I cannot conclude this chapter without offering a few remarks.  And, first, I may observe, as the substance of the debates has not been given for the period which it contains, that Mr. Wilberforce, upon whom too much praise cannot be bestowed for his perseverance from year to year, amidst the disheartening circumstances which attended his efforts, brought every new argument to which either the discovery of new light, or the events of the times, produced.  I may observe also, in justice to the memories of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, that there was no debate within this period, in which they did not take a part; and in which they did not irradiate others from the profusion of their own light; and thirdly, that in consequence of the efforts of the three, conjoined with those of others, the great cause of the abolition was secretly gaining ground.  Many members who were not connected with the trade, but who had yet hitherto supported it, were on the point of conversion.  Though the question had oscillated backwards and forwards, so that an ordinary spectator could have discovered no gleam of hope at these times, nothing is more certain, than that the powerful eloquence then displayed had smoothed the resistance to it, had shortened its vibrations, and had prepared it for a state of rest.

With respect to the West-Indians themselves, some of them began to see through the mists of prejudice, which had covered them.  In the year 1794, when the bill for the abolition of the foreign Slave Trade was introduced, Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Barham supported it.  They called upon the planters in the House to give way to humanity, where their own interests could not be affected by their submission.  This, indeed, may be said to have been no mighty thing; but it was a frank confession of the injustice of the Slave Trade, and the beginning of the change which followed, both with respect to themselves and others.

With respect to the old friends of the cause, it is with regret I mention, that it lost the support of Mr. Windham within this period; and this regret is increased by the consideration, that he went off on the avowed plea of expediency against moral rectitude; a doctrine, which, at least upon this subject, he had reprobated for ten years.  It was, however, some consolation, as far as talents were concerned, (for there can be none for the loss of virtuous feeling,) that Mr. Canning, a new member, should have so ably supplied his place.

Of the gradual abolitionists, whom we have always considered as the most dangerous enemies of the cause, Mr. Jenkinson (afterwards Earl of Liverpool), Mr. Addington (subsequently Lord Sidmouth), and Mr. Dundas (afterwards Lord Melville), continued their opposition during all this time.  Of the first two I shall say nothing at present; but I cannot pass over the conduct of the latter.  He was the first person, as we have seen, to propose the gradual abolition of the Slave Trade; and he fixed a time for its cessation