If, in the latter stages of the Emancipation effort, the backwardness of the Administration was an evil omen, making final success a difficult achievement, this was balanced by reform in Parliament.  At the recent elections, anti-slavery sentiments in the candidate were in some quarters requisite to success.  A story is told of a gentleman who had spent some time canvassing and found abundant evidence of this.  At an obscure village he had been hailed with the question, whether he was trying to get into the Lords or Commons.  “But,” added the simple questioners, “whichever you do get into, you must vote for the poor slaves.”

To the aid of the Emancipation leaders there came now a new element, a power so strong that it required no small share of skill to hold it in, that it might work no evil in contributing to the desired end.

Since the commencement of efforts for the slave a considerable period had passed.  These efforts extended, in fact, over nearly half a century.  During that time, pamphlet after pamphlet and volume after volume had set forth the evils and abominations of Slavery, forcing the subject upon the public attention.  The leaven had worked slowly, and for a portion of the time in comparative silence; but the work was done.  The British people were aroused.  The great heart of the nation was beating in response to the appeals for justice and right which were made in their ears.  The world can scarce furnish a parallel to this spectacle of moral sublimity.  It was the voice of a people, calling, in tones that must be heard, for justice and freedom,—­and that not for themselves, but for a distant, a defenceless race.

The publication of a circular inviting Anti-Slavery delegates to London, a movement made by the leaders of the cause, in its results took the most enthusiastic by surprise.  More than three hundred appeared in answer to the call.  Mr. Buxton met them in Exeter Hall.  With a rampant freedom of opinion, there was little prospect of harmony of action being attained, however desirable it might be.  Through the influence of Mr. Buxton and his coadjutors, these men of conflicting theories were brought into such a degree of harmonious action that an address was drawn up embodying their sentiments and laid before Lord Althorp, at that time the head of the Administration.  The strong outside pressure of the nation at large upon the Government was evident.  The strength of the Emancipationists in Parliament, also, had been carefully estimated, and success could no longer be doubted.

The fourteenth of May, 1833, witnessed an animated debate in the House.  While the advocates of Emancipation desired for the negro unconditional freedom, they found the measure fettered by the proposal of Mr. Stanley, the Colonial Secretary, that he be placed for a number of years in a state of apprenticeship.  Twelve years of this restricted freedom was, by the influence of Mr. Buxton, reduced to seven, and the sum of twenty millions of pounds sterling being granted to the slave-owners, the bill for the abolition of Negro Slavery passed the House of Commons.  With some delay it went through the Upper House, and on the 28th of August, receiving the royal assent, it became a law.  The apprenticeship system was but short-lived, its evil-working leading to its abolition in its fourth year.