that those words were only inserted in the hope that by them “foreign powers might be humbugged into a concurrence with the abolition,” and wound up his harangue by a declaration that, though he should “see the Presbyterian and the prelate, the Methodist and pew-preacher, the Jacobin and the murderer, unite in support of it, he would still raise his voice against it.”  It must have been more painful to the minister to be opposed by so distinguished an officer as Lord St. Vincent, who resisted the bill chiefly on the ground that “its effect would be to transfer British capital to other countries, which would not be disposed to abandon so productive a trade,” and declared that he could only account for Lord Grenville’s advocacy of it “by supposing that some Obi man had cast his spell upon him.”  But the case was too strong for any arguments to prevail which were based solely on the profits of a trade which no one pretended to justify.  The bill passed the Lords by a majority of nearly three to one; in the House of Commons, where the opposition was much feebler, by one infinitely larger;[161] and, by a somewhat remarkable coincidence, it received the royal assent on the same day on which Lord Grenville announced to his brother peers that his administration was at an end.

Even before the abolition had thus become law, the member for Northumberland, Earl Percy, endeavored to give practical effect to Lord Westmoreland’s view, that emancipation of the slaves was its inevitable corollary, by moving for leave to bring in a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in the British settlements of the West Indies.  But he was opposed by Lord Howick,[162] though he had been among the earnest advocates of abolition, partly for the sake of the negroes themselves, and partly on the ground that the Legislature had no “right to interfere with the property of the colonists;” little foreseeing that the measure which he now opposed was reserved for his own administration, and that its accomplishment would be one of its chief titles to the respectful recollection of posterity.  And, as the House was presently counted out, the discussion would not have been worth recording, were it not for the opportunity which it gave of displaying the practical and moderate wisdom of Wilberforce himself, who joined in the opposition to Lord Percy’s motion.  “The enemies of abolition had,” he said, “always confounded abolition with emancipation.  He and his friends had always distinguished between them; and not only abstained from proposing emancipation, but were ready to reject it when proposed by others.  How much soever he looked forward with anxious expectation to the period when the negroes might with safety be liberated, he knew too well the effect which the long continuance of abject slavery produced upon the human mind to think of their immediate emancipation, a measure which at the present moment would be injurious both to them and to the colonies.  He and those who acted with him were satisfied with having gained an object which was safely attainable.”