the Commons. It enacted,
but with one exception, that from and after the first of August, 1806,
no vessel should clear out for the Slave Trade, unless it should have
been previously employed by the same owner or owners in the said trade,
or should be proved to have been contracted for previously to the 10th
of June, 1806, for the purpose of being employed in that trade. It may
now be sufficient to say that this bill also passed both Houses of
Parliament; soon after which the session ended.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

--Continuation from July 1806, to March 1807.--Death of Mr. Fox.--Bill
for the total abolition of the Slave Trade carried in the House of
Lords; sent from thence to the Commons; amended and passed there;
carried back, and passed with its amendments by the Lords; receives
the royal assent.--Reflections on this great event.

It was impossible for the committee to look back to the proceedings of
the last session, as they related to the great question under their
care, without feeling a profusion of joy, as well as of gratitude to
those, by whose virtuous endeavours they had taken place. But, alas, how
few of our earthly pleasures come to us without alloy! a melancholy
event succeeded. We had the painful intelligence, in the month of
October 1806, that one of the oldest and warmest friends of the cause
was then numbered with the dead.

Of the character of Mr. Fox, as it related to this cause, I am bound to
take notice. And, first, I may observe, that he professed an attachment
to it almost as soon as it was ushered into the world. Early in the year
1788, when he was waited upon by a deputation of the committee, his
language was, as has appeared in the first volume, "that he would
support their object to its fullest extent, being convinced that there
was no remedy for the evil but in the total abolition of the trade."

His subsequent conduct evinced the sincerity of his promises. He was
constant in his attendance in Parliament whenever the question was
brought forward; and he never failed to exert his powerful eloquence in
its favour. The countenance, indeed, which he gave it, was of the
greatest importance to its welfare; for most of his parliamentary
friends, who followed his general political sentiments, patronized it
also. By the aid of these, joined to that of the private friends of Mr.
Pitt, and of other members, who espoused it without reference to party,
it was always so upheld, that after the year 17