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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 776: SLAVE-TRADE, ETC.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

SLAVE-TRADE, ETC.

During this session Mr. Wilberforce complained in parliament of the reluctance displayed by the two great powers to enter into the arrangements necessary for carrying into effect the total abolition of the slave-trade. It grieved him, he said, to cast this reproach on a high-minded people like the French; and he was still more grieved to find that America was not free from blame; but he still trusted that all nations would unite in their endeavours to civilize the inhabitants of Africa. He concluded by moving an address to the prince regent, to renew his exertions for the attainment of this noble object, which was agreed to unanimously, as was a similar one in the lords, on the motion of Lord Lansdowne.

An act of grace for reversing the attainder of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, also passed this session without opposition. The preamble of the bill stated that his lordship had never been brought to trial; that the act of attainder did not pass the Irish parliament till some months after his decease; and that these were sufficient reasons for mitigating the severity of a measure decreed in unhappy and unfortunate times. The attainder itself, as passed by the Irish parliament, was an instance of contemptible servility to the ruling powers by that corrupt assembly. A bill was introduced in the commons on the 11th of May, for enabling the public to accept the Marquis Camden’s liberal sacrifice of the surplus profits accruing from his unreduced tellership of the exchequer, as mentioned in a previous page. It was necessary to carry a bill to authorize contributions by his majesty’s ministers and other public officers, lest his donation of £69,000 per annum might be considered an illegal benevolence.

The only other business of importance this session was the granting of £50,000, for the purpose of enabling government to divert the current of emigration from the United States to the Cape of Good Hope, the colony to which, it was considered, that it might be most advantageously directed. This money was to be spent in defraying the expenses, &c., of those who emigrated to that colony.