"DEAR SIR,--I heard that you were anxious to get some paper on the Slave Trade translated into Italian. An Italian gentleman who is upon a visit to me will, I am sure, very willingly undertake it, and is well qualified for the task, as he writes his language with great elegance and understands ours. I am afraid you will not find his Holiness as much disposed to anathematise rapine and murder committed under the sanction of the powerful Crown of Spain, as to disdain the extravagances of the Catholicks in Ireland. There was no difficulty in abolishing the French Slave Trade last year but in the breasts of the Bourbons and their adherents. Bonaparte by doing it at once lost no adherents either in France or in the colonies, and the repugnance felt in 1814 to the measure _at Court_ originated from their persuasion that the principles of all Abolitionists, as well as of all toleration in religion, are more or less connected with notions of political liberty which they know to be incompatible with their system of Government. True French Royalists, and many English Royalists too, make no difference between you and me or between me and Tom Paine. We are all equally heretics in Religion and Jacobins in Politics. There is therefore nothing to be done with that class of men in the great cause of Abolition, but by fear. We have already lost many opportunities, and if we do not now insist on Portugal and Spain abandoning the trade, and on France and the other powers treating it as piracy if they do not, we shall have shifted the ignominy from ourselves, but we shall not have rescued the world from the evil. May I ask if you understand why the complete abolition in France (if that measure of Bonaparte be really and in proper form confirmed) does not make part of the treaty? It seems to me that at Paris, at Madrid, and at Rio Janeiro the cause has been very coldly, or at least very inefficiently, supported, if it has not been actually betrayed. When Ferdinand VII. wanted money we might have imposed conditions on this and on other subjects, but we gave the money first, and he now sets us at defiance. With many apologies for the length of my letter, "I am, sir, yours truly, "VASSALL HOLLAND." Early in 1825, William Wilberforce's brilliant Parliamentary career came to an end by his own voluntary retirement. The Speaker's[39] letter is the expression of a very general feeling both in the House and outside it. _The Right Hon. Speaker of the House of Commons to Mr. Wilberforce._ "PALACE YARD, "_February 19, 1825_