its 

 Committal. — Slave Trade Bill committed. — Debates on the Amendments 

 of the Additional Force Bill — engrossed, and read a third Time — passes 

 the House of Commons by a small Majority. 



MR. Wilberforce, in pursuance 

 of a notice he had formerly 

 given, on the 30tii of May, in the 

 house of commons, submitted a mo- 

 tion relative to the slave trade. He 

 began, by saying, that he was much 

 afraid, a considerable portion of the 

 information which gcntlem.en had 

 possessed upon that odious and per- 

 Tiicio\is traflic, had vanished from 

 their miuds, so long was it since it 

 was given in evidence at their bar ; 

 and so short-lived are tlie feelings of 

 humanity ! He would not, howe- 

 ver, go into a recapitulation of that 

 evidence, but brietly state, how the 

 matter at present rested, both with 

 respect to the steps wliich had been 

 taken by parliament towards its ex- 

 tinction, and the complicated mass 

 of evil to which its existence gave 

 rise. After a long and serious in- 

 vestigation, that house, in the session 

 of 1792, had resolved to abolish the 

 slave tradej from the 1st of the fol- 

 lowing May, and that it should to- 

 tally cease in four years from that 

 period. This resolve had not, un- 

 happily, been followed up, and the 

 trade, with a few modifications, then 



enacted, continued ever since. — ■ 

 Thousands, therefore, of our fellow 

 subjects were continuing to sailer 

 from this pernicious system. ]Mr. 

 Wilberforce then entered into a de- 

 tail of the various modes by which 

 the wretched natives of Africa were 

 reduced to slavery. Such, he said, 

 were the cupidity and eagerness of 

 our traders, in tliis infamous com- 

 merce, that they violated the most 

 sacred duties of mankind, and intro- 

 duced violence and injustice;, by 

 their incitements and example, into 

 these unfortunate countries, which 

 became, from ignorance, a prey to 

 tlieir avarice. Those evils, to which 

 he alluded, were not evtended ovjr 

 a small tract of country, or they 

 might, perhaps, be less to be regret- 

 ted ; but they are sjjread over a 

 tract of coast of not less than be- 

 tween three and four thousand miles, 

 and to a distance of nearly S3ven 

 hundred miles into the interior of 

 the country. The manner of con- 

 veying the slaves, thus made, had 

 certainly been ameliorated, by the 

 intervention of parli.-iment, but yet 

 JiiUo was dona to remedy the vast 

 G 3 mass 



