CHAPTER XXIX.
[Sidenote:--Continuation from July 1793 to July 1794.--Author travels
round the kingdom again.--Motion to abolish the foreign Slave Trade
renewed in the Commons; and carried; but lost in the Lords; further
proceedings there.--Author, on account of his declining health, obliged
to retire from the cause.]
The committee for the abolition could not view the proceedings of both
Houses of Parliament on this subject during the year 1793, without being
alarmed for the fate of their question. The only two sources of hope,
which they could discover, were in the disposition then manifested by
the Peers, as to the conduct of the Earl of Abingdon, and in their
determination to proceed in the hearing of evidence. The latter
circumstance indeed was the more favourable, as the resolution, upon
which the witnesses were to be examined, had not been renewed by the
Commons. These considerations, however, afforded no solid ground for the
mind to rest upon. They only broke in upon it, like faint gleams of
sunshine, for a moment, and then were gone. In this situation, the
committee could only console themselves by the reflection, that they had
done their duty. In looking, however, to their future services, one
thing, and only one, seemed practicable; and this was necessary; namely,
to complete the new body of evidence, which they had endeavoured to form
in the preceding year.
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