Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/255

CHAPTER XV.

Parliamentary History. — Slave Trade Rendered Illegal.

Action of the House of Lords in 1792. — Clarkson retires from the field from ill health, in 1794. — Mr. Wilberforce's annual motion. — Session of 1799. — Speech of Canning. — Sessions of 1804 and 1805. — Clarkson resumes his labors. — Death of Mr. Pitt, January, 1806. — Administration of Grenville and Fox. — Session of 1806. — Debate in the House of Lords. — Speeches of Lord Grenville, Erskine, Dr. Porteus, Earls Stanhope and Spencer, Lords Holland and Ellenborough. — Death of Fox, October, 1806. — Contest and triumph in 1807. — Final passage of the Bill for the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. — Slave trade declared felony in 1811, and declared piracy in 1824, by England. England abolishes slavery in her colonies, 1833. — Prohibition of Slave Trade by European governments. — Slavery abolished in Mexico, 1829 — In Guatemala and Colombia.

The gradual abolition having been thus agreed upon for 1796, by the house of commons, a committee carried the resolution to the house of lords. On the 8th of May, 1792, the lords met to consider it, when a motion was made by Lord Stormont, on the part of the planters, merchants, and other interested persons, to hear new evidence. On the 5th of June, when only seven witnesses had been examined, all further proceedings were postponed to the next session.

Nothing could be more distressing to the friends of the measure than this determination of the lords; first, because there was no knowing how many years they might prolong the hearing of evidence; and secondly, it involved the necessity of finding out and keeping up a respectable body of witnesses on the side of the opponents of the trade. Mr. Clarkson, therefore, set out again in the month of July on his old errand, and returned in February, 1793. The house of commons was then sitting. The only step to be taken was to bring forward 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 reconsidered and renewed. This motion, made by Mr. Wilberforce, was furiously opposed, and lost by a majority of 61 to 53. By this determination the commons actually refused to sanction their own vote. In the house of lords, but seven witnesses were examined during this session.

Mr. Clarkson once more traversed the kingdom in search of witnesses. He returned in February, 1794, but in such a wretched state of health as to be unable to lend any farther assistance to the committee. The incessaut labor of body and mind for so many years, aggravated by anxiety and disappointments, had made a serious inroad upon his constitution. His nervous system had been shattered, — his hearing, voice, and memory were nearly gone. He was therefore obliged, very reluctantly, to be borne out of the field, where he had placed the great honor and glory of his life. Mr. Clarkson says: "These disorders had been brought on by degrees in consequence of the severe labors necessarily attached to the promotion of the cause. For seven years I had a correspondence to maintain with four hundred persons with my own and. I had some book or other annually to write in behalf of the cause. In this time I had traveled more than thirty-five thousand miles in search of evidence, and a