iness
affairs were in anything but a prosperous condition. The State of
New Jersey contested his monopoly, which proved to have been
unconstitutionally granted. Fitch, or his successors, who had made
some successes in the same line, endeavored to supplant him, and his
patents were worthless. He was embarrassed by constant litigation,
and his last years were full of trials and anxiety. He died February
24, 1815, at the age of fifty.

[Signature: William S. Adams.]

WILLIAM WILBERFORCE

(1759-1833)

[Illustration: William Wilberforce.]

William Wilberforce, whose name a heartfelt, enlightened, and
unwearied philanthropy, directing talents of the highest order, has
enrolled among those of the most illustrious benefactors of mankind,
was born August 24, 1759, in Hull, England, where his ancestors had
been long and successfully engaged in trade. By his father's death he
was left an orphan at an early age. He received the chief part of his
education at the grammar school of Pockington, in Yorkshire, and at
St. John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow-commoner
about 1776 or 1777. When just of age, and apparently before taking his
B.A. degree, he was returned for his native town at the general
election of 1780. In 1784 he was returned again, but being also chosen
member for Yorkshire he elected to sit for that great county, which he
continued to represent until the year 1812, during six successive
Parliaments. From 1812 to 1825, when he retired from Parliament, he
was returned by Lord Calthorpe for the borough of Bramber. His
politics were in general those of Mr. Pitt's party, and his first
prominent appearance was in 1783, in opposition to Mr. Fox's India
Bill. In 1786 he introduced and carried through the Commons a bill for
the amendment of the criminal code, which was roughly handled by the
Lord Chancellor, Thurlow, and rejected in the House of Lords without a
division.

At the time when Mr. Wilberforce was rising into manhood, the
inquiry into the slave trade had engaged in a slight degree the
attention of the public. To the Quakers belongs the high honor of
having taken the lead in denouncing that unjust and unchristian
traffic. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, during the life
of Penn, the Quakers of Pennsylvania passed a censure upon it, and
from time to time the Society of Friends expressed their
disapprobation of the deportation of negroes, until, in 1761, they
completed their