SLAVERY. 



283 



the English courts, of the principle that the slave 

 who lauds in England becomes free. The principle 

 had been earlier adopted in France. In 1783, a 

 petition was addressed to parliament for the aboli- 

 tion of the trade, which Wilberforce eloquently 

 supported. He laboured, at the same time, to aid 

 the cause by his pen. But the soul of all the ef- 

 forts for the abolition of the . slave-trade, was 

 Thomas Clarkson. From early youth, he devoted 

 his whole time and fortune to this object; exposed 

 himself to hatred and outrage, even at the hazard 

 of his life, in Liverpool and Paris ; made numerous 

 journeys, and was deterred by no obstacles. He 

 principally contributed to gain over Wilberforce, 

 Pitt and Fox. The subject of the abolition of the 

 slave-trade was introduced into the house of com- 

 mons in 1788, when Pitt presented a petition 

 against the trade. Many petitions followed, upon 

 which the merchants immediately took the alarm. 

 They calculated that the number of slaves in the 

 West Indies amounted to 410,000, and that, to keep 

 up that number, the annual importation of 10,000 

 was required; that the English bought in Africa 

 30,000 annually, and, therefore, could sell 20,000 

 to other nations; that in the prosecution of this 

 trade, English manufactures to the amount of above 

 800,000 sterling were exported, and above 

 1,400,000 in value obtained in return; and that 

 government received 256,000 annually by the 

 slave-tax.* Liverpool and Bristol, which carried 

 on the slave-trade most extensively, resisted its 

 abolition so violently that Wilberforce, Fox, Pitt, 

 and their friends, could effect nothing more than 

 the institution of an inquiry into the trade, and the 

 passage of some provisions for diminishing the hard- 

 ships of the confinement on ship-board. At length, 

 the house of commons was induced, in 1792, to pass 

 a bill for the abolition of the slave-trade in 1795, 

 by a majority of nineteen ; the lords rejected this as 

 well as the bill proposed by Wilberforce, in 1794, 

 for prohibiting the British from selling slaves j:o 

 other nations. In the meantime, the French na- 

 tional convention, February 4, 1794, had declared 

 all the slaves in the French colonies free. Wilber- 

 force brought in another bill, in 1796, providing 

 that the slave-trade should be abolished for ever 

 after March 1, 1797, and that all persons carrying 

 on the trade after that time, should be transported 

 to Botany bay for fourteen years. Fox and Pitt 

 voted for the immediate abolition ; but the bill did 

 not pass. The African society, established by 

 Wilberforce and Clarkson, now redoubled its efforts 

 to convince the public of the horrors of this traffic. 

 The colony at Sierra Leone was founded in conse- 

 quence of the exertion of this society, whose object 

 was to teach the negroes agriculture and the me- 

 chanical arts; and, from 1809, young Africans were 

 instructed in various branches of knowledge in that 

 colony. At length the cause of humanity triumphed. 

 June 10, 1806, Fox moved that the house of com- 

 mons should declare the slave-trade inconsistent 

 with justice, humanity, and sound policy, and im- 

 mediately take effective measures for its abolition. 

 Generals Tarleton and Gascoyne opposed the mo- 

 tion in vain. It passed by 1 14 votes against fifteen. 

 The abolition was resolved upon, and a petition 



* Such calculations, in which the extremest human suffering 

 is coolly weighed against pecuniary profit, excite horror ; but 

 we should not overlook the influence of habit and circumstances, 

 in accustoming men whose dispo&itioua are, in general, good, 

 to what they would otherwise abhor. The frauds practised in 

 Prussia and some other countries, before 1806. in enlisting of 

 fohlicrs, were abominable: and violence was nat unfrequontly 

 used to oblige men to take the oath. See Soldier. 



was presented to the king, requesting him to take 

 measures to induce the other powers of Europe and 

 the American states to cooperate with Great Bri- 

 tain in the suppression of this traffic. The famous 

 Abolition Act, as finally settled, passed February 

 5 and 6, 1807, when Roscoe spoke in favour of it, 

 though he represented Liverpool, which owed a 

 great part of its wealth to this trade. January 1, 

 1808, was fixed as the time when this trade, on the 

 part of the British, should cease. On this occa- 

 sion, the British papers contained, almost unan- 

 imously, the remark, that it was a melancholy, yet 

 undeniable fact, that king George III., the prince of 

 Wales, and the whole royal family, with the ex- 

 ception of the duke of Gloucester, were opposed to 

 the abolition. Another act, May 4, 1811, provided 

 that all who knowingly participated in the slave- 

 trade should be punished with fourteen years' 

 transportation and hard labour. In 1824, a law for 

 declaring the slave-trade piracy, which had been 

 already done by the United States of America, was 

 proposed by Canning, passed the two houses, and, 

 on March 31, received the royal assent. In Den 

 mark, king Christian VII. in 1794, declared the 

 slave-trade unlawful after January 1, 1804; and 

 Frederic VI promised, at the peace of Tilsit, to 

 prohibit his subjects from taking part in the foreign 

 slave-trade. In France, Napoleon, when first con- 

 sul, promised the continuance of their liberty to the 

 inhabitants of St Domingo, whilst he praised the 

 inhabitants of Isle de France for not having freed 

 their slaves, and promised that France would never 

 again decree the slavery of the whites by the liber- 

 ation of the negroes. After the successes of the 

 French on St Domingo, the slave-trade was once 

 more established ; and the counsellor of state, Bruix, 

 said, on this occasion, La libertc de Rome s'entourait 

 d'esclaves. Plus douce parmi nous elle les relegue 

 au loin! In 1814, lord Castlereagh obtained from 

 Louis XVIII. a promise that France would abolish 

 the slave-trade ; but, by the influence of the cham- 

 ber of commerce at Nantes, this traffic was permit- 

 ted for five years more. Public opinion obliged 

 lord Castlereagh to press upon the congress of 

 Vienna the adoption of general measures for the 

 abolition of the slave-trade; but all that he could 

 effect was that Spain and Portugal promised to give 

 up the slave-trade north of the line. See the treaty 

 between England and Portugal, Vienna, January 

 22, 1815. But a paper was drawn up, and signed 

 by Castlereagh, Wellington, Nesselrode, Lb'wen- 

 hielm, Gomez Labrador, Palmella, Saldanha, Lobo, 

 Humboldt, Metternich and Talleyrand (Vienna, 

 February 8, 1815), stating that the great powers 

 would make arrangements to fix a term for the 

 general abolition of the slave-trade, since public 

 opinion condemned it as a stain on European civili- 

 zation. February 6, 1815, Portugal provided for 

 the total abolition of the slave-trade on January 21, 

 1823, and England promised to pay 300,000 as 

 an indemnification to Portuguese subjects. Louis 

 XVIII., by the treaty of Paris, November 20, 1815, 

 consented to its immediate abolition, for which Na- 

 poleon had declared himself prepared, in April, 

 1815. Spain promised, by the treaty of September 

 30, 1817, to abolish the slave-trade entirely, Octo- 

 ber 31, 1820, in all the Spanish territories, even 

 , south of the line; and Britain, February 9, 1818, 

 I paid 400,000 as an indemnification to Spanish 

 i subjects. The king of the Netherlands prohibited 

 his subjects from taking part in the slave-trade, 

 : after the provisions of the treaty of August 13 f 



