On Monday, the 23rd, the House of Lords met.  Such extraordinary diligence had been used in printing the bill, that it was then ready.  Lord Grenville immediately brought it forward.  The Earl of Westmoreland and the Marquis of Sligo opposed it.  The Duke of Norfolk and the Bishop of Llandaff (Dr. Watson) supported it.  The latter said, that this great act of justice would be recorded in heaven.  The amendments were severally adopted without a division.  But here an omission of three words was discovered, namely, “country, territory, or place,” which, if not rectified, might defeat the purposes of the bill.  An amendment was immediately proposed and carried.  Thus the bill received the last sanction of the Peers.  Lord Grenville then congratulated the House on the completion, on its part, of the most glorious measure that had ever been adopted by any legislative body in the world.

The amendment now mentioned occasioned the bill to be sent back to the Commons.  On the 24th, on the motion of Lord Howick, it was immediately taken into consideration there, and agreed to; and it was carried back to the Lords, as approved of, on the same day.

But though the bill had now passed both houses, there was an awful fear throughout the kingdom lest it should not receive the royal assent before the ministry was dissolved.  This event took place the next day; for on Wednesday, the 25th, at half past eleven in the morning, His Majesty’s message was delivered to the different members of it, that they were then to wait upon him to deliver up the seals of their offices.  It then appeared that a commission for the royal assent to this bill, among others, had been obtained.  This commission was instantly opened by the Lord Chancellor (Erskine), who was accompanied by the Lords Holland and Auckland; and as the clock struck twelve, just when the sun was in its meridian splendour to witness this august act, this establishment of a Magna Charta for Africa in Britain, and to sanction it by its most vivid and glorious beams, it was completed.  The ceremony being over, the seals of the respective offices were delivered up; so that the execution of this commission was the last act of the administration of Lord Grenville; an administration, which, on account of its virtuous exertions in behalf of the oppressed African race, will pass to posterity, living through successive generations in the love and gratitude of the most virtuous of mankind.

Thus ended one of the most glorious contests, after a continuance for twenty years, of any ever carried on in any age or country.  A contest, not of brutal violence, but of reason.  A contest between those who felt deeply for the happiness and the honour of their fellow-creatures, and those, who, through vicious custom and the impulse of avarice, had trampled under foot the sacred rights of their nature, and had even attempted to efface all title to the divine image from their minds.