was not easy to convince them that stealing men, women, and children from their homes, torturing them on the ocean, and selling them in strange lands, to be whipped to incessant toil without wages, was a pious missionary enterprise. Clarkson, Wilberforce, and others continued their unremitting labors to suppress the unrighteous traffic; the kindly sect of Quakers everywhere assisted them; and benevolent people in other sects became more and more convinced that it was their duty to do the same. All manner of obstacles were put in the way of the desired reformation; but at last, after twenty-two years of violent agitation, the slave-trade was entirely abolished by Great Britain, at the commencement of the year 1808. Sixteen years later, it was decreed by law that any British subject caught in the traffic should be punished as a pirate. The king, George the Third, was opposed to the abolition, and so were all the royal family, except the Duke of Gloucester. The nobility and wealthy people, with a few honorable exceptions, took the same side. The measure was carried by the good sense and good feeling of the common people of Great Britain. There were no slaves in Great Britain. It had been decided by law that any slave who landed in that country became free the moment he touched the shore. But many of the West India islands, lying between North and South America, were under the British government, and the laborers there were held in Slavery. The English people knew very little what was going on in those distant colonies. When West India planters visited their relatives and friends in Great Britain, they made out a very fair story for themselves. They said none but negroes could work in such a hot climate, that sugar must be made, and negroes would not work unless they were slaves. They represented themselves as very kind masters, and described their bondmen as a very contented and merry class of laborers. These planters were generally dashing men, who spent freely the money they did not earn; and their fine manners and smooth talk gave the impression that they must be _gentle_ men.