This proposal, at first, met with some opposition, and by many indeed was looked upon as an extravagant freak of generosity; but some of the leading abolitionists were willing to make allowance for the condition of the planters, and most, or all, of them were prepared to make a large sacrifice for the sake of carrying some measure which promised, even by gradual advances, the final abolition of the slave system. We may condense into a very brief space the remainder of the story, and merely record the fact that the Government carried their amended measure of emancipation with its liberal grant to the West Indian planters through both Houses of Parliament, and that it obtained the royal assent. [Sidenote: 1833--Slavery abolished in British colonies] It may easily be imagined that poor King William must have had some mental struggles before he found himself quite in a mood to grant that assent. If the King ever had any clear and enduring opinion in his mind, it probably was the opinion, which he had often expressed already, against the abolition of slavery. He had, of course, a general objection to reform of any kind, but his objection to any reform which threatened the endurance of the slave system must have been an article of faith with him. It was the fate of King William the Fourth to live in a reign of reforms, not one of which would appear to have touched his heart or been in accordance with his personal judgment. The highest praise that history can give him is that he did not at least, as one of his predecessors had done, set his own judgment and his own inclination determinedly and irrevocably against the advice of the statesmen whom he had called in to carry on the work of administration. The King gave his assent to the amended Bill for the abolition of slavery, including the generous gift to the planters, and the measure became law on August 27, 1833. Some of the colonies had the sense and spirit to discard the apprenticeship system altogether, and to date the emancipation of their slaves from the day when the measure became an Act of Parliament. In no colony did the setting free of the negroes bring about any of the troubles and turmoils, the {200} lawless outbreaks of blacks against whites, the massacres of the innocents, which had been so long and so often pictured as the inevitable consequences of the legislation demanded by the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and the Broughams. It seems to us all now so much a matter of course for a civilized and enlightened State to decree the extinction of slavery within its limits, that we find it hard to appreciate at its true value the difficulty and the splendor of the achievement which was accomplished by the Grey Ministry. It has to be said, however, that the Ministry and the Parliament were, in this instance, only the instruments by which the great charge was wrought. The movement carried on out-of-doors, the movement set going by the