dhounds, which placed Britons on a level
with the Spanish crusaders, aroused general disgust. Attempts were made
in the House of Commons by General Macleod, Sheridan, and Courtenay to
represent the Maroons as men worthily struggling for liberty. Dundas,
while pruning these sprays of rhetoric, declared that Ministers would
thereafter prohibit the use of bloodhounds. These troubles with the
slaves prejudiced Parliament against any change in their condition. In
vain did Francis, in one of the last speeches of an acrid but not
discreditable career, press for the amelioration of their lot. At the
outset he showed the bitterness of his enmity to Pitt by charging him
with the betrayal of the cause which, in his oration of 2nd April 1792,
he had irradiated with the beatific vision of a regenerated and blissful
Africa. Why, he asked, did not the Minister resign office after his
failure to realize his heart's desire? He then charged him with
insincerity on the whole question, and urged the House to be content
with alleviating the condition of the slaves by giving them the
rudiments of education and some rights of property, above all by
securing the sanctity of their marriages. Fox followed with a speech
aimed more against Pitt than the slave-owners. The Prime Minister then
replied. Ignoring the charges of his opponents, he pointed out that the
proposed improvements were utterly inadequate to remedy the ills of the
negroes so long as Parliament allowed shiploads of these unhappy
creatures to be cast into the West Indies every year. What was needed,
he said, was the abolition of that hateful traffic, indeed of the whole
system of slavery. For himself, he still hoped that Parliament would
adopt those measures, which alone could be effective. Wilberforce was
absent through illness. Francis, having elicited in the main mere
personalities, not declarations of principle, withdrew his motion.

The lapse of the question of Abolition in the years 1795-6 was a public
misfortune; for the slaves, despairing of justice from England, turned
to France. For the good of the cause they murdered men, women, or
children, with equal indifference; and, when hunted down, died with the
cry _Vive la Republique_. Here was our chief difficulty in the West
Indies. Owing to the refusal of Parliament to limit the supply of slaves
or to alleviate their condition, we had to deal with myriads of blacks,
exasperated by their former hardships, hoping everything from