The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 7 (of 7)Malkin, Arthur Thomas
History
The Gallery of Portraits: with Memoirs. Volume 7 (of 7)
Malkin, Arthur Thomas
Biography
to bring in his bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in a speech
of great eloquence and effect. He took the opportunity of making a
powerful appeal to the Irish members, before whom, in consequence of the
Union, this question was now for the first time brought, and the greater
part of whom supported it. The division showed a majority of 124 to 49
in his favour; and the bill was carried through the Commons, but was
again postponed in the House of Lords. In 1805 he renewed his motion,
but on this occasion it was lost in the Commons by over-security among
the friends of the measure. But when Mr. Fox and Lord Grenville took
office in 1806, the Abolition was brought forward by the ministers, most
of whom supported it, though it was not made a government question in
consequence of several members of the cabinet opposing it. The Attorney
General (Sir A. Pigott) brought in a bill which was passed into a law,
prohibiting the Slave Trade in the conquered colonies, and excluding
British subjects from engaging in the foreign Slave Trade; and Mr. Fox,
at Mr. Wilberforce’s special request, introduced a resolution pledging
the House to take the earliest measures for effectually abolishing the
whole Slave Trade: this resolution was carried by a majority of 114 to
15; and January 2, 1807, Lord Grenville brought forward a bill for the
Abolition of the Slave Trade, in the House of Lords, which passed safely
through both Houses of Parliament. As however the King was believed to
be unfriendly to the measure, some alarm was felt by its friends, lest
its fate might still be affected by the dismissal of the ministers,
which had been determined upon. Those fears were groundless; for though
they received orders to deliver up the seals of their offices on the
25th of March, the royal assent was given by commission by the Lord
Chancellor Erskine on the same day; and thus the last act of the
administration was to conclude a contest, maintained by prejudice and
interest during twenty years, for the support of what Mr. Pitt
denominated “the greatest practical evil that ever afflicted the human
race.”
Among other testimonies to Mr. Wilberforce’s merits, we are not inclined
to omit that of Sir James Mackintosh, who in his journal, May 23, 1808,
speaks thus of Wilberforce on the “Abolition.” This refers to a pamphlet
on the Slave Trade which Mr. Wilberforce had published in 1806. “Almost
as much enchanted by Mr. Wilberforce’s book as by his conduct. He is the
very model of a reformer. Ardent without turbulence, mild without
timidity or coolness, neither yielding to difficulties, nor disturbed or
exasperated by them; patient and meek, yet intrepid; persisting for
twenty years through good report and evil report; just and charitable
even to his most malignant enemies; unwearied in every experiment to
disarm the prejudices of his more rational and disinterested opponents,
and supporting the zeal, without dangerously exciting the passions, of
his adherents.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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