He
concluded by moving an address to His Majesty, humbly requesting, that
he would give directions to the governors of the West Indian islands, to
recommend it to the colonial assemblies to adopt such measures as might
appear to them best calculated to ameliorate the condition of the
Negroes, and thereby to remove gradually the Slave Trade; and likewise
to assure His Majesty of the readiness of this House to concur in any
measure to accelerate this desirable object; This motion was seconded by
Mr. Barham, It was opposed, however, by Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Pitt, and
others; but was at length carried by a majority of ninety-nine to
sixty-three.

In the year 1798, Mr. Wilberforce asked leave to renew his former bill,
to abolish the Slave Trade within a limited time. He was supported by
Mr. Canning, Mr. Hobhouse, Sir Robert Buxton, Mr. Bouverie, and others.
Messrs. Sewell, Bryan Edwards, Henniker, and C. Ellis, took the opposite
side of the question. Mr. Ellis, however, observed, that he had no
objection to restricting the Slave Trade to plantations already begun in
the colonies; and Mr. Barham professed; himself a friend to the
abolition, if it; could be accomplished in a reasonable way. On a
division, there appeared to be for Mr. Wilberforce's motion
eighty-three, but against it eighty-seven.

In the year 1799 Mr. Wilberforce, undismayed by these different
disappointments, renewed his motion. Colonel M. Wood, Mr. Petrie, and
others, among whom were Mr. Windham and Mr. Dundas, opposed it. Mr.
Pitt, Mr. Fox, Mr. W. Smith, Sir William Dolben, Sir R. Milbank, Mr.
Hobhouse, and Mr. Canning, supported it. Sir R. Milbank contended, that
modifications of a system, fundamentally wrong, ought not to be
tolerated by the legislature of a free nation, Mr. Hobhouse said, that
nothing could be so nefarious as this traffic in blood. It was unjust in
its principles it was cruel in its practice: it admitted of no
regulation whatever. The abolition of it was called for equally, by
morality and sound policy, Mr. Canning exposed the folly of Mr. Dundas,
who bad said, that as Parliament had, in the year 1787, left the
abolition to the colonial assemblies, it ought not to be taken out of
their hands. This great event, he observed, could only be accomplished
in two ways; either by these assemblies, or by the Parliament of
England. Now the members of the Assembly of Jamaica had professed that
they would never abolish the trade. Was it not, there