, and no more.
Canning described the negro as a being with the form of a man and the
intellect of a child. 'To turn him loose in the manhood of his physical
strength, in the maturity of his physical passions, but in the infancy
of his uninstructed reason, would be to raise up a creature resembling
the splendid fiction of a recent romance,[20] the hero of which
constructs a human form with all the corporal capabilities of a man, but
being unable to impart to the work of his hands a perception of right
and wrong, he finds too late that he has only created a more than mortal
power of doing mischief.' 'I was bred,' said Mr. Gladstone when risen to
meridian splendour, 'under the shadow of the great name of Canning;
every influence connected with that name governed the politics of my
childhood and of my youth; with Canning, I rejoiced in the removal of
religious disabilities, and in the character which he gave to our policy
abroad; with Canning, I rejoiced in the opening he made towards the
establishment of free commercial interchanges between nations; with
Canning, and under the shadow of the yet more venerable name of Burke,
my youthful mind and imagination were impressed.'[21] On slavery and
even the slave trade, Burke too had argued against total abolition. 'I
confess,' he said, 'I trust infinitely more (according to the sound
principles of those who ever have at any time meliorated the state of
mankind) to the effect and influence of religion than to all the rest of
the regulations put together.'[22]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The freedom was formally bestowed on him in 1863.

[2] Sir William Fraser died in 1898.

[3] Researches into the ancestry of the Gladstone family have been made
by Sir William Fraser, Professor John Veitch, and Mrs. Oliver of
Thornwood. Besides his special investigation of the genealogy of the
family, Sir W. Fraser devoted some pages in the _Douglas Book_ to the
Gledstanes of Gledstanes. The surname of Gledstanes occurs at a very
early period in the records of Scotland. Families of that name acquired
considerable landed estates in the counties of Lanark, Peebles,
Roxburgh, and Dumfries. The old castle of Gledstanes, now in ruins, was
the principal mansion of the family. The first of the name who has been
found on record is Herbert de Gledstanes, who swore fealty to Edward I.
in 1296 for lands in the county of Lanark. The Gledstanes long held the
office of bailie under the Earls of Douglas, and the connec