820-1840.
70. Negotiations of 1823-1825.
71. The Attitude of the United States and the State of the Slave-Trade.
72. The Quintuple Treaty, 1839-1842.
73. Final Concerted Measures, 1842-1862.

66. ~The Rise of the Movement against the Slave-Trade, 1788-1807.~ At
the beginning of the nineteenth century England held 800,000 slaves in
her colonies; France, 250,000; Denmark, 27,000; Spain and Portugal,
600,000; Holland, 50,000; Sweden, 600; there were also about 2,000,000
slaves in Brazil, and about 900,000 in the United States.[1] This was
the powerful basis of the demand for the slave-trade; and against the
economic forces which these four and a half millions of enforced
laborers represented, the battle for freedom had to be fought.

Denmark first responded to the denunciatory cries of the eighteenth
century against slavery and the slave-trade. In 1792, by royal order,
this traffic was prohibited in the Danish possessions after 1802. The
principles of the French Revolution logically called for the extinction
of the slave system by France. This was, however, accomplished more
precipitately than the Convention anticipated; and in a whirl of
enthusiasm engendered by the appearance of the Dominican deputies,
slavery and the slave-trade were abolished in all French colonies
February 4, 1794.[2] This abolition was short-lived; for at the command
of the First Consul slavery and the slave-trade was restored in An X
(1799).[3] The trade was finally abolished by Napoleon during the
Hundred Days by a decree, March 29, 1815, which briefly declared: "A
dater de la publication du present Decret, la Traite des Noirs est
abolie."[4] The Treaty of Paris eventually confirmed this law.[5]

In England, the united efforts of Sharpe, Clarkson, and Wilberforce
early began to arouse public opinion by means of agitation and pamphlet
literature. May 21, 1788, Sir William Dolben moved a bill regulating the
trade, which passed in July and was the last English measure
countenancing the traffic.[6] The report of the Privy Council on the
subject in 1789[7] precipitated the long struggle. On motion of Pitt, in
1788, the House had resolved to take up at the next session the question
of the abolition of the trade.[8] It was, accordingly, called up by
Wilberforce, and a remarkable parliamentary battle ensued, which lasted
continuously until 1805. The Grenville-Fox ministry now espoused the
cause. This ministry first prohibited the trade with su