279 
SLAVE. 
writings up to the year 1787, were, among the poets—Pope, 
Thomson, Shenstone and Cowper; among the divines— 
Bishop Warburton, Richard Baxter, Beattie, Wesley, Whit- 
field, Wakefield and Paley; among the others, were— 
Montesquieu, Hutchinson, Wallis, Burke, Postlethwaite, 
Day, Hartley, Millar and Granville Sharp. The last, how¬ 
ever, is to be particularly distinguished from the rest; 
for whereas the others had only handed down the traffic 
in question as infamous, by the mention made of it in 
their respective works, this good man spent whole years 
in bringing the cruelty and wickedness of it into public 
notice. He tried, at his own expence, the famous case 
of Somerset, and several others, in our courts of law. 
He was, in fact, the first labourer in the cause. He began 
to be the public advocate of the oppressed Africans in 
1765, and was waiting for opportunities for farther exertion, 
when he died. See Sharp. 
Next the Quakers in England passed a public censure 
upon the traffic at their yearly meeting in London, in 1727. 
This they followed up, by other resolutions as a body, in 
1758, 1761, 1763 and 1772, when they had become 
inveterate against it as against a crime of the deepest dye: 
In 1783 they petitioned parliament against its continuance. 
In this year certain members of the society thought it their 
duty to make their fellow countrymen at large acquainted 
with the horrible nature of it: these were, Thomas Knowles, 
George Harrison, Samuel Hoare, John Lloyd, Joseph Woods, 
and William Dillwyn. They formed themselves into a com¬ 
mittee in London for this purpose; they wrote and 
circulated books; they conveyed also information on 
the subject through the London and country newspapers. 
It was not known, however, from whom the information 
came, as their names were concealed from the public. 
In this manner they continued to work their way from 1783 
to 1787. 
Next came the Quakers and others in North America. 
The Quakers there entertained the same opinion as tbeir 
brethren in England on this subject. In 1696 and in 1711, 
they condemned, as a religious body, this cruel traffic; and 
in 1754, 1755, 1774, 1776 and 1778, they not only passed 
resolutions against it, as far as their own members were con¬ 
cerned, but also against slavery itself. In process of time, 
however, individuals rose up out of this benevolent body, 
and became public labourers in the cause of the unhappy 
Africans. The two principal of these were John Woolman 
and Anthony Benezet. The former travelled many hundred 
miles on foot, to converse with planters and others, on the 
iniquity of holding their fellow creatures in bondage; and the 
latter laboured for years in collecting information concerning 
Africa and the slave trade, and in handing it to the world. 
At this time other people, of other religious denominations, 
came forward in North America, and contributed to increase 
the odium which the Quakers had been the first to excite 
there against the traffic; when,in 1774, James Pemberton, a 
pious Quaker in Pennsylvania, and Dr. Rush, an eminent 
physician, and a man of weight among the Presbyterians in 
the same province, formed a committee, in which persons of 
different religious sects joined for the purpose of abolishing 
both the slave-trade and slavery on their own continent. 
This committee was obliged to suspend its operations during 
the war with Great Britain, but afterwards resumed its func¬ 
tions. In 1787 it added considerably to its numbers, and 
took in, among others, the celebrated Dr. Franklin, who 
was its first president in its renovated state. 
Our limits do not permit us to introduce to our readers 
all the numerous and ardent supporters of the aboli¬ 
tion of the slave-trade. Independent of all the liberal party 
in England, France and America, large numbers of metho- 
dists and other religionists took up the cause with an enthu¬ 
siasm that was astonishing. Mr. Clarkson especially deserves 
commemoration. After travelling to all the slave ports, 
obtaining, at incredible pains, histories of the voyages of the 
slave-ships, specimens of handcuffs, models of the construction 
of the vessels, &c., for the purpose of bringing the horrible 
details before the House of Commons, he proceeded to re¬ 
duce to a legible form the whole mass of evidence, and pub 
lished it. Not content with this, he actually set forth to wai*' 
personally upon every person in every county in the king¬ 
dom, to whom the book had been sent, to get others of the 
town or neighbourhood to meet him there, to converse with 
them on the subject, to intreat their individual perusal of the 
abridgment, and their united efforts in lending it out judi¬ 
ciously, and in seeing that it was read, and he travelled 
6000 miles in the execution of this plan. 
At length the public mind having been brought to the due 
pitch of excitement, Mr. Wilberforce introduced the question 
into the Commons. This was on the 2d of April, 1792. 
After a speech of four hours, during which he added a pro¬ 
fusion of new light to the subject, and during which he en¬ 
deavoured, in the most mild and persuasive manner, to do 
away objections and prejudices, he moved, “ That it is the 
opinion of this house that the African slave-trade ought to be 
abolished.” Two divisions took place. In the first, there 
were 193 votes for gradual abolition, and 125 for imme¬ 
diate ; and in the second, there were 230 for gradual, and 
85 for no abolition at all. In this state the question was left 
till the 23d of April, when Mr. Dundas (afterwards Lord 
Melville) came forward and proposed a plan conformable 
with the resolutions of the house, that eight years should be 
allowed the planters to stock themselves with negroes, and 
therefore moved that the year 1800 should be the epoch, 
after which no more slaves should be imported from Africa 
in British vessels to the West Indies. This gradual abolition 
was agreed upon for 1796, and a committee of the Com¬ 
mons carried the resolution to the Lords. On the 8th of 
May the Lords met to consider it, but agreed to hear new 
evidence. 
Nothing could be more distressing than this; first, because 
there was no saying how many years the hearing of the evi¬ 
dence might take; and secondly, because the abolitionists 
had the laborious work to do over again, of finding out and 
keeping up a respectable body of witnesses on their own side 
of the question. In 1793, the only step taken was bringing 
before it its own vote of the former year, by which the 
slave-trade was to be abolished in 1796, in order that this 
vote might be re-considered and renewed. Accordingly 
Mr. Wilberforce moved the house upon the subject. It is 
only necessary to state, that his motion was most furiously 
opposed, and actually lost by a majority of 61 to 53. By 
this determination the Commons actually refused to sanction 
their own vote. Mr. Wilberforce was not dismayed. In 
the month of May, he moved for leave to bring in a bill to 
abolish that part of the trade by which the British merchants 
supplied foreigners with slaves. His motion was carried, 
but only by a majority of 7; and, on the third reading, it 
was lost by a majority of 31 to 29! During all this time 
the examination of witnesses had been going on in the House 
of Lords. Only seven witnesses, however, had been heard 
there in the course of the whole session. 
After this most cruel session, the abolitionists were at a 
loss how to act for the advantage of their cause. One mea¬ 
sure, however, was obviously necessary, viz., to endeavour 
to keep up a respectable body of evidence to oppose that 
which should be heard against the abolition in the Lords. 
For this purpose, Mr. Clarkson, at the request of the com¬ 
mittee, once more traversed the kingdom. He began his 
journey in September, and returned in February, 1794. 
Mr. Wilberforce, in the interim, moved in the Commons for 
leave to renew his former bill for the abolition of the foreign 
slave-trade, as carried on by British subjects. He carried it, 
though with great difficulty, in all its stages, through the 
House of Commons; but it-was almost directly lost in the 
House of Lords. 
The question was now in a very desperate state, for if the 
House of Commons would not renew its own resolution, and 
if the Lords would not abolish even the foreign part of the 
slave-trade, what hope was there of success ? But neither 
were Mr. Wilberforce nor the committee to be deterred by 
the prospect. Accordingly this gentleman moved in the 
Commons, in the session of 1795, for leave to bring in a bill 
for 
