e pressure of
the nation at large upon the Government was evident. The strength of the
Emancipationists in Parliament, also, had been carefully estimated, and
success could no longer be doubted.

The fourteenth of May, 1833, witnessed an animated debate in the House.
While the advocates of Emancipation desired for the negro unconditional
freedom, they found the measure fettered by the proposal of Mr. Stanley,
the Colonial Secretary, that he be placed for a number of years in a
state of apprenticeship. Twelve years of this restricted freedom was,
by the influence of Mr. Buxton, reduced to seven, and the sum of twenty
millions of pounds sterling being granted to the slave-owners, the bill
for the abolition of Negro Slavery passed the House of Commons. With
some delay it went through the Upper House, and on the 28th of August,
receiving the royal assent, it became a law. The apprenticeship system
was but short-lived, its evil-working leading to its abolition in its
fourth year.

* * * * *

It has been often said, with how much of truth it is not our purpose
here to inquire, that in this country the mention of the evils of
Slavery is and must be fraught with most evil consequences. Yet the
agitation of this subject, whether for good or evil, in the United
States, is intimately connected with the whole movement in England. In
the earlier stages of the measures directed against the trade, a hearty
response was awakened here; nor could the subsequent act of emancipation
fail to produce an impression everywhere, and most of all among
ourselves. United to the English nation by strong affinities, one with
them in language and literature, yet cleaving still to the institution
which England had so energetically striven to destroy, could it be
otherwise than that such a movement on her part should awaken an eager
interest among us? Could such an event as the release from slavery
of eight hundred thousand negroes in the British Colonies pass by
unnoticed? To suppose this is preposterous. It is not too much to say,
that the effect of British emancipation was, at the time it took place,
to give in certain portions of the United States an increased degree of
life to the anti-slavery sentiment. No words could have been uttered,
which, reaching the shores of America, would have been half so emphatic
as this one act of the British nation. Among the causes which have
nourished and strengthened the anti-slav