Immediately after this division, Mr. Wilberforce moved an address to His Majesty, “praying that he would be graciously pleased to direct a negotiation to be entered into, by which foreign powers should be invited to co-operate with His Majesty in measures to be adopted for the abolition of the African Slave Trade.”

This address was carried without a division.  It was also moved and carried, that “these resolutions be communicated to the Lords; and that their concurrence should be desired therein.”

On the 24th of June, the Lords met to consider of the resolution and address.  The Earl of Westmoreland proposed that both counsel and evidence should be heard against them; but his proposition was overruled.

Lord Grenville then read the resolution of the Commons.  This resolution, he said, stated first, that the Slave Trade was contrary to humanity, justice, and sound policy.  That it was contrary to humanity was obvious; for humanity might be said to be sympathy for the distress of others, or a desire to accomplish benevolent ends by good means.  But did not the Slave Trade convey ideas the very reverse of this definition?  It deprived men of all those comforts, in which it pleased the Creator to make the happiness of his creatures to consist,—­of the blessings of society,—­of the charities of the dear relationships of husband, wife, father, son, and kindred,—­of the due discharge of the relative duties of these—­and of that freedom, which in its pure and natural sense was one of the greatest gifts of God to man.

It was impossible to read the evidence, as it related to this trade, without acknowledging the inhumanity of it, and our own disgrace.  By what means was it kept up in Africa?  By wars instigated, not by the passions of the natives, but by our avarice.  He knew it would be said in reply to this, that the slaves, who were purchased by us, would be put to death, if we were not to buy them.  But what should we say, if it should turn out, that we were the causes of those very cruelties, which we affected to prevent?  But, if it were not so, ought the first nation in the world to condescend to be the executioner of savages?

Another way of keeping up the Slave Trade was by the practice of man-stealing.  The evidence was particularly clear upon this head.  This practice included violence, and often bloodshed.  The inhumanity of it therefore could not be doubted.

The unhappy victims, being thus procured, were conveyed, he said, across the Atlantic in a manner which justified the charge of inhumanity again.  Indeed the suffering here was so great, that neither the mind could conceive, nor the tongue describe, it.  He had said on a former occasion, that in their transportation there was a greater portion of misery condensed within a smaller space, than had ever existed in the known world.  He would repeat his words; for he did not know, how he could express himself better on the subject.  And, after all these horrors, what was their destiny?  It was such, as justified the charge in the resolution again:  for, after having survived the sickness arising from the passage, they were doomed to interminable slavery.