href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@10633@[email protected]#chap20" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">CHAPTER XX Labours of the Committee during the Author's journey.—Mr. Sharp elected chairman.—Seal engraved.—Letters from different correspondents to the Committee.
CHAPTER XXI Further labours of the Committee to February, 1788.—List of new Correspondents.
CHAPTER XXII Progress of the cause to the middle of May.—Petitions to Parliament.—Author's interviews with Mr. Pitt and Mr. Grenville.—Privy Council inquire into the subject; examine Liverpool delegates.—Proceedings of the Committee for the Abolition.—Motion and Debate in the House of Commons; discussion of the general question postponed to the next Session.
CHAPTER XXIII Progress to the middle of July.—Bill to diminish the horrors of the Middle Passage; Evidence examined against it; Debates; Bill passed through both Houses.—Proceedings of the Committee, and effects of them.
CHAPTER XXIV Continuation from June, 1788, to July, 1789.—Author travels in search of fresh evidence.—Privy Council resume their examinations; prepare their report.—Proceedings of the Committee for the Abolition; and of the Planters and others.—Privy Council report laid on the table of the House of Commons; debate upon it.—Twelve propositions.—Opponents refuse to argue from the report; examine new evidence of their own in the House of Commons.—Renewal of the Middle Passage Bill.—Death and character of Ramsay.
CHAPTER XXV Continuation from July, 1789, to July, 1790.—Author travels to Paris to promote the abolition in France; his proceedings there; returns to England.—Examination of opponents' evidence resumed in the Commons.—Author travels in quest of new evidence on the side of the Abolition; this, after great opposition, introduced.—Renewal of the Middle Passage Bill.—Section of the slave-ship.—Cowper's Negro's Complaint.—Wedgewood's Cameos.
CHAPTER XXVI Continuation from July, 1790, to July, 1791.—Author travels again.—Examinations on the side of the Abolition resumed in the Commons; list of those examined.—Cruel circumstances of the times.—Motion for the Abolition of the Trade; debates; motion lost.—Resolutions of the Committee.—Sierra Leone Company established.
CHAPTER XXVII Continuation from July, 1791, to July, 1792.—Author travels again.—People begin to leave off sugar; petition Parliament.—Motion renewed in the Commons; debates; abolition resolved upon, but not to commence till 1796.—The Lords determine upon hearing evidence on the resolution; this evidence introduced; further hearing of it postponed to the next Session
CHAPTER XXVIII Continuation from July, 1792, to July, 1793.—Author travels again.—Motion to renew the Resolution of the last year in the Commons; motion lost.—New motion to abolish the foreign Slave Trade; motion lost.—Proceeding of the Lords
CHAPTER XXIX Continuation from July, 1793, to July, 1794.—Author travels again.—Motion to abolish the foreign Slave Trade renewed, and carried; but lost in the Lords; further proceedings there.—Author, on account of declining health, obliged to retire from the cause
CHAPTER XXX Continuation from July, 1794, to July, 1799.—Various motions within this period
CHAPTER XXXI Continuation from July, 1799, to July, 1805.—Various motions within this period
CHAPTER XXXII Continuation from July, 1805, to July, 1806.—Author, restored, joins the Committee again.—Death of Mr. Pitt.—Foreign Slave Trade abolished.—Resolution to take measures for the total abolition of the trade.—Address to the King to negotiate with foreign powers for their concurrence in it.—Motion to prevent new vessels going into the trade.—All these carried through both Houses of Parliament
CHAPTER XXXIII Continuation from July, 1806, to July, 1807.—Death of Mr. Fox.—Bill for the total abolition carried in the Lords; sent from thence to the Commons; amended, and passed there, and sent back to the Lords; receives the royal assent.—Reflections on this great event
Map
Plan and Sections of a Slave Ship
PREFATORY REMARKS
TO
THE PRESENT EDITION.
The invaluable services rendered by Thomas Clarkson to the great question of the Slave Trade in all its branches, have been universally acknowledged both at home and abroad, and have gained him a high place among the greatest benefactors of mankind. The History of the Abolition which this volume contains, affords some means of appreciating the extent of his sacrifices and his labours in this cause. But after these, with the unwearied exertions of William Wilberforce, had conducted its friends to their final triumph, in 1807, they did not then rest from their labours. There remained four most important objects, to which the anxious attention of all Abolitionists was now directed.
First,—The law had been passed, forced upon the Planters, the Traders, and the Parliament, by the voice of the people; and there was a necessity for keeping a watchful eye over its execution.
Secondly,—The statute, however rigorously it might be enforced, left, of course, the whole amount of the Foreign Slave traffic untouched, and it was infinitely to be desired that means should be adopted for extending our Abolition to other nations.
Thirdly,—Some compensation was due to Africa, for the countless miseries which our criminal
