o gleam of hope at these times, nothing
is more certain, than that the powerful eloquence then displayed had
smoothed the resistance to it, had shortened its vibrations, and had
prepared it for a state of rest.

With respect to the West-Indians themselves, some of them began to see
through the mists of prejudice, which had covered them. In the year
1794, when the bill for the abolition of the foreign Slave Trade was
introduced, Mr. Vaughan and Mr. Barham supported it. They called upon
the planters in the House to give way to humanity, where their own
interests could not be affected by their submission. This, indeed, may
be said to have been no mighty thing; but it was a frank confession of
the injustice of the Slave Trade, and the beginning of the change which
followed, both with respect to themselves and others.

With respect to the old friends of the cause, it is with regret I
mention, that it lost the support of Mr. Windham within this period; and
this regret is increased by the consideration, that he went off on the
avowed plea of expediency against moral rectitude; a doctrine, which, at
least upon this subject, he had reprobated for ten years. It was,
however, some consolation, as far as talents were concerned, (for there
can be none for the loss of virtuous feeling,) that Mr. Canning, a new
member, should have so ably supplied his place.

Of the gradual abolitionists, whom we have always considered as the most
dangerous enemies of the cause, Mr. Jenkinson (afterwards Earl of
Liverpool), Mr. Addington (subsequently Lord Sidmouth), and Mr. Dundas
(afterwards Lord Melville), continued their opposition during all this
time. Of the first two I shall say nothing at present; but I cannot pass
over the conduct of the latter. He was the first person, as we have
seen, to propose the gradual abolition of the Slave Trade; and he fixed
a time for its cessation on the 1st of January, 1800. His sincerity on
this occasion was doubted by Mr. Fox at the very outset; for he
immediately rose and said, that "something so mischievous had come out,
something so like a foundation had been laid for preserving, not only
for years to come, but for anything he knew, for ever, this detestable
traffic, that he felt it his duty immediately to deprecate all such
delusions upon the country." Mr. Pitt, who spoke soon afterwards, in
reply to an argument advanced by Mr. Dundas, maintained, that "at
whatever period the House should say that the Sla