Thomas Clarkson called public attention to the subject by publishing these things in a pamphlet. More than thirty years before, the humane sect called Quakers had forbidden any of its members to be connected with the slave-trade. But though the abominable traffic had been carried on more than two hundred and fifty years by various nations calling themselves Christian, there had been no attempt to excite general attention to the subject till Clarkson published his pamphlet in 1786, seventy-nine years ago. He became so much interested in the question that he gave up all other pursuits in life, and wrote, and lectured, and talked about it incessantly. The assembled representatives of the people which we call a Congress, is called a Parliament in Great Britain.[7] He tried to bring the subject before that body, and succeeded in gaining the attention of some members, among whom the most conspicuous was the benevolent William Wilberforce. He soon joined Mr. Clarkson in the formation of a Society for the Abolition of the Slave-trade. This of course gave great offence to the sea-captains and merchants engaged in the profitable traffic. Clarkson met with all manner of insult and abuse, and his life was sometimes in danger. The British government did as governments are apt to do,--it sided with the rich and powerful as long as it was politic to do so. But, though many of the aristocracy were haughty and selfish, the generality of the common people were ready to sympathize with the poor and the oppressed. When they became aware of the outrages committed in the slave-trade, they determined that a stop should be put to it. They wrote, and talked, and petitioned Parliament, till the government was compelled to pay some attention to their demands. When the friends of the infernal traffic found that a resolution to abolish it was likely to be passed, they contrived to get the word "gradual" inserted into the resolution, and thus defeated the will of the people; for the gradual abolition of crime is no abolition at all. It was as absurd as it would have been for them to say they would abolish murder gradually. But though the law was insufficient to accomplish the desired purpose, public opinion against the trade exerted an increasing influence. The friends of those who were engaged in it began to apologize for it as a necessary branch of trade, and pleaded that laborers could not be supplied in the hot climate of the West Indies in any other way. They were even shameless enough to defend it and praise it as a benevolent scheme to bring savages away from heathen Africa and make good Christians of them. Mr. Boswell, a well-known English writer of that period, went so far as to pronounce it "a trade which God had sanctioned"; and he declared that "to abolish it would be to shut the gates of mercy on mankind." Such pretences deceived some. But the English people have a great deal of good common sense; and it