In the year 1797, while Mr. Wilberforce was deliberating upon the best measure for the advancement of the cause, Mr. C. Ellis came forward with a new motion.  He began by declaring, that he agreed with the abolitionists as to their object; but he differed with them as to the mode of attaining It.  The Slave Trade he condemned as a cruel and pernicious system; but, as it had become an inveterate evil, he feared it could not be done away all at once, without injury to the interests of numerous individuals, and even to the Negroes themselves.  He concluded by moving an address to His Majesty, humbly requesting, that he would give directions to the governors of the West Indian islands, to recommend it to the colonial assemblies to adopt such measures as might appear to them best calculated to ameliorate the condition of the Negroes, and thereby to remove gradually the Slave Trade; and likewise to assure His Majesty of the readiness of this House to concur in any measure to accelerate this desirable object; This motion was seconded by Mr. Barham, It was opposed, however, by Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Pitt, and others; but was at length carried by a majority of ninety-nine to sixty-three.

In the year 1798, Mr. Wilberforce asked leave to renew his former bill, to abolish the Slave Trade within a limited time.  He was supported by Mr. Canning, Mr. Hobhouse, Sir Robert Buxton, Mr. Bouverie, and others.  Messrs. Sewell, Bryan Edwards, Henniker, and C. Ellis, took the opposite side of the question.  Mr. Ellis, however, observed, that he had no objection to restricting the Slave Trade to plantations already begun in the colonies; and Mr. Barham professed; himself a friend to the abolition, if it; could be accomplished in a reasonable way.  On a division, there appeared to be for Mr. Wilberforce’s motion eighty-three, but against it eighty-seven.

In the year 1799 Mr. Wilberforce, undismayed by these different disappointments, renewed his motion.  Colonel M. Wood, Mr. Petrie, and others, among whom were Mr. Windham and Mr. Dundas, opposed it.  Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. W. Smith, Sir William Dolben, Sir R. Milbank, Mr. Hobhouse, and Mr. Canning, supported it.  Sir R. Milbank contended, that modifications of a system, fundamentally wrong, ought not to be tolerated by the legislature of a free nation, Mr. Hobhouse said, that nothing could be so nefarious as this traffic in blood.  It was unjust in its principles it was cruel in its practice:  it admitted of no regulation whatever.  The abolition of it was called for equally, by morality and sound policy, Mr. Canning exposed the folly of Mr. Dundas, who bad said, that as Parliament had, in the year 1787, left the abolition to the colonial assemblies, it ought not to be taken out of their hands.  This great event, he observed, could only be accomplished in two ways; either by these assemblies, or by the Parliament of England.  Now the members of the Assembly of Jamaica had professed that they would never abolish