This order having been read, he moved that the report of the committee
of privy council, that the acts passed in the islands relative to
slaves, that the evidence adduced last year on the Slave Trade, that the
petitions offered in the last session against the Slave Trade, and that
the accounts presented to the house in the last and present session
relative to the exports and imports of Africa, be referred to the same
committee.
These motions having been severally agreed to, the House immediately
resolved itself into a committee of the whole house, and Sir William
Dolben was put into the chair.
Mr. Wilberforce began by declaring, that when he considered how much
discussion the subject, which he was about to explain to the committee,
had occasioned, not only in that House, but throughout the kingdom, and
throughout Europe; and when he considered the extent and importance of
it, the variety of interests involved in it, and the consequences which
might arise, he owned he had been filled with apprehensions, lest a
subject of such magnitude, and a cause of such weight, should suffer
from the weakness of its advocate; but when he recollected that, in the
progress of his inquiries, he had everywhere been received with candour,
that most people gave him credit for the purity of his motives, and
that, however many of these might then differ from him, they were all
likely to agree in the end, he had dismissed his fears, and marched
forward with a firmer step in this cause of humanity, justice, and
religion.
Pages:
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565