ncerning
it. By the middle of February not fewer than thirty-five petitions had been
delivered to the commons, and it was known that others were on their way to
the same house.

This ferment in the public mind, which had shown itself in the public
prints even before the petitions had been resolved upon, had excited the
attention of government. To coincide with the wishes of the people on this
subject, appeared to those in authority to be a desirable thing. To abolish
the trade, replete as it was with misery, was desirable also: but it was so
connected with the interest of individuals, and so interwoven with the
commerce and revenue of the country, that an hasty abolition of it without
a previous inquiry appeared to them to be likely to be productive of as
much misery as good. The king, therefore, by an order of council, dated
February the eleventh, 1788, directed that a commitee of privy council
should sit as a board of trade, "to take into their consideration the
present state of the African trade, particularly as far as related to the
practice and manner of purchasing or obtaining slaves on the coast of
Africa, and the importation and sale thereof, either in the British
colonies and settlements, or in the foreign colonies and settlements in
America or the West-Indies; and also as far as related to the effects and
consequences of the trade both in Africa and in the said colonies and
settlements, and to the general commerce of this kingdom; and that they
should report to him in council the result of their inquiries, with such
observations as they might have to offer thereupon."

Of this order of council Mr. Wilberforce, who had attended to this great
subject, as far as his health would permit since I left him, had received
notice; but he was then too ill himself to take any measures concerning it.
He therefore wrote to me, and begged of me to repair to London immediately
in order to get such evidence ready, as we might think it eligible to
introduce when the council sat. At that time, as appears from the former
chapter, I had finished the additions to my Essay on the Slavery and
Commerce of the Human Species, and I had now proceeded about half way in
that of the Impolicy of it. This summons, however, I obeyed, and returned
to town on the fourteenth of February, from which day to the twenty-fourth
of May I shall now give the history of our proceedings.

My first business in London was to hold a conversation with Mr. Pit